Even in an upside-down world where rape and kidnapping are excused as “resistance,” where protesters march in major Western cities hailing terrorists, and where self-defense is characterized as “genocide,” a statement on Monday by the foreign ministers of Italy, Germany, France, and Britain was still staggering.
The statement, made after five members of the UN Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) force were wounded in separate incidents in southern Lebanon, called on Israel and all parties to ensure the safety of UNIFIL personnel and to allow it to fulfill its mandate.
The stabilizing role played by UNIFIL in southern Lebanon? Who are they kidding? The foreign ministers must be referring to another southern Lebanon – maybe Lebanon, Pennsylvania – not the 850 square kilometer area from the Blue Line to the Litani River because, in that area, “stability” does not exist. Terrorists don’t generally pound another country with scores of anti-tank missiles, rockets, and drones from an area where peacekeepers are deployed to fulfill a “stabilizing role.”
UNIFIL was established in 1978 after Israel’s Litani Operation expelled PLO terrorists from southern Lebanon in the wake of the Coastal Road massacre that year. Charged with confirming Israel’s withdrawal, UNIFIL was also tasked with helping the Lebanese government, mired in a civil war, to regain its authority in the area.
The force was significantly expanded by UN Security Council Resolution 1701 in 2006, which ended the Second Lebanon War. It was also charged with ensuring the demilitarization of southern Lebanon.
UNIFIL has repeatedly failed
No one expected the 10,500-strong force to actively engage with Hezbollah, but Jerusalem did expect that the force would provide regular, honest accounts of efforts by Hezbollah and its sponsor, Iran, to turn the region into a forward base for an eventual attack on Israel.
UNIFIL failed miserably in even that simple task.
Hezbollah has built fortifications and has transferred weapons to southern Lebanon for years, but in a 2017 report to the UN Security Council, the Irish commander of UNIFIL at the time, Maj.-Gen. Michael Beary declared, “I have no evidence, nor have I been provided with any evidence of weapons transfers into my area of operations. We are extremely active in the area, and if there was a large cache of weapons, we would know about it.”
An incredulous Nikki Haley, then the US ambassador to the UN, said Hezbollah openly bragged about its stockpiled weapons; only the UNIFIL commander remained “blind” to this.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres supported Beary and said the UN could not confirm Israel’s account that Hezbollah was arming itself in southern Lebanon.
What a joke.
What does Guterres think – that the Hezbollah attack tunnels full of equipment and weapons that the IDF is unearthing each day in southern Lebanon were formed as if by magic? That the rockets and missiles stored in scores of homes in the area materialized out of thin air?
The very same Guterres is now rejecting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s appeals to evacuate UNIFIL forces from the combat zone in southern Lebanon and the result of this refusal, Netanyahu said on Monday, is that UNIFIL is serving as a human shield for Hezbollah.
An IDF spokesperson has said that in the last month alone, Hezbollah fired 25 rockets at Israel from positions near UNIFIL posts, including one attack that killed two IDF soldiers.
Given that UNIFIL has done little to prevent Hezbollah from bombarding Israel from southern Lebanon since October 8, and given that it did nothing to report Hezbollah’s massive buildup in the region over the years, the claim by the European foreign ministers that the organization is a force for stability, is utterly baseless.
Furthermore, the accusation that Israel is deliberately targeting UNIFIL personnel is ridiculous. Israel cannot tolerate a situation where Hezbollah terrorists believe they can fire near UNIFIL positions and be immune from an Israeli response.
UNIFIL, to ensure that its personnel are not harmed, should withdraw from southern Lebanon. And top-tier European foreign ministers, to retain credibility with Jerusalem, should direct their condemnations at Hezbollah for brazenly violating the UNSC Resolution 1701 and for putting UNIFIL at risk rather than accusing Israel of defending itself against terrorists.
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