28/07/06, Matthias Gebauer & Ulrike Putz, Israel and the UN, A Poisoned Relationship
Post
The deaths of four UN observers in Lebanon has caused little outrage in Israel. Some blame the UN itself, since its troops there have failed to restrain Hezbollah. Israel and the UN have a long history of mistrust, and the tone isn't good for the prospect of a new peacekeeping force.
On Thursday the front pages of Israeli newspapers were following one topic -- war in the north. The army had suffered its worst losses so far, in an attack on a village that killed nine Israeli soldiers. Even the conservative papers were suggesting that the war against Hezbollah had gone a little off course.
Further back in the papers came brief updates of a story that has obsessed the international press since Tuesday: the bombardment of a neutral observation post in southern Lebanon that killed four unarmed UN peacekeepers. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had apologized; Kofi Annan had been criticized for calling the bombing deliberate; investigations were underway. End of story.
The shelling of the UN post has been treated as a scandal in most of Europe, but it's been downplayed in Israel. Whether it was an irresponsible assault on the blue-helmeted UN troops has not become much of a debate. Mistakes happen. That's the explanation for an attack that has been officially dubbed an "occurrence."
Israel admits airstrikes were carried out near the UN post, but the prime minister's apology has dampened any political discussion. Some government insiders don't mind suggesting it was the UN's fault -- even the UN, they argue, admits that Hezbollah had set up positions close to the base.
Evidence for this version of the story so far is slim. Milos Strugar, a Beirut spokesman for the UN mission in Lebanon (UNIFIL), says there was no Hezbollah activity near the camp. In the past, "occasionally," some military maneuvers had occurred in the area. He also said the situation demanded an objective and thorough investigation -- by the UN as well as by the Israelis. And he emphasized that soldiers in the post had warned the Israelis several times that UN lives were in danger.
But as the investigation of the events unfolds, an e- mail sent by one of the UN soldiers to a Canadian broadcaster CTV could come under greater scrutiny. In the letter, Major Paeta Hess-von Kruedener -- a Canadian Forces soldier serving with the UN in South Lebanon who was killed in the attacks -- wrote that the area surrounding the patrol base was filled with a number of fortified Hezbollah positions from which its militants were firing rockets at Israel.
The text near the end of the e-mail couldn't have been clearer: "We have on a daily basis had numerous occasions where our position has come under direct or indirect fire from artillery and aerial bombing." But hte major didn't level any criticism. "This has not been deliberate targeting, but has rather been due to tactical necessity."
"Israel just doesn't try"
Nevertheless, Timur Goksel, an advisor for UNIFIL in south Lebanon for over 20 years, has his doubts about Israel's story. It has been his experience, he said, that Hezbollah doesn't operate near UNIFIL camps. "The militia has no interest in being observed," he said. Since UNIFIL reports every movement, Hezbollah would risk letting Israel in on its operations. "When Hezbollah gets discovered by UN troops, its missions break up," he said.
Goksel noted that assaults by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) on UNIFIL positions are sadly routine. "Israel doesn't do it on purpose; it just doesn't try" to avoid hitting the posts, he said. Pilots and tank drivers know they won't be punished for hitting a UNIFIL position. "The IDF makes its own politics," he said, "and that goes for foreign relations, too."
The lack of interest in the deaths of the four observers also illustrates a general attitude in Israel toward the UN. A poisoned relationship, marked by prejudice, has developed over many years between Jerusalem and the world body. The UN has proved to be a weak practical partner in helping Israel, many Israelis believe -- but strong when it comes to issuing statements against Israel from New York.
Is the UN to blame for the crisis?
On Wednesday evening Jan Egeland, the UN's Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, hit back against this attitude. He wanted to report what he'd seen in the crisis zone and call for a cease-fire. But Israeli journalists promptly asked him if the UN wasn't to blame for the new violence -- since the UN had, after all, failed to disarm Hezbollah. Egeland had no answer.
The UNIFIL mission to Lebanon is often used as proof of the UN's weakness. According to a UN mandate the 2,000 troops remaining there can only be unarmed observers. Originally, 7,000 troops were charged with monitoring the withdrawal of Israeli troops after their first incursion to Lebanon. They were also meant to support the Lebanese government and keep militants from taking too much power.
Exactly the opposite happened. Hezbollah took over southern Lebanon almost immediately, and because of its weak mandate the UN stood by and watched. In some cases the observers even made peace with the militants. The best example for this relationship is the kidnapping of three Israeli soldiers in 2003: UN soldiers filmed the kidnapping but could do nothing to prevent it.
A history of reproach
The history of bad blood between Israel and the UN is even longer, though. There's only one instance of good relations with the UN, in fact, and it's quite old. On November 29, 1947, UN Resolution 181 divided Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state: the effective birth of Israel.
Since then, however, the Jewish state has been reprimanded regularly by the UN General Assembly. The worst decision came in May 1967. After Egyptian President Abdel Nasser demanded an end to the UN mission in the Sinai Peninsula, UN Secretary-General Sithu U-Thant pulled out his blue-helmeted troops without consulting the Security Council. Nasser sharpened his rhetoric against Israel and blocked the only road to Israel's port town of Eilat. On June 5, 1967, Jerusalem reacted with a pre-emptive strike. War prevailed.
The General Assembly has agreed on a number of resolutions since then that Israel interprets as a direct challenge to its right to exist. The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) received "observer status" at the UN in 1974, though its charter called for building a Palestinian state from Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea. In November 1975, Resolution 3379 declared Zionism "a form of racism."
The General Assembly even rejected -- by a huge majority -- the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty signed at Camp David in 1978. Over and over, Israel was scolded for acting against extremists, and it came to consider most of the UN's suggestions to be utterly improper, even when they were justified.
Dim hopes for international peacekeepers
This tense history explains the arrogant attitude within Israel toward the UN. To many Israelis the world body looks impotent at solving problems. The example in Lebanon only serves as proof -- and the latest reaction to the deaths of the UN soldiers won't exactly smooth the way for a new team of international peacekeepers. Such a group would clearly need a mandate from the UN, and it's just as obvious that Israel would deal with new peacekeepers only if the mandate were clear and robust against Hezbollah.
Going by the diffident statements made by Israeli politicians, the country isn't anxious to lend its own troops to an international mission and would agree to such a project only under NATO leadership. The mission would have to allow Israeli soldiers to move on their own against planned attacks on Israel -- and the question of which NATO members would join the mission is one of the biggest stumbling blocks for upcoming diplomatic efforts.
Hezbollah would find the idea absurd. Even without US involvement, a NATO mission would look to them, inevitably, like a long arm of the great enemy in Washington meddling in their own back yard. Even Lebanon -- which kicked out Syria last year -- would need time to get used to a new foreign military presence.
On Thursday the front pages of Israeli newspapers were following one topic -- war in the north. The army had suffered its worst losses so far, in an attack on a village that killed nine Israeli soldiers. Even the conservative papers were suggesting that the war against Hezbollah had gone a little off course.
Further back in the papers came brief updates of a story that has obsessed the international press since Tuesday: the bombardment of a neutral observation post in southern Lebanon that killed four unarmed UN peacekeepers. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had apologized; Kofi Annan had been criticized for calling the bombing deliberate; investigations were underway. End of story.
The shelling of the UN post has been treated as a scandal in most of Europe, but it's been downplayed in Israel. Whether it was an irresponsible assault on the blue-helmeted UN troops has not become much of a debate. Mistakes happen. That's the explanation for an attack that has been officially dubbed an "occurrence."
Israel admits airstrikes were carried out near the UN post, but the prime minister's apology has dampened any political discussion. Some government insiders don't mind suggesting it was the UN's fault -- even the UN, they argue, admits that Hezbollah had set up positions close to the base.
Evidence for this version of the story so far is slim. Milos Strugar, a Beirut spokesman for the UN mission in Lebanon (UNIFIL), says there was no Hezbollah activity near the camp. In the past, "occasionally," some military maneuvers had occurred in the area. He also said the situation demanded an objective and thorough investigation -- by the UN as well as by the Israelis. And he emphasized that soldiers in the post had warned the Israelis several times that UN lives were in danger.
But as the investigation of the events unfolds, an e- mail sent by one of the UN soldiers to a Canadian broadcaster CTV could come under greater scrutiny. In the letter, Major Paeta Hess-von Kruedener -- a Canadian Forces soldier serving with the UN in South Lebanon who was killed in the attacks -- wrote that the area surrounding the patrol base was filled with a number of fortified Hezbollah positions from which its militants were firing rockets at Israel.
The text near the end of the e-mail couldn't have been clearer: "We have on a daily basis had numerous occasions where our position has come under direct or indirect fire from artillery and aerial bombing." But hte major didn't level any criticism. "This has not been deliberate targeting, but has rather been due to tactical necessity."
"Israel just doesn't try"
Nevertheless, Timur Goksel, an advisor for UNIFIL in south Lebanon for over 20 years, has his doubts about Israel's story. It has been his experience, he said, that Hezbollah doesn't operate near UNIFIL camps. "The militia has no interest in being observed," he said. Since UNIFIL reports every movement, Hezbollah would risk letting Israel in on its operations. "When Hezbollah gets discovered by UN troops, its missions break up," he said.
Goksel noted that assaults by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) on UNIFIL positions are sadly routine. "Israel doesn't do it on purpose; it just doesn't try" to avoid hitting the posts, he said. Pilots and tank drivers know they won't be punished for hitting a UNIFIL position. "The IDF makes its own politics," he said, "and that goes for foreign relations, too."
The lack of interest in the deaths of the four observers also illustrates a general attitude in Israel toward the UN. A poisoned relationship, marked by prejudice, has developed over many years between Jerusalem and the world body. The UN has proved to be a weak practical partner in helping Israel, many Israelis believe -- but strong when it comes to issuing statements against Israel from New York.
Is the UN to blame for the crisis?
On Wednesday evening Jan Egeland, the UN's Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, hit back against this attitude. He wanted to report what he'd seen in the crisis zone and call for a cease-fire. But Israeli journalists promptly asked him if the UN wasn't to blame for the new violence -- since the UN had, after all, failed to disarm Hezbollah. Egeland had no answer.
The UNIFIL mission to Lebanon is often used as proof of the UN's weakness. According to a UN mandate the 2,000 troops remaining there can only be unarmed observers. Originally, 7,000 troops were charged with monitoring the withdrawal of Israeli troops after their first incursion to Lebanon. They were also meant to support the Lebanese government and keep militants from taking too much power.
Exactly the opposite happened. Hezbollah took over southern Lebanon almost immediately, and because of its weak mandate the UN stood by and watched. In some cases the observers even made peace with the militants. The best example for this relationship is the kidnapping of three Israeli soldiers in 2003: UN soldiers filmed the kidnapping but could do nothing to prevent it.
A history of reproach
The history of bad blood between Israel and the UN is even longer, though. There's only one instance of good relations with the UN, in fact, and it's quite old. On November 29, 1947, UN Resolution 181 divided Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state: the effective birth of Israel.
Since then, however, the Jewish state has been reprimanded regularly by the UN General Assembly. The worst decision came in May 1967. After Egyptian President Abdel Nasser demanded an end to the UN mission in the Sinai Peninsula, UN Secretary-General Sithu U-Thant pulled out his blue-helmeted troops without consulting the Security Council. Nasser sharpened his rhetoric against Israel and blocked the only road to Israel's port town of Eilat. On June 5, 1967, Jerusalem reacted with a pre-emptive strike. War prevailed.
The General Assembly has agreed on a number of resolutions since then that Israel interprets as a direct challenge to its right to exist. The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) received "observer status" at the UN in 1974, though its charter called for building a Palestinian state from Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea. In November 1975, Resolution 3379 declared Zionism "a form of racism."
The General Assembly even rejected -- by a huge majority -- the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty signed at Camp David in 1978. Over and over, Israel was scolded for acting against extremists, and it came to consider most of the UN's suggestions to be utterly improper, even when they were justified.
Dim hopes for international peacekeepers
This tense history explains the arrogant attitude within Israel toward the UN. To many Israelis the world body looks impotent at solving problems. The example in Lebanon only serves as proof -- and the latest reaction to the deaths of the UN soldiers won't exactly smooth the way for a new team of international peacekeepers. Such a group would clearly need a mandate from the UN, and it's just as obvious that Israel would deal with new peacekeepers only if the mandate were clear and robust against Hezbollah.
Going by the diffident statements made by Israeli politicians, the country isn't anxious to lend its own troops to an international mission and would agree to such a project only under NATO leadership. The mission would have to allow Israeli soldiers to move on their own against planned attacks on Israel -- and the question of which NATO members would join the mission is one of the biggest stumbling blocks for upcoming diplomatic efforts.
Hezbollah would find the idea absurd. Even without US involvement, a NATO mission would look to them, inevitably, like a long arm of the great enemy in Washington meddling in their own back yard. Even Lebanon -- which kicked out Syria last year -- would need time to get used to a new foreign military presence.
Home