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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Israel's Past Experience With Int'l Peacekeepers 'Unsatisfactory' |
| 2006-07-18 |
| Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - Israel's past experience with international peacekeeping missions in Lebanon has been unsatisfactory, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said on Tuesday. However, she did not rule out a peacekeeping force as part of the solution to the current crisis with Lebanon. United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and British Prime Minister Tony Blair want to send an international force to southern Lebanon to prevent Hizballah from rebuilding its forces there. The United Nations already has a force of some 2,000 international troops deployed in southern Lebanon. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was sent there in 1978 as a result of a U.N. Security Council resolution. "Past experience with UNIFIL was not satisfactory," Livni said on Tuesday following a meeting with a United Nations team. But Annan said on Tuesday that he envisioned a much larger and more powerful international force to "stabilize the situation" in Lebanon. "Details will have to be worked out, including the concept and the size. I would expect a force, which is considerably larger than the 2,000 force that is there," Annan said after a meeting with European Union Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso. But Livni said that Israel would decide what would work for them. "We shall examine what solutions are suitable for us. The criteria are: the implementation of [U.N. Resolution] 1559 and the Lebanese Army deployed in the South," Livni said. Among other things, Resolution 1559, passed in 2004, calls for "the disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias" (a veiled reference to Hizballah), and it supports "the extension of the control of the Government of Lebanon over all Lebanese territory." The question many people are asking is whether the Lebanese government is strong enough or even willing to deploy its army in place of Hizballah, which has the backing of Syria and Iran. According to UNIFIL's 1978 mandate, the U.N. interim force went to southern Lebanon "for the purpose of confirming the withdrawal of Israeli forces, restoring international peace and security, and assisting the Government of Lebanon." In May 2000, Hizballah filled the vacuum created by Israel's unilateral withdrawal from the buffer zone it had maintained in southern Lebanon for 18 years. Hizballah claimed victory when Israel decided to withdraw. UNIFIL failed to prevent Hizballah's rise to power in southern Lebanon, and the Lebanese government never deployed its army there, as it was supposed to do. In fact, Hizballah -- a Lebanese Islamic fundamentalist terrorist organization - established outposts next to UNIFIL installations near the Israeli border after Israel withdrew. In October 2000, a UNIFIL spokesman told Cybercast News Service that his soldiers had watched as Hizballah carried out a cross-border attack and snatched three Israeli soldiers. Their bodies were returned (along with one live Israeli businessman) in January 2004 -- in exchange for 435 "security prisoners" held in Israeli prisons. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #3 Good for Livni. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-07-18 14:24 |
| #2 I'm sure Iran and/or Syria will be willing. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2006-07-18 14:22 |
| #1 What nation is going to send its troops to Lebanon, to stand between those shooting off missiles and their targets? Utter madness. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2006-07-18 14:08 |