Again, Why Outsourcing Israel’s Security to Peacekeepers is a Non-Starter

...Quite apart from the fact that the UN appears to have a total disregard for the safety of Israelis–as seen with both UNIFIL and UNRWA–it will always be the case that international forces acting on behalf of international organizations, as opposed to national self-interest, will be woefully ineffective. A catalog of recent genocides are a sorry testament to the way UN forces are much better at observing and monitoring atrocities than they are at preventing them.

Tom Wilson..
Commentary Magazine..
29 January '15..

Following yesterday’s attack by Hezbollah on an Israeli military convoy, in which two Israeli soldiers were killed, there have been growing concerns of a major escalation along the Lebanese border. During the exchange of fire between the IDF and Hezbollah that followed the attack, a United Nations peacekeeper was also killed. As fears grew that the attack by Hezbollah might signal the beginning of a major new conflagration to Israel’s north, the death of the peacekeeper was a reminder that in such circumstances the UN forces would be completely impotent in preventing such an escalation. Worse still, the UN in Lebanon will have contributed to the severity of any hostilities by allowing Hezbollah to have proliferated under its watch. This too should be a reminder of the ineffective nature of any international forces deployed on Israel’s borders.

UNIFIL, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, which was created during Israel’s first Lebanon war, was subsequently emboldened with a reinforced mandate following the second Lebanon war in 2006. As well as maintaining the peace in southern Lebanon, UNIFIL was also tasked with assisting the Lebanese army in consolidating Lebanese government sovereignty throughout that part of the country. This presumably should necessitate the rolling back of the mini-state that Hezbollah terrorists have created for themselves in Lebanon’s south. Yet not only has UNIFIL utterly failed in that regard, but there are also serious questions about whether or not UNIFIL has in fact been complicit in assisting Hezbollah in various ways. Most egregious of all was UNIFIL’s conduct during the second Lebanon war itself, when UNIFIL publicly broadcast the movements of the IDF, knowingly exposing Israel’s troops to attack by Hezbollah fighters.

Ever since 2006 Hezbollah has been remilitarising well beyond the levels it had reached prior to the second Lebanon war, and it has been doing it directly under UNIFIL’s noses. UNIFIL therefore has not only failed to assist with reasserting the authority of the Lebanese state in the south of the country; it has allowed for the unfolding of a situation that will almost inevitably undermine a key aspect of UNIFIL’s mandate: to ensure peace and security in that territory.

Even before war broke out in Syria, Hezbollah had–with the assistance of Iran–been drastically increasing its stockpiles of weapons, the range and force of its missile capabilities, and the numbers of trained fighters within its ranks. Then, when Hezbollah was brought into Syria to help Assad retain power, a new channel for the flow of weapons opened as Hezbollah was able to move some of Assad’s weaponry into Lebanon itself. Indeed, from the outset of UNIFIL’s renewed mandate in 2006, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan had always made clear that the force wouldn’t intervene to stop the flow of weapons from Syria unless specifically instructed to do so by the Lebanese government.

UN Peacekeepers Stop Pretending to Keep Peace - The End of an Era

...The international community also likes the idea of considering the Golan Heights occupied Syrian territory. They should ask the UN peacekeeping forces if they’d like the land to which they’ve currently retreated to still be on the Syrian side of the border. They should ask that question, by the way, while there still is technically a country called Syria.

Seth Mandel..
Commentary Magazine..
15 September '14..

The United Nations has come up with a strange follow-up to Israel’s credible accusations that UN facilities allowed themselves to be used essentially as human shields for Hamas in Gaza: the UN is now, apparently, using Israeli soldiers as human shields up north. Somehow I don’t think that’s what Israeli authorities had in mind when they protested the UN’s one-sided wartime behavior.

What appears to have happened, and which has been confirmed by UN spokesmen, is that UN peacekeeping forces on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights are in retreat. They have, in fact, left Syria. The phrase “peacekeeping forces” should have made them aware of the fact that they would not be supervising a game of hacky sack. A peacekeeping force, theoretically, would arrive during a period of temporary peace to ensure it becomes a permanent peace. The UN forces see it differently.

An AP story today very gently and generously breaks the news, and in doing so buries the lede a bit:

The United Nations said Monday it has withdrawn its peacekeepers from many positions on the Golan Heights because of escalating fighting in the war between Syrian government forces and opposition fighters.

Which positions on the Golan Heights? Asked and answered:

The situation has deteriorated severely over the last few days and advances by armed groups posed “a direct threat to the safety and security of the U.N. peacekeepers” along the Syrian side of the border and in Camp Faouar where many troops are based, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. He said all troops in those areas have been relocated to the Israeli side of the border.

The Syrian side of the border! That’s seems pretty significant. Indeed, it’s the end of an era, as AP notes:

The 1,200-strong U.N. force has patrolled a buffer zone between Syria and Israel since 1974, a year after the Arab-Israeli war. For nearly four decades, U.N. monitors helped enforce a stable truce between Israel and Syria, but the spillover from the Syrian war has led to the abduction of peacekeepers four times since March 2013, made troop contributors wary, and led several countries to withdraw their soldiers.

But all is not lost. It’s possible, says the UN–though they don’t know for sure–that someone affiliated with the UN is still in Syria, somewhere, keeping some kind of peace:

U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq told The Associated Press earlier that he doesn’t think every single post has been vacated.

Seems like an important detail. But never mind. The important thing is that the UN peacekeepers are safe, hiding behind Israelis.

The mirage that has come to be known as "foreign peacekeepers"

..."When you are the one defending yourself, you are also the one who determined what is more important and what is less important for your security," he said. "Can one seriously expect someone in Brussels to determine what is or isn't important for our security? Can they really determine if this force will be ready to sacrifice so that Katyusha rockets aren't fired on Tel Aviv from Ramallah?"

Nadav Shragai..
Israel Hayom..
21 February '14..

On the morning of March 14, 2006, an agreement hatched by the United States and a number of European countries and which sprang from Israeli jails the killers of former minister Rehavam Ze'evi and allowed them to be incarcerated under the eye of the Palestinian Authority, evaporated like morning dew.

The Palestinians announced that Ahmed Saadat, the secretary-general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Ze'evi's killers would be released. The American and British security guards stationed in the prison and who were charged with preventing such a scenario from coming to pass made a quick getaway out of fear for their lives. Only a lightning-quick operation by the IDF led to Saadat's reincarceration in Israel.

That same year, Israel suffered another setback, this time on the Gaza front. In the wake of the Hamas victory in the elections, dozens of European Union security personnel whose job was to monitor the organization and flow of weapons to and from the Strip fled their posts.

In the north, the IDF is even more well-versed in the mirage that has come to be known around these parts as "foreign peacekeepers." For years, officers in the IDF Northern Command have looked on with clenched jaws as Hezbollah operatives lobbed rockets at Israel from positions that were dug in near UNIFIL posts on Lebanese soil.

IDF commanders have repeatedly complained that the presence of international forces on the ground tie their hands and limit their ability to respond, thus indirectly aiding the terrorists. This week, Maj. Gen. (res.) Ilan Biran, who commanded a division in the north in the 1980s, recalled how the political echelon denied him permission to go after terrorist cells that used U.N. posts as cover.

Even the abduction of three IDF soldiers on Mount Dov in October 2000 took place right under the nose of UNIFIL.

'An inef'fective proposal'

The watershed moment that more than any other shaped the way decision-makers in Israel viewed the involvement of "foreign peacekeepers" in conflict (as was illustrated by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently, when he rejected an American proposal to incorporate NATO as part of an Israeli-Palestinian peace) took place on the eve of the Six-Day War.

U Thant, the man who at the time served as secretary-general of the United Nations, hastened to yield to Egyptian demands to remove 4,000 U.N. troops that served as a buffer between the militaries of Egypt and Israel. This got the snowball rolling downhill. The Egyptians would go on to blockade the Straits of Tiran, cutting off access to Israeli shipping, and they mobilized massive ground forces into Sinai. A nerve-wracking "waiting period" ensued before war finally broke out.

At the time, Yaakov Amidror was a conscript in the 202nd Battalion of the Paratroopers that entered the Gaza Strip near Khan Yunis. He remembers a group of Indian troops clad in Sikh turbans -- an outfit which was part of the U.N. peacekeeping force that withdrew from their positions on the eve of the war -- marching along the rail lines in organized columns of four while the barrels of their guns are pointed downwards.

Today, three months after concluding his stint as head of the National Security Council, Maj. Gen. (res.) Amidror believes that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' proposal to John Kerry that NATO forces be stationed in Judea, Samaria, and the Jordan Valley as part of an agreement with the Palestinians is "bizarre." Kerry, as has been made public, is not ruling out the idea.

Amidror, the former head of the Military Intelligence research division who also served as military secretary to the defense minister, doesn't mince words when detailing his serious objections to the plan.

"When you are the one defending yourself, you are also the one who determined what is more important and what is less important for your security," he said. "Can one seriously expect someone in Brussels to determine what is or isn't important for our security? Can they really determine if this force will be ready to sacrifice so that Katyusha rockets aren't fired on Tel Aviv from Ramallah?"

"Let us assume that the lives of 20 soldiers are what is needed in order to prevent rocket fire on Tel Aviv," Amidror said. "On the other hand, a battalion of troops from Britain or Senegal is only willing to sacrifice two soldiers. After the deaths of two soldiers, they decide that the price is too steep, and it's too dangerous. Can I then go to them and complain? This is really a terrible proposal, and an ineffective one."