Nine serious incidents of firing from Israeli side directly at UN posts

[bigtree]

it just seems like idiocy (or arrogance) for Israel to still be firing around or at UN positions. wtf?


"In the 24 hours before the cessation of hostilities came into effect, UNIFIL said that fierce fighting continued across the south, from the Mediterranean coast to close to the Syrian border. The IDF intensified its shelling and aerial bombardment, while Hizbollah fired rockets, albeit in reduced numbers.

There were also nine serious incidents of firing from the Israeli side directly at UN posts in Tibnin, Haris, At Tiri and Marun al Ras, “causing massive material damage to all the positions,” UNIFIL said. Mission personnel at those posts were forced into shelters to prevent casualties.

UNIFIL stated that it had protested strongly to the command of the IDF about the incidents."


http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=19505&Cr=middle&Cr1=east

[BattyDem]

1. WTF?

:shrug:

[evox]

2. It's a clear message

Israel showing the UN who's boss

[TomInTib]

3. Hey, come on... it's just UN posts..

and it was only "serious incidents"...

none of the really important stuff.

[poverlay]

4. Hmmmm, I wonder how long before a host of Israeli apologists hit this

post with a hearty hue and cry of "But Hezbollah hides behind those U.N. guys!"...

I think I'm going to just start smacking people I don't like and claiming that I saw a terrorist behind them.

[bigtree]

6. The UN has included that information in the past.

Their reference to Hizbollah's rocket launches is not connected in the article to Israel's shelling of these four UN posts which caused "massive material damage to all the positions."

[MADem]

8. Well, they do. And as for those guys, they're frigging worthless

...The 87-year-old British ex-paratrooper helped field those first truce troops in the long-ago Suez Crisis, and went on to lead the United Nations' peacekeeping efforts into the 1980s. Today, as Lebanon and Israel move uncertainly toward a cease-fire, he says a new kind of U.N. contingent is needed, heavily armed and empowered to enforce peace in Lebanon's south.

"I tried to get a robust force in there in 1978 to control the various actors, but everyone on the Security Council said, `No, no, no,'" Urquhart recalled of a time when Israel battled the Palestine Liberation Organization across its northern border.

Instead, the U.N. council established UNIFIL, the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, a unit with no mandate to keep combatants in check, a decision that today looks like "an object lesson in what not to do," Urquhart said.

Ahron Bregman was there, too. Now a historian of Israel's wars, in 1978 Bregman was a young artillery officer in the Israeli army that invaded Lebanon to crush the PLO. He watched as the powerless U.N. force took shape, and a heedless Israel and PLO simply fought on.

"UNIFIL was born, but it was unsuccessful because the Israelis wanted to destroy the PLO along the border, as they want to do with Hezbollah today," Bregman said. "And the PLO wasn't much interested in peace."

The cease-fire resolution adopted by the Security Council late Friday calls for expanding the 2,000-member UNIFIL to 15,000 troops, to man a southern buffer zone with the Lebanese army. But the London-based Bregman is no more optimistic about the outcome this time.

"What you're going to see now is again an unsuccessful operation by U.N. forces because they will not be able to impose themselves on Israel or Hezbollah," he said....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/12/AR2006081200528.html

IF this ceasefire holds, it will be remarkable. I'm guessing they'll be at it again within a few months to a year, if the UN doesn't go with the "robust" force structure and a rough, tough ROE.

[bigtree]

9. or,

they could proceed with the diplomacy they promised on the disputed land to give Hizbollah something they can point to in exchange for their demilitarization.

[MADem]

11. Whatever. I can't see rewarding Iran's proxy with jackshit, myself

The Government of Lebanon is a different story, but Hizb'Allah is a third actor and instigator in all this mess.

[bigtree]

13. whatever party emerges as the people's choice in Lebanon's next

political round is bound to reflect the anti-Israel sentiment from the Lebanese population where over a thousand of their citizens have been slaughtered underneath Israel's reprisals. That anti-Israel sentiment will likely exist whether Hizbollah is the beneficiary or not.

I'd rather have a Hizbollah organization (or any other for that matter), engaged politically than I would have them remain a militarized resistance group agitating from the outside. We have to realize that we will not be able/nor should we be imposing our own interests on Lebanon's future government as we oppose all other outside interference.

[MADem]

14. I've had experience with them, and don't find them to be nice people

to put it kindly. They are terrorists and thugs. They want to turn back the clock Ayatullah Khomeini-style, and rule with an iron fist. They aren't freedom fighters. They don't give one shit about "the Lebanese people" no matter what horseshit they spout. They are shi'a, they answer to the Ayatullahs in Iran. They are totalitarian bastards. If they ever get their claws into Lebanon, the Christian, Druze, and other groups will have to leave or submit. It will be most unpleasant.

They need to be defanged, completely. No weapons at all. There is no place for an Iranian militia in the sovereign nation of the Lebanon. None whatsoever.

Look, ALL countries try to impose their interests on other countries. It's how the game is played. Sometimes it's strong v. weak, other times it is quid pro quo.

We don't have much as much clout as we used to nowadays, because, despite our FMS payouts, loans and grants, we have a total asshole in the White House and people hate him. It makes it difficult to press for influence in nice ways; we're down to threats, intimidation, and withholding the cash.

But Hizb'Allah are NOT nice people, and 241 American families of dead UN peacekeeping Marines will tell you that, too.

[bigtree]

15. well, this is a region with quite a few bad actors.

and the US and Bush's military and political muckraking in the region has driven these populations (ironically in these democracies that Bush trumpets) to choose representatives who promise to actively and directly oppose our interests.

Hizbollah should be disarmed, but as Annan has said on several occasions without qualification, that Hizbollah will not be disarmed by force. I don't know how many examples folks need to convince them that more militarization directed at these civilian populations will do nothing but draw the citizens closer to the ones who purport to defend them, no matter how much of a role they may have played in exacerbating the divisions and escalating the violence.

If we want to reduce the influence of these splinter groups then Lebanon's government will have to develop. That will take time. In the interim there should be a reaching out to those who agitate from the outside to lay down their arms and join in the political system to make themselves accountable to the citizens of Lebanon; much like our government allowed Sadr's organization in Iraq to lay down their violent resistance against the new Iraq regime and our troops and put their fortune to the ballot.

That's how we begin to repair the divisions and lack of empowerment that leads some to violently resist. It will take time.

[MADem]

16. Unfortunately, here is what is likely to happen

They won't disarm, they will ignore the UN. Nasrallah will mouth platitudes and take orders from Teheran. They will continue to receive funds, training, weapons, guidance and Revolutionary Guard leadership from Iran. It is in their interest that the Lebanese government be unstable and weak. They will do EVERYTHING in their power to make that happen.

The UNIFIL forces will go in there with insufficient equipment, inadequate numbers, and a shitty ROE.

This mess will start up again, and in addition to trying to evacuate people (with every cycle, more and more will flee to other countries, just as they did in the FATAH/PLO days) there will also be 14K UNIFIL troops that need to run and hide as well.

I think a good idea of what's in store for Lebanon can be found in history, going back twenty five-thirty five years or so....it's a damned shame.

[bigtree]

17. I have much more hope than that

I hope your pessimism's not the foot that those involved in working on a permanent cessation of violence will lead their efforts with.

[MADem]

19. It's just reality--the same behavior/response as we saw with PLO/Fatah

This isn't a good start to a "permanent cessation of violence" I'd say:

The Hizbullah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, taunted Israeli soldiers as "cowards" and claimed a "strategic and historic victory" as a truce took hold last night after 32 days of intense bombing that has brought Lebanon to its knees.....On Sunday, Hizbullah officials boycotted a meeting of the Lebanese cabinet that was due to implement plans for transferring control of pockets of southern Lebanon from Israel to a force of 15,000 Lebanese and 15,000 international soldiers due to deploy soon. And last night Mr Nasrallah said he believed the Lebanese-western force would be "incapable of protecting Lebanon".

Calls for a debate on disarming Hizbullah were "inappropriate", he said. "This is the wrong time on the psychological and moral level particularly before a ceasefire."...


http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1844782,00.html

Nasrallah isn't ready to work with the Lebanese government. He wants them weak, so he can do what he pleases, and what the Ayatullahs tell him to do. And screw the UN--disarm, shmisharm...he ain't doing it. Time will pass, and trucks will start coming over the border from Iran via Syria. He'll pick a time, pick a fight, and start this shit up again, just like Yassir used to do.

Funny, this time it's the Shia's doing it, but the game is the same old shit. And the people of Lebanon will suffer. Again.

[bigtree]

20. folks should listen to the rest where you trailed off

I understood him to say that he felt the issue of disarming was one that should be discussed in private.

The rest isn't much different from the bluster and blather coming from the Israeli authorities. These things are to be expected in the interim before the deployment of troops and the fulfillment of other tenants of the agreement.

It would be a mistake to dwell too closely on the rhetoric, or even the incidental and deliberate clashes within Lebanon. Occupation breeds resentment. It has to come out somewhere.

[MADem]

22. 'Occupation breeds resentment.'

The Israelis have been out of there for six whole years. The ones occupying the south since then haven't been the Jews, but Hizb'allah. Resentment usually ebbs when the object of your hatred leaves the scene. But now, thanks to the Ayatullahs' militia, it looks like it will be 14K of foreign UN troops, plus the ragtag Lebanese Army in about equal numbers, occupying the south, if they ever get that party off the ground. And then, add in that not-disarmed Hizb'Allah to really mess up the mix. I am not hopeful that this truce will last at all, based on how I've seen this sort of thing play out in the past.

The Israelis are not blustering and blathering. In truth, they're upset that they didn't do a better job of crushing Nasrallah's crew, and there's a lot of recrimination going on about it. http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?sf=2749&click_id=2749&art_id=qw1155569582284B253&set_id=6 They couldn't get Nasrallah perhaps because, per many reports, he was in the Iranian Embassy.

Words like Nasrallah's are not simple rhetoric--they're the sort of thing that kept Yassir censured by the UN until he renounced his desire to push the corpses of the Jews into the sea and reclaim Jerusalem for Islam.

That IS the goal, at the end of the day. Let's just hope some of the neighboring states don't get emboldened by this faux 'victory' that Hizb'allah claims, and start thinking on similar lines. Then it could be a real mess in the region, and it could spread.

[bigtree]

23. spread?

If preventing spreading the conflict was a concern of Israel, they sure went about this in the wrong way. Their strident assault on the Lebanese (1000 civilians dead) has created resentments which portend for more individual resentments and recriminations that won't necessarily come from Hizbollah or any organized group. The potential for devastating individual acts of violence have increased because of the reckless way Israel has prosecuted their 'defense.'

[MADem]

27. But they're out of there. If Hizb'Allah shoots rockets over the border

AGAIN, if they capture more soldiers AGAIN, do you think the Christians and Druze in the Levant are going to cheer that asshole Nasrallah?? They're gonna want his head on a plate.

The only thing that shocked was the viciousness of the retaliation. The Israelis had to send a message that they aren't to be trifled with, else they'll find themselves attacked on all sides like the old days. The only problem is, that message that they aren't gonna take it doesn't matter to people who LOVE MARTYRDOM (as Nasrallah said--while ridiculing the Jews for "loving life"). So perhaps they'll have to go back to the odious 'targeted assassination' to maintain their security.

On EDIT--my reference to the conflict spreading was more outside the lines of the usual 'hate those Jews' theme. I'm talking regional/hemispheric war.

[lfairban]

28. I think you misunderstand the situation.

First of all, Hezbollah will capture more soldiers, either because they are in Lebanon or because Israel launches another aerial attack like they did before the two soldiers were captured in July or because Israel kidnaps more Lebanese, as they have done regularly in the past. Then at some point they will agree to a prisoner exchange and everybody goes home until it starts all over again.

Second, most of Lebanon supports Hezbollah, including a majority of the Christians and the Druze. Nothing that Israel has done in the last two months has done anything but solidify that support.

[MADem]

29. Funny, my Lebanese neighbors, next door, want them dead.

I don't know where you're getting this 'most Lebanese' stuff. Hell, half the cabinet wants those guys run out of town.

[lfairban]

30. Glad you ask . . .

According to a poll released by the "Beirut Center for Research and Information" on 26 July during 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, 87 percent of Lebanese support Hezbollah's fight with Israel, a rise of 29 percent on a similar poll conducted in February. More striking, however, is the level of support for Hezbollah's resistance from non-Shiite communities. Eighty percent of Christians polled supported Hezbollah along with 80 percent of Druze and 89 percent of Sunnis.<165><166>, while according to another poll, from July 2005, 74 percent of Christian Lebanese viewed Hezbollah as a resistance organization<167>.

In a poll of Lebanese adults taken in 2004, 6% of respondents gave unqualified support to the statement "Hezbollah should be disarmed". 41% reported unqualified disagreement.<168>

A poll of Palestinians taken in the Gaza Strip indicated that 79.6% had "a very good view" of Hezbollah.<169>

Polls of Jordanian adults in December, 2005 and June, 2006, showed that 63.9% and 63.3%, respectively, considered Hezbollah to be a legitimate resistance organization.<170> In the December, 2005, poll only 6% of Jordanian adults considered Hezbollah to be terrorist.<171>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezbollah


Does that do it for you?

[MADem]

32. Not everyone believes that sentiment, to put it kindly

Walid Jumblatt (Druze leader, see article below) reminds me of lone voices who stayed sane when BushCo's numbers got up that high. Do you think Monkey ever really had 80 or more percent approval in this country? I think those numbers are like 911 BushCo numbers, cooked, fake, and ambiguous, and I do not think they'll stand for long. And if Hizb'Allah pulls ANOTHER cross-border raid, I think he'll feel something other than love.

This article is very interesting: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0608100186aug10,1,5460126.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed


With patriotic fervor at a peak and bombs raining down across the country, it is now considered politically incorrect to challenge Hezbollah. An opinion poll conducted late last month by the Beirut Center for Research and Information indicated that 87 percent of Lebanese support the Iranian-backed Shiite fundamentalist movement.

Jumblatt says he understands the surge in support for Hezbollah. "Their fighters have done a good job defying and defeating the Israeli army, OK," he says. "But the question we ask is where their allegiance goes: to a Lebanese strong central authority or somewhere else?"

In the Maronite Christian heartland north of Beirut, many ordinary Christians openly curse Hezbollah for triggering Israel's attacks on their country. Others may privately share Jumblatt's concerns.

But Jumblatt is the only political leader regularly and publicly warning against the consequences of a Hezbollah victory, which he believes would bring Lebanon under the tutelage of Iran and Syria once again--as it was in the 1980s.....But he is just as angry with what he terms "the brutal, irresponsible aggression" of Israel and with the "total failure" of American policy in the Middle East.

"It's a big power play between the Iranians and the Syrians, and on the other side the Americans and the Israelis," he says. "And we are in the middle."..........But he is not confident that his views will prevail in this crisis, from which he glumly predicts no favorable outcome. He offers no answers or solutions.

"We had a dream of an independent Lebanon, we had a dream of stability, and now it's a shambles."
...
He does, however, tune in for the periodic televised addresses by Nasrallah, who has pointedly addressed Jumblatt's criticisms. In one comment, aimed at those who have challenged him, he offered a veiled warning: "This will be left for some day to settle accounts," he said. "We might be tolerant with them and we might not."

Jumblatt shrugs off the implied threat. But he has frequently in the past expressed the conviction that the Syrians will one day try to kill him, as they killed his father. Since Hariri's assassination, he has rarely left his mountain fiefdom. Security at his castle is tight: No vehicles or cell phones are allowed beyond the gates and all visitors are carefully searched.

Now, however, fatalism seems to have overtaken fear.

"That's trivial," he says when asked about his concerns for his safety. "I don't think about it. When they will come, they will come."

This commentary sums up the situation, I think:
http://www.mercatornet.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=342
The erosion of Lebanese identity

The current unrest bodes ill for the socio-religious and cultural configuration of Lebanon. Today the country is roughly 70 per cent Muslim and 30 per cent Christian. This represents a steep decline for the Christians, who were in the majority the last time an official census was taken – in 1932. Each side is subdivided into multiple sects, among them the Druze. Christian political groups, mainly Maronites, want independence and closer ties with the West. But the Muslims see meaningful collaboration only with the surrounding Arab states.

At the moment, the future looks bleak for the Christians. Some 900,000 people fled the country during the civil war, most of them Christians. Few Christians returned when the conflict died down. The exodus of Christians has been compounded by increasing number of Muslims, thanks not just to Muslim births but also to the naturalisation en masse of Syrians and Palestinians (in 1994 the Lebanese Parliament naturalised some 300,000 people, mostly Syrian Muslims). When the Saudi-backed Rafik Hariri became Prime Minister in 2000, he acquired vast real-estate properties from Christians and filled up government posts with Muslims. Meanwhile, the Iran-sponsored Hezbollah openly declared their intent to create an Islamic state in Lebanon. The declining presence of Christians in Lebanon is hardly good news for Israel, for the ultimate result will be a hostile Muslim state on its northern border.

Challenges and prospects

The most urgent task for the international community is to impose a total ceasefire in the war zone with the help of a neutral multinational force. An integral part of the peace process is the withdrawal of all troops implicated in the war and the setting up of a mechanism to prevent further Hezbollah attacks. Even then much will remain to be done. Vast amounts of assistance will be needed to help the Lebanese clear up the debris and rebuild their infrastructure and economy.

Just as important is the need to rebuild the shredded fabric of Lebanese sovereignty and to restore its delicate social and political cohesion. Lebanon's religious and ethnic pluralism is a treasure that has to be preserved and strengthened. It has always been regarded as a European bridge to the Arab world. If its 1,900-year-old Christian communities fail to weather the consequences of Israeli aggression and are submerged by a rising tide of Islam, the world will lose something far more precious than a resort for sun-baking European tourists. It will lose the the only example of a successful democratic society in which Christians and Muslims have managed to work together in fraternal harmony. ...

I don't think that will happen--I agree with Jumblatt; I think it's a crisis and it may not end well for the Levant.

And I wonder how long this ceasefire will hold...




http://www.catholicnews.com/data/briefs/cns/20060804.htm Salameh and his family of five, along with 7,000 Maronites, other Christians, Muslims and Druze, fled Lebanon, seeking political asylum in Israel. Salameh, 24, said he doesn't agree with a Beirut Center for Research and Information report that said 80 percent of Christians in Lebanon support Hezbollah, as reported July 28 by The Christian Science Monitor. "There is no way. This makes me angry," Salameh said. "None of my friends in Lebanon support the Hezbollah....

[lfairban]

33. I gather that you are agreeing with me,

that Israels actions have increased support for Hezbollah.

[MADem]

34. Just like Osama bin Ladin's actions increased support for Bush

What I am saying is it isn't real.

It's a "enemy of my enemy is my friend" reaction, from everyone save those Shi'a who regularly benefit from the social and charitable arms of the outfit.

[Kagemusha]

5. I'd call it frustration.

UN's a much easier target than Hezbollah.

[ShockediSay]

7. "unclean hands" nt

[madrchsod]

10. why am i not surprised

the terrorists that founded the modern state of israel showed no respect for the united nations and to this day this present day government still carries on the tradition

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Drewskie]

18. Maybe they should fire back. ;) (nt)

[bigtree]

21. UNIFIL account

Yesterday and during last night, there were a number of serious incidents of firing from the Israeli side directly on UN positions in various locations:

Tibnin (4), Haris (2), At Tiri (2) and Marun al Ras (1). A total of 85 artillery shells impacted directly inside these UNIFIL positions, (of which 35 impacted inside the position in the area of Tibnin), causing massive material damage to all the positions. All UNIFIL personnel were forced into shelters for the entire period, which prevented casualties. In addition, 10 aerial rockets and 108 artillery rounds from the IDF side impacted in the immediate vicinity of these and other UN positions, including the UNIFIL Headquarters in Naqoura. UNIFIL strongly protested to the IDF command all these grave incidents which endangered the security and safety of UN personnel and caused enormous material damage to UN property.

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/KHII-6SP5BL?OpenDocument

[opihimoimoi]

24. Those INGRATEFUL Idiots...IT WAS THE U>N> that got them their

chunk of Land

If it wasn't for the UN...them Israelis would still be in refugee camps or in one Nation or another...and the Palestinians would still be in Palestine.

WTF....shooting at the ORG that made Israel???

How soon they forget....

[converted_democrat]

25. I didn't think about it from that angle.. Good point.. n/t

[bigtree]

26. apparently they 'forgot' long time ago

they routinely ignore UN edicts and resolutions.

If the battlefield becomes unsafe for the UN observers they will remove themselves. I don't think it's come to that point, but obviously Israel remembers the last time they killed four observers their reward was the 'relocation' of the post.

[breakaleg]

31. they appear to have a selective memory anyway...