UN mission in Lebanon under Israeli fire
Unifil, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, has come under Israeli fire several times in recent days. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has denounced the attacks as a violation of international law and the Security Council has warned against attacks on UN soldiers. Meanwhile, Israel has called on the UN to withdraw its troops on the grounds that Hezbollah is using the Blue Helmets as cover for terrorist activities.
Used as a shield by Hezbollah
For Berlingske the mission of the UN troops in Lebanon is counterproductive:
“Unifil was supposed to make sure that southern Lebanon remained free of weapons or troops that were not under the control of the Lebanese state. In other words, it was supposed to keep Hezbollah out of the area. ... According to various reports, however, Hezbollah still has a massive presence in southern Lebanon. According to the Israeli army, it is operating from tunnels located just 100 metres away from the UN base. A UN mission that is supposed to protect Israel could therefore be doing the exact opposite. Hezbollah has turned the UN members into a kind of civilian shield that enables it to attack Israel. ... At the same time, Israel is effectively prevented from striking back without being criticised for attacking the UN mission.”
Monitoring doesn't solve conflicts
The Neue Zürcher Zeitung questions the purpose of the mission:
“It's hard to measure how successful the mission has been. This is mainly due to the fact that the Unifil soldiers are condemned to observation. ... Which provides ideal conditions for Hezbollah to not only maintain the status quo but actually boost its military capacities. In recent years, the group has been able to replenish its arsenal of weapons and recruit numerous new fighters. The militants have been able to do this because no one is stopping them: not the Lebanese army and certainly not the Blue Helmets. ... One thing is clear: this is not the way to disarm Hezbollah. ... Trying to solve conflicts by monitoring them is just wishful thinking.”
Global order is a fragile construct
The entire international legal order is under threat, warns Der Spiegel:
“That is the upshot of Israel's dealings in recent months with the institutions which are supposed to enforce the rules of this order. Amid the drone of the wars Israel is waging with its airstrikes on Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, the West Bank and Gaza, it is easy to forget that in his last speech to the UN General Assembly in New York Netanyahu counted international institutions among the 'seven fronts' on which Israel is currently fighting. ... The global order is a fragile construct. ... It is based on the agreement of nations to accept its rules. All nations. An order that does not apply equally to all will soon no longer apply at all.”
The mission has failed
La Stampa questions the effectiveness of the UN mission:
“What is Unifil good for? It is not for Israel to judge this. Much less to give instructions, call for withdrawal or shoot at the Blue Helmets who are only doing their duty. Still, the question is legitimate. The presence of the UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon has not prevented Hezbollah from taking root there and turning it into a base for launching rockets into Israel. Nor has it prevented Israeli troops from crossing the border to put a stop to all that. This does not give Netanyahu the right to deliver unilateral ultimatums, but it does force us to recognise a fact: Unifil never fulfilled the mission assigned to it in 2006.”
Peacekeepers must stay put
The UN mission must try to slow Israel down, La Croix insists:
“Despite the risks involved, it is important that the 'peacekeepers' stay where they are. They are an obstacle to the all-out war that Benjamin Netanyahu may want to wage. Up to now, apart from air strikes, the Israeli army has confinined itself to incursions into areas controlled by Hezbollah, where it is encountering strong resistance. However, it may attempt to permanently destroy its enemy's weapons arsenals and infrastructure, as it has done in its operations against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. This would lead to a terrible escalation. But this logic must be broken.”
Violating the law and common sense
Israel has shot itself in the foot with this action, writes Die Presse:
“The Israeli army cannot simply open fire on members of a force that is there on the basis of a UN resolution. ... Anyone who shoots at Blue Helmets is violating international law - and common sense. The UN force includes soldiers from 16 EU states, including 160 members of the Austrian Armed Forces. If such skirmishes result in fatalities, the mood in entire countries could tip. With such actions, Israel is alienating its last allies. Yet the country will need friends, especially once it carries out its announced retaliatory strike against Iran.”
The UN failed to fulfil its mission
Those states that commit to supporting the UN peacekeeping mission unreservedly should ask themselves a critical question, says the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung:
“What has this mission, which is composed of no less than 10,000 soldiers, actually contributed to pacifying the situation on Israel's northern border? ... No one can know whether things would not have been even worse without Unifil. But one thing is certain: if the UN mission, which has been in existence since 1978, had fulfilled its mandate in the past, Hezbollah would not have been in a position to fire so many rockets at Israel from southern Lebanon. This is why the Israeli army has now taken matters into its own hands. It is trying to create the security for Israel that the international community was unable to provide.”
A lonely outpost of Western values
It's hard for the West to put itself in Israel's shoes, reflects Corriere della Sera:
“Israel's solitude is almost untranslatable for us. The West has a hard time understanding what it means to be an outpost of Western values (and to remain so despite everything) in a geopolitical region dominated by theocracies and absolute regimes. Even the attacks on the UN peacekeeping contingent in Lebanon, which we rightly perceive as an outrageous violation of international and humanitarian law, seem to be part of a much larger mosaic for the Israelis. For a country that bears the moral burden of 40,000 dead in the Gaza Strip, the skirmishes with the Blue Helmets are collateral damage, even when they turn lethal.”
An attack on a militarily literate observer
The UN mission may have always been a thorn in the side of the Israeli army, suspects Declan Power, who has himself served as a soldier in UN peacekeeping missions, in the Irish Independent:
“Unifil being on the ground observing and reporting means there is an accurate, militarily literate voice stating the facts about who has done what, where and when. This kind of information makes it much harder for belligerent parties to shy away from their responsibilities to avoid unnecessary civilian casualties and it allows them to be held accountable.”
Europe's unacceptable complicity
Writing in Público, former vice president of the European Parliament José Pacheco Pereira complains about Europe's inaction:
“The EU hasn't reacted in any way to Israel's violence or systematic violations of international law. And it has failed to defend the UN and António Guterres, both targets of Israel, which attacks everything that stands in its way on the ground and in diplomacy. We have to understand that this pathetic hesitation on the part of Europe (including Portugal), which doesn't even play much of a role in terms of realpolitik apart from in certain countries where there are fears about elections, amounts to an unacceptable complicity. ... It degrades us.”