mosze_zblisko_daleka
27.08.06, 14:38
What did you do in the war, UNIFIL?
You broadcast Israeli troop movements.
by Lori Lowenthal Marcus
09/04/2006, Volume 011, Issue 47
DURING THE RECENT month-long war between Hezbollah and Israel,
U.N. "peacekeeping" forces made a startling contribution: They openly
published daily real-time intelligence, of obvious usefulness to Hezbollah,
on the location, equipment, and force structure of Israeli troops in Lebanon.
UNIFIL--the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, a nearly 2,000-man blue-
helmet contingent that has been present on the Lebanon-Israel border since
1978--is officially neutral. Yet, throughout the recent war, it posted on its
website for all to see precise information about the movements of Israeli
Defense Forces soldiers and the nature of their weaponry and materiel, even
specifying the placement of IDF safety structures within hours of their
construction. New information was sometimes only 30 minutes old when it was
posted, and never more than 24 hours old.
Meanwhile, UNIFIL posted not a single item of specific intelligence regarding
Hezbollah forces. Statements on the order of Hezbollah "fired rockets in
large numbers from various locations" and Hezbollah's rockets "were fired in
significantly larger numbers from various locations" are as precise as its
coverage of the other side ever got.
This war was fought on cable television and the Internet, and a lot of
official information was available in real time. But the specific military
intelligence UNIFIL posted could not be had from any non-U.N. source. The
Israeli press--always eager to push the envelope--did not publish the details
of troop movements and logistics. Neither the European press nor the rest of
the world media, though hardly bastions of concern for the safety of Israeli
troops, provided the IDF intelligence details that UNIFIL did. A search of
Israeli government websites failed to turn up the details published to the
world each day by the U.N.
Inquiries made of various Israeli military and government representatives and
analysts yielded near unanimous agreement that at least some of UNIFIL's
postings, in the words of one retired senior military analyst, "could have
exposed Israeli soldiers to grave danger." These analysts, including a
current high ranking military official, noted that the same intelligence
would not have been provided by the U.N. about Israel's enemies.
Sure enough, a review of every single UNIFIL web posting during the war shows
that, while UNIFIL was daily revealing the towns where Israeli soldiers were
located, the positions from which they were firing, and when and how they had
entered Lebanese territory, it never described Hezbollah movements or
locations with any specificity whatsoever.
Compare the vague "various locations" language with this UNIFIL posting from
July 25:
Yesterday and during last night, the IDF moved significant reinforcements,
including a number of tanks, armored personnel carriers, bulldozers and
infantry, to the area of Marun Al Ras inside Lebanese territory. The IDF
advanced from that area north toward Bint Jubayl, and south towards Yarun.
Or with the posting on July 24, in which UNIFIL revealed that the IDF
stationed between Marun Al Ras and Bint Jubayl were "significantly reinforced
during the night and this morning with a number of tanks and armored
personnel carriers."
This partiality is inconsistent not only with UNIFIL's mission but also with
its own stated policies. In a telling incident just a few years back, UNIFIL
vigorously insisted on its "neutral ity"--at Israel's expense.
On October 7, 2000, three IDF soldiers were kidnapped by Hezbollah just yards
from a UNIFIL shelter and dragged across the border into Lebanon, where they
disappeared. The U.N. was thought to have videotaped the incident or its
immediate aftermath. Rather than help Israel rescue its kidnapped soldiers by
providing this evidence, however, the U.N. obstructed the Israeli
investigation.
For months the Israeli government pleaded with the U.N. to turn over any
videotape that might shed light on the location and condition of its missing
men. And for nine months the U.N. stonewalled, insisting first that no such
tape existed, then that just one tape existed, and eventually conceding that
there were two more tapes. During those nine months, clips from the
videotapes were shown on Syrian and Lebanese television.
Explaining their eventual about-face, U.N. officials said the decision had
been made by the on-site commanders that it was not their responsibility to
provide the material to Israel; indeed, that to do so would violate the
peacekeeping mandate, which required "full impartiality and objectivity." The
U.N. report on the incident was adamant that its force had "to ensure that
military and other sensitive information remains in their domain and is not
passed to parties to a conflict."
Stymied in its efforts to recover the men while they were still alive, Israel
ultimately agreed to an exchange in January 2004: It released 429 Arab
prisoners and detainees, among them convicted terrorists, and the bodies of
60 Lebanese decedents and members of Hezbollah, in exchange for the bodies of
the three soldiers. Blame for the deaths of those three Israelis can be laid,
at least in part, at the feet of the U.N., which went to the wall defending
its inviolable pledge never to share military intelligence about one party
with another.
UNIFIL has just done what it then vowed it could never do. Once again, it has
acted to shield one side in the conflict and to harm the other. Why is this
permitted? For that matter, how did the U.N. obtain such detailed and timely
military intelligence in the first place, before broadcasting it for Israel's
enemies to see?
Lori Lowenthal Marcus is president of the Zionist Organization of America,
Greater Philadelphia District.
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