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Wednesday, September 20, 2006
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Where is UNIFIL?
Much has been made of the UN plan to bring an international force to patrol
South Lebanon and prevent Hizbollah attacks against Israel, so it may come as a
surprise that a multinational force already exists. UNIFIL, the United
Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, was established after Israel’s Litani
Operation in 1978.
The operation was launched three days after PLO terrorists infiltrated from
Lebanon by sea and attacked a bus near Tel Aviv, killing 37 people. It became
known as the Coastal Road Massacre. Israel moved against the PLO “state-withina-
state,” and sent its forces up to the Litani River, about 18 miles (30 km.) from
the border.
In contrast to the latest war, the Litani Operation lasted only one week. The UN
Security Council passed Resolutions 425 and 426, calling for the withdrawal of
Israeli forces from Lebanon. UNIFIL was created to enforce this mandate and
restore peace and sovereignty to Lebanon. The first UNIFIL troops arrived nine
days after the Israeli invasion.
Israeli analysts say this force has been utterly ineffective over the past 28
years. “The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon is considered a force that
has failed in a majority of its tasks, that has never managed to prevent
hostilities and whose reports have been mostly opposed to Israel,” said security
expert Ze’ev Schiff.
UNIFIL failed to prevent PLO terrorists from digging in at bases all over South
Lebanon, prompting the 1982 Lebanon War in which Israel drove all the way to
Beirut and expelled Yasser Arafat and his fighters from the country. After the
PLO came the Hizbollah rocket attacks that sparked the 16-day Grapes of Wrath
Operation in 1996. Since Israel’s unilateral pullout from Lebanon in 2000,
Hizbollah built a massive terrorist infrastructure right under the nose of
UNIFIL.
(More in israel today from September 200)
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