The UN's Chummy Relations with Hizballah

Wed, Jul 19, 2006 at 9:40:27 am PDT

Israel has a wholly justified suspicion of the United Nations and their bogus “peacekeeping” effort in Lebanon; this article from al-Reuters opens with an anecdote that symbolizes UNIFIL’s chummy relations with Hizballah: Israeli suspicion of UN clouds Lebanon force plan.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - An Israeli commander at the Lebanese border recalls peering through binoculars one afternoon to see U.N. peacekeepers sipping tea with Hizbollah guerrillas.

Of course, it wouldn’t be al-Reuters if they didn’t immediately try to cover for the UN.

The officer’s conspiratorial take on the meeting a few months ago underscores Israel’s long-standing distrust of the United Nations force in Lebanon and its reluctance to see an expanded version as a way to end the current conflict.

Reporting an actual incident is “conspiratorial?”

There is a real conspiracy described in this article, and it’s not the IDF commander’s description of UN tools having tea time with terrorists—because in 2000, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon deliberately concealed videotapes of IDF soldiers being kidnapped by Hizballah terrorists:

Relations between Israel and the United Nations plummeted after information emerged that U.N. peacekeepers on the Lebanon border suppressed video tapes of three soldiers being abducted by Hizbollah guerrillas in 2000.

UNIFIL denied the charge, but the U.N. later admitted unintentionally concealing evidence from Israel.

“We know that they had line of sight and could see the actual kidnapping. They could have put roadblocks up to prevent Hizbollah from escaping. But they didn’t lift a finger,” said Dore Gold, former Israeli ambassador to the U.N.

It is unclear whether the three soldiers were killed at the time of the raid and their bodies taken away or whether they were captured and killed later. Israel initially assumed the three soldiers survived the attack and were seized by Hizbollah.