On Israel's relations with UNIFIL
How unusual was it that UNIFIL took Israel's side last week? Here's an interview with Timur Goksel, a former spokesman and senior adviser to UNIFIL who currently teaches at in the Department of Political Studies and Public Administration at the American University of Beirut. HP: How did this border flare-up happen in the first place? Isn’t UNIFIL coordination supposed to make these sorts of incidents more avoidable?Since when do the Lebanese Armed Forces have a veto over IDF activities in Israel's territory? Only in UNIFIL's world.
TG: I think UNIFIL did its part. Israelis said they wanted to prune the tree that was beyond their fence on technically on Israeli territory. UNIFIL informed LAF [Lebanese Armed Forces]. LAF said NOT TODAY. NOT GIVEN ADEQUATE NOTICE AS PER RULES. UNIFIL informed IDF not to do it but IDF, as per their power play, is not inclined to take any instructions from UNIFIL and LAF. So they went ahead and started the operation. Lebanese officers in the region have been feeling humiliated by this IDF attitude for some time. LAF feels that they always have to back down, accommodate the Israelis. But they too have an audience, which has been getting increasingly critical of this what they see as a meek attitude. So, someone finally said ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. For me, this the background to the incident, which had some extremely naive analysts declaring the onset of a regional war.
Read the whole thing.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:39 PM
2 Comments:
Israel does not need Lebanon's permission to conduct lawful activities on its own sovereign territory. And Israel should respond decisively when Lebanon illegally tries to interfere with the exercise of Israel's lawful rights as a sovereign country.
Timur Goksel no longer represents UNIFIL policy. His statements here in fact contradict the spirit of UNIFIL's preliminary statements, which appear to blame the LAF for the outbreak of hostilities.
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