U.N. Smurfs To The Israel/Lebanon Border: An Illogical Non-Starter

I cannot see the logic that would motivate Israel to concede to allowing U.N. blue hats on the Lebanese border as a sufficient resolution to the current crisis, and so I can only view Anan and Blair’s “plan” as global political pandering of the highest order.
The presence of U.N. troops would serve only a single purpose: to handcuff Israeli actions in the area and provide an internationalized “tripwire” force to call down criticism on Israel from all corners should they be forced to once again defend themselves against the actions of Hizb’allah. Unless Blair and Anan are recommending forcibly de-populating a buffer in Lebanon that roughly corresponds to the range of Katyusha rockets, they cannot conceivably offer Israel the security promises that would be necessary to mollify the Israeli people. The Islamist crazies that comprise Hizb’allah do not store their rockets and arms in conventional arms dumps or on regularized military bases – they purposefully store their arms on civilian property and use the population of southern Lebanon as human shields in order to try to ward off effective Israeli retaliation against their illegal rocket strikes. Up until the IDF left southern Lebanon in 2000, Israel maintained such a buffer zone themselves through an extensive intelligence network designed to assist the IDF in interdicting potential missile lobbers. Unless the U.N. could construct such an apparatus, short-order, there remains no good reason for Israel to not continue their current course: the effective military dismemberment of Hizb’allah forces proper.
U.N. “Smurfs” wouldn’t have the stomach to step in and truly disarm Hizb’allah; instead, they would be another convenient shield for the Hizb’allah terrorists to hide behind, from whence they could effectively lob rockets into northern Israel at will – Hizb’allah’s ability to hit Haifa all but proves that unless the U.N. buffer comprised a very, very sizable portion of Lebanon, Israel would remain within range of the Katyushas. We’ve already seen the way in which international watchers respond to this situation in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank: they counsel “patience” and “tolerance” on Israel’s part and issue vague, half-hearted denunciations of the “cycle of violence”, conspicuously declining to condemn the people actually behind the violence: the genocidal crazies that comprise Israel’s neigbors and wish for nothing more than a Judenfrei Middle East. If the opinion of this American WASP Zionist blogger counts for anything, I would counsel Israel against accepting any such “offer” from the U.N. Heaven knows they don’t have the Israeli people’s best interests at heart when they talk of “stability”.

1 Comment

I am enjoying the control that the US is showing in not releasing any opinion on the events. Obviously “we” side with Israel, but we aren’t rushing in to stop them. Poor Lebanon, we told them that they couldn’t harbor terrorists and they went and harbored terrorists. Now they can deal with the pissed off Uber army that is Israel.