The UN in its current form must be a casualty of this horrid war
The UN, and Australia as a UN member, is complicit in not enforcing Resolution 1701. Hezbollah never disarmed; rather, it has grown freely.
I was peering through binoculars, squeezed into a concrete lookout with a half-dozen other people. It was surreal; a girl from Perth, recently moved to Sydney, finding herself on Israel’s northern border staring at a recently installed military watch tower a couple of hundred metres away inside Lebanon.
It was June last year, just a few months before Hamas terrorists showed the world that evil still existed, and in a form so horrific no sound mind could ever imagine.
Three months before Hezbollah, too, declared war on Israel’s northern border, firing the first of 10,000 rockets that displaced 100,000 Israelis and set the country on fire.
Back then, what I’ve described would have been unimaginable. Our friend in the tower stared back at us, manoeuvring occasionally to get a better look. Was he armed? Hard to tell, but he was carrying something.
That day’s briefing on the border tensions was being run by Lieutenant Colonel (Res) Sarit Zehavi. She lived locally. She was fierce, matter of fact, in a way that only Israelis could be. Her words seethed with anger as she questioned how these structures had been allowed to go up.
To my shame, I didn’t understand her anger. It’s their side of the fence, I thought, but for fear of embarrassing myself I didn’t ask.
Now I know. Ten thousand rockets later, a complicit, corrupt UN in the middle of it all, the world has been reminded. Eighteen years ago the UN passed Security Council Resolution 1701, which called for the immediate disarmament of Hezbollah (quaint, right?).
The UN has merrily ignored that resolution. Hezbollah never disarmed; rather, it has grown freely in strength and number, building complex military infrastructure such as tunnels and, yes, those towers, right under the nose of the UN and UNIFIL.
If, like me, you’d never heard of UNIFIL until this past week, join me back in 1978. It was the year I turned five. It was also the year UNIFIL was established. It stands for the UN Interim Force in Lebanon. Nothing says interim like an organisation that’s 46 years old but hey, that’s the UN we’ve come to know and loathe, the ultimate jobs-for-mates outfit, only its mates tend to be enemies of Western democracy.
UNIFIL was born after Israel initiated a ground offensive in southern Lebanon in response to what is known as the “coastal road massacre”. Thirty-five Israeli citizens were slaughtered by Palestinian terrorists who reached Israel via Lebanon’s southern border.
Everything old is new again. The Lebanese government did its best Sgt Schultz impersonation, claiming ignorance, so the UN created an interim force to bring peace to the border region.
You could argue it was successful in maintaining peace, if peace means looking the other way while Hezbollah continued to arm itself, prepare for war, construct an elaborate network of tunnels within spitting distance of UN bases. Tranquillity defined.
Since the Israel Defence Forces went back into southern Lebanon in recent weeks, 25 trails have been discovered so far with an estimated 700 weapon deposits in and around. All under the nose of the useless, hapless UNIFIL. This no doubt is the tip of an iceberg.
UNIFIL is a farce. Just as the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East is a farce. Just as the UN is a sham. In case you need reminding, in just one example of how badly UNRWA has been captured, Fathi al-Sharif, late head of the UNRWA teachers union in Lebanon, was a notable senior Hamas leader. UNRWA hasn’t bothered to deny it. Sections of Arabic media have gone further, describing him after his death in an Israeli precision strike as being the head of Hamas in Lebanon. And our tax dollars fund this nonsense.
Hezbollah happily has claimed ownership of dozens of bloody attacks, bombings, kidnappings and assassinations of Jews, Israelis, Americans and their allies for decades. There are far too many to list here, but the killing is targeted and motivated by one thing: a commitment to eradicate the state of Israel and the Jews. Hezbollah says as much in its 2009 manifesto.
How is the West so consistently dimwitted? Hamas, Hezbollah and their masters in Tehran never hide their intent. This is not a secret manifesto, written in code, hidden away and accessible to only a few. It’s a public document anyone can read. It says the quiet part out loud, screams it. We hate Jews, we want them dead and we will wipe Israel off the map.
In Australia, meanwhile, as with much of the West, the usual useful morons preen and vacillate, trying to avoid anything resembling moral clarity in a bid to hug it out. No, sometimes you need to take out the trash and say Australia’s social cohesion is not up for sale. Australia’s peaceful, multicultural, respectful communities will not allow the toxic evil of these foreign terror groups to bring their agendas to our streets.
Our federal government, which is so anxious not to harm its electoral prospects in a select number of seats, should consider that, broadly, Australian voters see through the BS, the posturing, the shillyshallying, the word salads we’ve had to endure.
Let me ask some simple questions of our Prime Minister and Foreign Minister. Let’s say Jakarta lobbed 10,000 rockets into Darwin in the space of a year, hellbent on wiping us out; how would you respond? Start with that.
Why haven’t we as a UN member (and the UN itself) demanded enforcement of Resolution 1701? How was Hezbollah allowed to beef up its arms and prepare for war? I want to know why Australia, which has been so quick to criticise Israel for defending itself, has not once criticised Hamas and Hezbollah for using civilians as human shields. For operating from schools and hospitals in humanitarian zones. Hamas openly boasts about using women and children, especially the elderly, as human shields. Again, it doesn’t hide it.
Still, the same members of our government and the revolting Greens, so quick to talk about international law, never speak of the fact hospitals lose their humanitarian protections when they are abused for military purposes. Welcome to article 19 of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. Taking hostages is also a violation of the Geneva Conventions. Hostages. Remember those?
This whole bloody conflict would have been over if the hostages had been released a year ago. How can it be that 13 innocent women and girls are still held by Hamas and the world seems to have forgotten? The world should be screaming for their release.
How is it the UN, and our government as a member, has said nothing of the numerous documented cases of Hamas stealing humanitarian aid at gunpoint and selling it to Gazans who have no other option?
I want answers to these questions. Real answers, not politics, before anyone in our government, which has never known threat or danger, dares to instruct Israel about how to defeat the evil at its doorstep. Before it says another word about the fantasy of a two-state solution.
History will judge our government poorly in its response to this conflict, of this I have no doubt. There have been and continue to be many casualties of this awful war. I hope the UN in its current form is one of them.
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