Lebanon has faded from the headlines since the war launched by Hezbollah against Israel this past summer. But the UN setup in the area is breeding big trouble ahead — a classic case of the perfidies of UN peace deals. The latest word, posted on the UN web site, is that Major-General Alain Pellegrini, military leader of UNIFIL, the UN “peacekeeping” force in Lebanon, is calling indignantly for all parties to respect “in letter and spirit” UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which like the pile of UN resolutions before it is supposed to ensure peace.
But the UN news release lambastes only one party – denouncing overflights by Israel. There is no mention of Hezbollah’s gross violations of this latest peace deal; no mention of allegations that Hezbollah is rearming, courtesy of Syria and Iran. And despite the clear call in the preamble to Resolution 1701 for the unconditional release of the two Israeli soldiers whose kidnapping by Hezbollah in July kicked off the conflict, the UN appears entirely unbothered that Hezbollah is still refusing to release or even account for them. If that’s of no concern to UNIFIL’s Pellegrini, it ought to be a cause of outrage to Kofi Annan, who told us all in early September that he was sending a “facilitator” to bring the Israelis home. Annan claimed it would be more effective to keep the identity of his facilitator secret. The main effect of this has been, as usual at the UN, to bury an issue that evidently Annan would rather not deal with. Or perhaps in the excitement of lecturing well-heeled corporations on governance and buffing up his legacy before stepping down at the end of December, Annan has simply lost track of his non-facilitating facilitator. (This is, after all, the same Annan who would have us believe he lost track of his role as chief administrator of Oil-for-Food, and last year lost track of the whereabouts of New York-based former Oil-for-Food director Benon Sevan, until Sevan popped up out of reach of U.S. extradition on Cyprus).
If by now the UN, while funneling a torrent of taxpayer-funded resources into Lebanon, cannot produce the kidnapped Israelis — Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser — it’s time for Annan to produce his secret facilitator and explain in public exactly what has been going on. Why is the UN holding Israel to the terms of a phony peace deal, while giving the flagrant and inhumane abuses of “Lebanon-Hezbollah” (Kofi’s term) a free pass?
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1. Alex Reed:Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser, Eldad Regev. These three kidnapped Israeli soldiers have fallen out of time. Linear time is subjective: what I choose to include in my version, may not be in yours. The fate of these three young men has never figured for much in the timeline of the great world as chronicled by the MSM (they are too busy cutting deals for terrorist propaganda videos). Even the demonstration that took place on 20 September 2006 in calling for their release was never reported in the MSM, save for one article in the great New York Sun newspaper: (http://www.nysun.com/article/40061?page_no=1), and, I believe, a brief mention on Fox News, though the blogs were full of the news. Almost 40,000 people were at the rally right across from the UN, in Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza. Israeli Foreign Minister Livni spoke, US Ambassador John Bolton spoke, New York State Governor Pataki, Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel, and Professor Alan Dershowitz. All of them fallen out of time along with the Israeli soldiers. “It couldn’t have happened,” a poor benighted friend of mine actually said in complete seriousness, “it wasn’t in the (New York) Times (sic!).” In a way, however, the MSM is only following the lead of the United Nations, the moral conscience of the world, that august body charged with showing us all the way to higher, more civilized moral ground. For as Ms. Rosett, alone among major journalists, points out, the UN’s invisible mystery facilitator is nowhere in evidence — no doubt gone off trick or treating with the hoards of mystery Oil For Food conspirators who are still at large. Perhaps they are all to be found dunking for apples chez Paul Volcker…. A Hizbullah biggie was asked not long ago how negotiations for the release of Goldwasser and Regev were going with the secret UN facilitator. The surprised response was that Hizbullah had never yet been contacted about the matter by anyone from the UN! It makes you want to stand out on First Avenue and throw rocks!
Oct 30, 2006 - 3:44 pmAs for UNIFIL’s General Alain Pellegrini……. unmentioned by him or anyone from the UN, Hizbullah is rearmed by Iran and Syria beneath his nose, while he spends his time piffling to the press that he may just start firing on those nasty IDF overflights shortly. As Ms. Rosett correctly notes, this, “classic case of the perfidies of UN peace deals” is swiftly preparing a dark future for the region and the world at large. Such a deceitful peace used as a pretext for further injustice will never hold.