UNITED NATIONS – When there was a recent Hezbollah attack that left two Israeli soldiers and a United Nations peace keeper dead, the international organization issued a statement.
The terse, three-sentence release, the result of a week of consultations with the U.N. Security Council, said, “Members of the Security Council condemned in the strongest terms the killing of a UNIFIL [U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon] Spanish peace keeper which occurred in the context of fire exchanges along the Blue Line on 28 January 2015.”
It didn’t mention Hezbollah.
And it didn’t even acknowledge the Israeli Defense Force soldiers who were killed and wounded.
The mission of the U.N. forces in Lebanon includes keeping Hezbollah weapons out of the area. But Hezbollah terrorists fired anti-tank missiles at an IDF patrol in the northern Mount Dov region of Lebanon.
Israeli forces responded and the U.N. peace keeper was killed in the ensuing crossfire. The Hezbollah attack came after two days of rocket and mortar fire from Syria into Israel. Spain said Israeli artillery was responsible for the death of its soldier assigned to the U.N. operation.
Israel’s ambassador to the U.N. Ron Prosor blasted the Security Council’s one-sided statement.
“The Security Council seems to think that some lives have more value than others. It’s barely a month since world leaders marched together to oppose radical extremism and affirm the sanctity of life. Now these same countries sit quietly as the world’s autocrats indulge a dangerous terrorist group.”
He continued, “Some members of the council seem to think that they can operate with utter impunity, providing Iran and Syria with air defense and pandering to the whims of internationally recognized terrorist groups.”
Associated Press reported Russia blocked a statement that condemned the Hezbollah attack as a violation of a U.N. resolution that ended the 2006 war in Lebanon, according to sources on the council.
Russia, a permanent member of the Security Council, built and maintained Syria’s air defense system to counter the Israeli air force.
Russia also has used its veto to prevent the U.N. from imposing an arms embargo on the Damascus regime. And Iran’s air defenses incorporate Russian and Chinese hardware as well as Western surface to air missiles pre-dating the 1979 revolution that overthrew the shah.
The U.N. is conducting an inquiry into the death of the Spanish peace keeper, but it seems unlikely to take on the failure of the U.N. mission to disarm Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
In other news, the U.N. commission investigating charges that Israel committed war crimes in Gaza in Operation Protective Edge in 2014 suffered a setback when its chairman resigned.
Professor William Schabas had been slammed for having an anti-Israel bias, though that did not disqualify him from being tasked with heading the U.N. inquiry.
Schabas stated in his resignation letter that the U.N. Human Rights Commission never asked about “any of my past statements and other activities concerning Palestine and Israel.”
Upon resigning, Schabas revealed that in fact he had worked as a paid consultant to the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Schabas has been replaced with former New York State Supreme Court Judge Mary McGowan Davis. She also chaired the U.N. committee that followed up on the U.N.’s Goldstone Report regarding civilian casualties in the 2008-2009 Gaza war Operation Cast Lead
The current commission is scheduled to release its report on March 23.
