Mere Rhetoric: UNIFIL: We Suck. We Totally, Totally Suck.

When UNIFIL members are condescendingly deigning to address the Israeli public, they're full of patronizing bluster:

Here's the UNIFIL field commander talking about how well UNIFIL is doing its job... "In my area of operations there is no open hostile activity and we also do not see a rearmament happening," he said. "We are physically patrolling every corner of southern Lebanon.

But when they can't even stop what seems to be a fly by night group of thugs from bombing Israeli cities - well, they're... still full of patronizing bluster, but this time it's in the service of explaining how hard their job is:

Khaled Aref, a senior official with the mainstream Palestinian Fatah movement in the southern Lebanon refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh, said he had no knowledge of the group. He said Palestinians had agreed not to use south Lebanon to attack Israel because "we don't want to put more pressure on Lebanon."... The UNIFIL officer rejected criticism by the IDF that the peacekeeping force should have prevented the attack, claiming that even "100,000 peacekeepers were not capable of preventing a couple of people from firing a crude rocket."

No? What happened to physically patrolling every corner of south Lebanon? They sure sounded awful confident a couple weeks ago.

And for that matter - if they can't stop people from bombing Israel, then what exactly are they doing? Potential answers: (1) providing tens of thousands of human shields for Hezbollah (2) carelessly letting slip the occassional UN license plate, which Hezbollah then uses to lure in and kidnap Israeli soldiers.

References:
* Katyushas Hit Israel Two Days After UNIFIL Commander Promises Peace [MR]
* 'Hizbullah probing Katyusha attack' [JPost]
* UNIFIL Involvement in 2000 Kidnapping Not News. Involvement of UNIFIL Soldier Who Thought of Lebanon as "Second Homeland", However, Is. [MR]

Previously:
* UNIFIL Pretends Not To Know How Those Big Bombs Got To The Border
* UNIFIL Given Authorization To Keep Sucking
* France to Lead UNIFIL

Cross-posted to:
* The Astute Bloggers

About

Omri Ceren is a PhD student studying Rhetoric at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication. He lives in downtown Los Angeles.
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