UNIFIL, the peacekeepers who watch but do not see

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) is one of those grand creations borne of diplomatic necessity – a force deployed in the wake of conflict to soothe the conscience of the international community. Established in 1978, it was supposed to be a neutral sentinel, a stabilizing presence in a region that has known more war than peace. But as it now stands, UNIFIL is an embarrassing testament to international impotence, a force stationed to maintain order while chaos festers unchecked under its very nose. Its mission, as defined by UN Resolution 1701, is to oversee the cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah. Yet, as anyone with even a passing knowledge of the situation knows, Hezbollah remains an ever-present menace, entrenched in southern Lebanon and bristling with weapons.

One might ask, what exactly is UNIFIL keeping the peace from? The answer, depressingly enough, is nothing at all. Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed terror group that holds sway over vast swathes of Lebanon, has rearmed, restructured, and solidified its position with utter impunity. And UNIFIL, in its feeble attempt to preserve the illusion of peace, has been reduced to little more than a bystander. It patrols the same roads, files the same reports, and issues the same muted protests about violations of its mandate, while Hezbollah continues to thumb its nose at both the UN and the Lebanese state.

Let us first consider the ostensible purpose of UNIFIL. Its mandate, we are told, is to ensure that southern Lebanon remains free from “hostile activity” and that Hezbollah disarm. Yet Hezbollah’s military infrastructure, now more sophisticated than ever, is thriving right under the noses of these blue-helmeted tourists. The group’s rocket arsenals are positioned within civilian areas – schools, hospitals, homes – while its operatives move freely, largely unconcerned by the sporadic and tepid checks carried out by UNIFIL forces.

It would be laughable if it were not so deadly serious. Hezbollah, of course, is not ignorant of the rules of this macabre game. The organization is well aware that UNIFIL lacks the authority to actually enforce its own mandate. The so-called “peacekeepers” have no power to search, seize, or detain. They merely observe and report. And so Hezbollah continues its preparations for the next war, preparing to drag Lebanon and Israel into another blood-soaked conflagration, while the men and women of UNIFIL stand idly by, recording the ominous developments with all the energy of a reluctant secretary taking minutes at a meeting.

Complicity through inaction

The UN’s insistence on “neutrality” in this situation is not a moral stance; it is, in fact, a form of complicity. Neutrality, after all, is only viable when the two sides are of equal moral standing. There is no such equality here. On one side, there is Israel, a democratic state, however imperfect, striving to protect its borders and its people from a terrorist militia openly dedicated to its destruction. On the other, there is Hezbollah, a proxy force for Iran, which uses Lebanon as its own personal playground for proxy warfare. To treat these two actors as if they are equally deserving of neutrality is not just misguided, it is morally bankrupt.

UNIFIL, in its current incarnation, is little more than a witness to Lebanon’s continuing subjugation by Hezbollah. Worse still, it provides the thinnest veneer of legitimacy to an untenable status quo. As Hezbollah’s influence in Lebanon grows, the Lebanese state shrinks, powerless to reclaim the sovereignty that Hezbollah has systematically eroded. The world, too, watches with folded arms. UNIFIL’s presence, far from deterring aggression, has become a sad parody of what peacekeeping is meant to achieve.

The future of UNIFIL, as the Times of Israel recently noted, is at a crossroads. The options, each disheartening in its own way, range from maintaining the current charade to withdrawing altogether and conceding the futility of the mission. Maintaining the status quo – keeping a bloated force on the ground, with no mandate to actually enforce its goals – merely perpetuates the lie that the international community is doing something. In truth, nothing is being done, and Hezbollah knows it.

Reducing UNIFIL’s presence is another possibility, though this option, too, is fraught with dangers. A reduced UNIFIL would be even less capable of monitoring Hezbollah’s activities, essentially granting the group unchallenged dominance in southern Lebanon. Yet the most radical option – expanding UNIFIL’s powers, allowing it to actually enforce the resolutions it is supposed to uphold – seems a distant fantasy. Lebanon, backed by Hezbollah and its Iranian patrons, would never accept it, and the UN’s reluctance to confront Hezbollah directly makes this little more than a pipe dream.

The final option, perhaps the most honest, would be for UNIFIL to withdraw entirely, leaving Lebanon to face the consequences of its own failed governance. This may sound drastic, but at least it would dispense with the fiction that the international community is preserving peace. In truth, there is no peace in southern Lebanon, only a pause in hostilities as Hezbollah continues its inexorable march toward another confrontation.

UNIFIL was always a fragile construct, built on a foundation of wishful thinking and international goodwill. But as Hezbollah grows ever bolder, and as Iran continues to use Lebanon as a staging ground for its regional ambitions, it is time to face reality. UNIFIL, in its current form, is worse than useless – it is an enabler of the very conflict it was designed to prevent.

If the international community truly wishes to prevent war, it must confront the uncomfortable truth: Hezbollah cannot be negotiated with, appeased, or contained by mere observation. Real peace in Lebanon can only be achieved when the cancer that is Hezbollah is addressed head-on. Until then, UNIFIL will continue to stand, impotent and irrelevant, as the storm gathers on Israel’s northern border once again.