UNIFIL’s Failure and the Lebanese Government’s Failure
Lebanon is roughly one-third Sunni Muslim, one-third Shia Muslim, and one-third Christian and Druze. Additionally, the country hosts a large population of refugees, most of whom are Sunni Muslim. Its government is tripartite, like that of Iraq. In Lebanon’s case, the president must be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim, and the speaker of parliament a Shia Muslim. According to a 1913 census, Christians made up 79.44% of the population, Druze made up 11.4% of the population, and Muslims only made up 9.15%. By the 1956 census, Christians dropped to 54.66% of the population, Druze dropped to 6.26%, and Muslim’s rose to 38.09%. By 2023, the estimates were 30.46% Christian, 5.5% Druze, and 64% Muslim. Sunni and Shia Muslims are fairly equally represented. Refugees are majority Sunni Muslims, most from Palestine and Syria. Thus, a country which once had an overwhelming majority of Christians, some Druze, and even fewer Muslims, has become a Muslim-majority population over the past century, with an equal number of Sunnis and Shias.
The Shias are concentrated in some urban
suburbs as well as in Southern Lebanon, which is of most concern to Israel.
Basically, they have been assembling a military buildup on Israel’s border for
decades.
Lebanon has a national army, but it has been eclipsed by the Iran-financed military buildup of the unified Shiite militia that is Hezbollah, which is widely recognized around the world as a terrorist group. This is simply unacceptable and was supposed to be remedied by UNIFIL. UNIFIL failed miserably in that regard as Hezbollah became the world’s largest non-state army, with vast quantities of weapons, including:
“…precision-guided munitions (PGMs), which is the first time such lethal weapons have been wielded by a non-state actor. Hezbollah also has hundreds of deadly drones in its arsenal.”
Hezbollah has rightly been accused of undermining Lebanon’s sovereignty, and they have been doing it for decades.
The United Nations’ Interim
Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was created in 1978 and accepted a mandate to
re-establish Lebanese sovereignty and manage an Israeli withdrawal from
Southern Lebanon. Now, nearly 50 years later, the situation is not better, but
much worse. UNIFIL clearly failed miserably in its objectives. Danielle
Greyman-Kennard writes in the Jerusalem Post:
“UNIFIL was created in 1978 after Israel’s Litani
operation against terrorism in southern Lebanon. At the time it was
established, UNIFIL’s mission basically was to monitor the Israeli withdrawal
and help Lebanon reestablish its authority.”
Finding vast military at
Beauford Castle, an underground site just a few kilometers from Israel’s
border, the IDF recently re-captured it again. It was an IDF post during the
Israeli operation in the war in 1982. Hezbollah’s tunnel system under the castle
included operating rooms and numerous weapons. She writes:
“What was found in the tunnels near the castle appears
to indicate a large engineering project and a significant investment. Reports
also indicate this system of tunnels would have taken many years to complete.
The tunnels had to be cut into rock, not dug out from the sand, as in Gaza.
This was complex.”
Regarding the history and
what was supposed to happen with UNIFIL’s help, she writes:
“The Lebanese state, however, was supposed to be rebuilt
after the Taif Agreement in 1989 that ended the civil war. When Israel left
southern Lebanon in 2000, chronicled in the 2007 film, the Lebanese government
was supposed to return. A key part of Lebanon’s return was supposed to be
linked to the UNIFIL deployment in southern Lebanon.”
UNIFIL had forces from many
countries, some Muslim, many not. UNIFIL was supposed to be a major part of the
fix, but that did not happen. Hezbollah managed to continue its militantism
despite the presence of these UN peacekeepers. In 2024, Hezbollah began
attacking Israel daily on October 8, 2023, in response to its operations in
Gaza, which were in response to the brutal, unprovoked attack on mainly unarmed
Israeli civilians, a day earlier. Once again, UNIFIL was revealed as powerless
to stop Hezbollah. UNIFIL had ample opportunity to set up a post at Beaufort
Castle, but did not. Why won’t or why can’t Lebanon control its own territory?
A common answer is that it wants to avoid a civil war. She concludes:
“It isn’t like Hezbollah was running away from UNIFIL
and the LAF in some complex cat-and-mouse game. It was blasting tunnels into
mountains under a major fortress that everyone knew about. This wasn’t in some
hidden swamp somewhere that no one can find on a map.”
“The question now is whether Lebanon can finally step up
and control its own territory. The Lebanese people have suffered from the
failure of UNIFIL and Lebanon to do their jobs. Numerous villages have now been
destroyed.”
“All the foot-dragging didn’t help the Lebanese; it
ruined their lives. There is now an opportunity to avoid entering another cycle
that began decades ago in the 1970s.”
It is great that Israel is
having peace talks with the Lebanese government, but Hezbollah is not a party
to those talks and openly rejects them.
Shiite activists in Lebanon
who oppose Hezbollah were recently arrested and detained as possible Israeli
spies. Fortunately, they were released. This can only happen in a government in
which Hezbollah has a significant number of backers, unfortunately. Shiite
discontent with Hezbollah is surely needed.
UNRWA’s Failure in Gaza and Complicity with Hamas
The U.N. Relief and Works
Agency (UNRWA), the U.N. organization for Palestinian refugees, has been found
to have been absolutely complicit with Hamas in several ways. Some UNRWA staff
were Hamas operatives and participated in the October 7 massacre. Tunnels and
military infrastructure were built under UNRWA schools, and teaching material
at schools routinely glorified jihadism and terrorism. UNRWA members celebrated
the October 7 attack.
In November 2023, just after
the attacks, Fox News reported:
“IMPACT-se CEO Marcus Sheff said, "Time and again
we have warned that UNRWA staff and school materials have created a breeding
ground for terror. Our worst fears have now been tragically realized with the
horrific attack on Oct. 7. All governments that fund UNWRA, including the
United States, must urgently review and concurrently freeze financial support
to UNRWA to help ensure that another generation is not lost to the evils of
hatred and incitement."
“IMPACT-se wrote that the UNRWA material reflects
"years of hate-teaching in these schools." One telling example for
IMPACT-se is students study textbooks in UNRWA schools in which the terrorists
al-Walid and Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, whose names Hamas used for its military
wing, are glorified as "heroes" of jihad in a Grade 5 Arabic reading
comprehension exercise titled "Hooray for the Heroes."
Trump pulled U.S. funding for
UNRWA in 2018, but Biden restored it.
“Former President Donald Trump pulled the plug on U.S.
UNRWA funding in 2018. The Biden administration swiftly restored the money to
UNRWA and in July 2022 announced it had given more money to UNRWA than any
other organization in the world.”
Thus, we were funding UNRWA
at a high level when the attack occurred. We should not fund education that
teaches and glorifies jihadism and terrorism.
"It is statistically probable that the majority of
the estimated 3,000 terrorists who committed acts of murder, rape, beheading,
and abduction of Israelis on October 7 graduated from UNRWA’s education program
and schools, as UNRWA operates the majority of the schools in Gaza," it
alleges.”
One commenter noted that the
U.S. does not fund pro-Taliban education or pro-Islamic State education, and it
should fund pro-Hamas education.
“U.S. officials have increasingly called on U.N. member
states to defund UNRWA after decades of concerns about its school materials
promoting terror, the presence of Hamas tunnels beneath UNRWA schools and
charges that staff members participated in the Hamas terrorist attacks of Oct.
7 against Israel.”
The UN has done its own
investigations and found there was complicity with Hamas in a number of cases,
and 108 members were referred for exclusion from working there. More recently,
it has been noted that 1500 members of UNRWA are currently under investigation.
It was noted in 2023:
“UNRWA maintains a staff of over 13,000 just in Gaza to
serve the territory’s 2.2 million Palestinians. Meanwhile, the UNHCR serves
more than nearly 90 million people worldwide with under 19,000 staff members.”
This is not rocket science.
The U.S. or any moral modern country should not pay the salaries of terrorists.
The UN’s Extraordinary Bias Against Israel
The configuration of the UN
as a body for all countries, despite the despicable actions of some countries,
can allow those “bad actors” to have influence, and this is generally not good
for anyone. Those countries, and some other Muslim countries, but also many
non-Muslim countries, are responsible for the extraordinary anti-Israel bias of
the UN. The UN’s structure allows authoritarian countries to form blocks that
can and do affect UN decisions. The actions of China, Russia, Iran, and North
Korea are often directed against the U.S. and democracies in general.
A July 2025 article in Israel
Fact Check asks this question of the UN:
“Why do 50% of its so-called Human Rights resolutions
target one nation?”
The UN passes more human
rights resolutions against Israel than all other countries combined. In fact,
since 2015, if one counts all UN resolutions, not just human rights
resolutions, Israel has been targeted more than twice that of all other
countries combined. This is not something new either. It has been recognized
for a long time. According to an article in the Mid East Journal:
“In 1998, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan admitted that
the UN behavior gives an impression of bias. “It sometimes seems as if the
United Nations serves all the world’s people but one: the Jews,” he stated.
What did the UN do about the
October 7 massacre? It waited until Israel responded, calling for a ceasefire,
but failed to condemn the initial attack, nor did it demand the release of the
hostages:
“On October 27, 2023, the General Assembly (GA) adopted
an Arab-drafted resolution that called for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.
The resolution committee rejected amendments to condemn the terrorist attacks
by Hamas and to demand the immediate release of all hostages held in Gaza.”
Jonathan Schanzer, director
of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, noted the UN’s tepid response
to the Hamas attack in a November 2023 article. He pointed out that some UN
officials, even Secretary General Guterres, sought to justify the attack, or at
least downplay it as the desperate attempt of a long-oppressed people. He
points out:
“The UN doesn’t recognize Hamas as a terrorist
organization. Nor does it recognize Hezbollah either. That means UN resources
can be and regularly are provided to members of those terrorist groups.”
“Most UN officials commenting on 10/7 tried to equate
Hamas’s butchering of innocent civilians and Israel’s legitimate military
response. In doing so, the UN revealed the extent of its failure.”
I will note that I don’t
think there is a problem with criticizing Israel. Its military responses can be
heavy-handed, and it often allows more collateral damage and civilian deaths
than it should. I disagree with some of its policies regarding settlers in the
West Bank. Thus, some of the resolutions against Israel are probably justified.
However, most are not. Israel does not seek genocide against Palestinians, but
Hamas clearly does seek genocide against Israel. It is its clearly stated goal
and the reason for its very existence.
In conclusion, I give the UN an F for
clearly mismanaging and exacerbating the situation in the region. I am in favor
of the UN's humanitarian work in general, but not in these cases.
References:
Hezbollah’s
rock-cut tunnels under Beaufort Castle expose decades of UNIFIL failure. Seth
J. Frantzman. Jerusalem Post. July 13, 2026. Hezbollah’s rock-cut tunnels under
Beaufort Castle expose decades of UNIFIL failure
Trump
administration probes UNRWA over alleged employment of 1,500 terrorists. Beth
Bailey. Fox News. July 13, 2026. Trump administration probes UNRWA
over alleged employment of 1,500 terrorists
UN
Anti-Israel Bias: Why do 50% of its so-called Human Rights resolutions target
one nation? Updated July 14, 2025. UN Anti-Israel Bias: Why do 50% of
its so-called Human Rights resolutions target one nation? - Israel Fact Check
UN
Bias Against Israel: Fact or Fiction? Mid East Journal January 7. 2024. UN Bias Against Israel: Fact or
Fiction?
United
Nations’ Bigotry Towards Israel: UNRWA Anti-Semitism Poisons Palestinian Youth.
Foundation for Defense of Democracies. November 8, 2023. United Nations' Bigotry Towards
Israel: UNRWA Anti-semitism Poisons Palestinian Youth
Religion
in Lebanon. Wikipedia. Religion in Lebanon - Wikipedia
Lebanese
activists face judicial persecution in Lebanon after criticizing Hezbollah. Danielle
Greyman-Kennard. Jerusalem Post. July 14, 2026. Lebanese activists face judicial
persecution in Lebanon after criticizing Hezbollah
Employees
at US-funded United Nations agency celebrated Hamas terror massacre: report: 100
Hamas terrorists who attacked Israel likely educated at UNRWA schools in Gaza,
per IMPACT-se. Benjamin Weinthal. Fox News. November 7, 2023. Employees
at US-funded United Nations agency celebrated Hamas terror massacre: report |
Fox News
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