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Reward UNIFIL’s Epic Failure and Corruption in Lebanon by Shutting it Down

UN peacekeeper (UNIFIL) vehicle drives in Bent Jbeil, after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took effect, southern Lebanon, Nov. 27, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Aziz Taher

JNS.org – The U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has one job: to ensure that no armed groups, including Hezbollah terrorists, operate in a restricted area of Southern Lebanon. Not only did UNIFIL fail to do this job—it facilitated Hezbollah’s rearming of the region by ignoring them and failing to raise red flags.

Indeed, when Hezbollah began attacking Israel from this restricted territory in October 2023, UNIFIL did nothing to stop them—nor did its bosses at the United Nations—for 13 long months. This failure is rivaled in dishonor and damage only by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

Now, instead of being condemned for its despicable performance, UNIFIL has been assigned an integral role in the new Israel-Lebanon ceasefire. Its “new” job will be to coordinate and monitor Hezbollah’s compliance in vacating Southern Lebanon, plus help dismantle any unauthorized military infrastructure and ensure that only Lebanese security forces operate in designated zones.

Sound familiar? That’s exactly what UNIFIL has proved incapable of doing. Instead of disarming Hezbollah, UNIFIL allowed it to build a massive terrorist infrastructure in Lebanon’s south.

Scandalously, the media seldom report on UNIFIL’s failures, preferring instead to cover Israel’s “attacks” on UNIFIL installations or otherwise threatening or displacing “innocent” Lebanese villagers. As does Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah terrorists quarter their military operations in towns and cities, often in the shadow of UNIFIL bases. This true story, of course, doesn’t match the media’s narrative of Israel being the bad actor.

In fact, when the Israel Defense Forces entered Southern Lebanon to destroy Hezbollah’s terrorist infrastructure—intending to ensure the safe return of 70,000 Israeli residents to their homes in Israel’s north—UNIFIL stood in the way, refusing to withdraw, despite pleas from Israeli leaders. Yet the media and U.N. members blamed Israel whenever UNIFIL sites or personnel were struck.

Given UNIFIL’s shameful failure to prevent Hezbollah from arming and occupying Southern Lebanon, plus UNIFIL’s renewed responsibility to rein in Hezbollah, last week’s ceasefire seems bound to collapse.

In short, UNIFIL is simply another multimillion-dollar boondoggle, like UNRWA, that needs dismantling … one more reason for a dramatic cut in U.N. funding by the United States.

Like other U.N. organizations, UNIFIL is well-financed and staffed but ineffective. Initially set up in 1978 to monitor Israel’s withdrawal from Southern Lebanon following an attack by the PLO, UNIFIL’s mandate was expanded following the 2006 Second Lebanon War, which Hezbollah began by invading Israel, killing eight soldiers and taking two hostages. Per U.N. Resolution 1701 in 2006, UNIFIL was to ensure that Southern Lebanon would be “an area free of any armed personnel, assets, and weapons other than those of the Government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL.”

Today, UNIFIL has 10,000 soldiers and a budget of $550 million, of which the United States pays one-third. Many of its soldiers come from hostile Muslim countries that have no relations with Israel. Others come from China, Ireland and Spain, which practice anti-Israel policies—hardly forces motivated to protect Jews from Muslim terrorists.

UNIFIL allowed Hezbollah to arm itself to the teeth—amassing a huge arsenal of more than 200,000 rockets and missiles. The Iranian-backed terrorist group planned to use Southern Lebanon as a base from which to launch an Oct. 7-style attack on Israel. Hezbollah placed its armed positions within sight of UNIFIL observation posts, yet the U.N. peacekeepers did nothing to stop them. UNIFIL failed to investigate even one of the more than 3,000 Hezbollah arms depots and other military sites targeted by Israel since October 2023.

UNIFIL served at Hezbollah’s pleasure. The terrorist group prohibited UNIFIL from patrolling broad swaths of territory and routinely harassed, assaulted, and even killed the force’s personnel. In an interview with a Danish news site, a former, unnamed U.N. soldier said UNIFIL was “completely at Hezbollah’s mercy” and that their ability to report anything was extremely limited because Hezbollah terrorists would confiscate their devices if they attempted to collect evidence.

But UNIFIL is not only incompetent, it is also corrupt. Captured Hezbollah terrorists recently testified that their group paid UNIFIL operatives for their cooperation, including the use of their outposts and security cameras to observe Israel’s military movements.

Hezbollah uses UNIFIL as human shields. The IDF recounted multiple incidents when Hezbollah’s fire came from areas next to UNIFIL posts, including one that killed two IDF soldiers. Israeli forces also discovered Hezbollah tunnel entrances adjacent to UNIFIL posts.

Mainstream media won’t report these travesties. Indeed, an NPR article titled “What is the U.N. peacekeeping force stationed in Lebanon?” fails to mention Hezbollah’s bribery of UNIFIL or its use of peacekeepers as human shields.

Israel tried to protect UNIFIL, only to be condemned. Israel’s leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, implored UNIFIL to leave their positions for their own safety, but these appeals fell on deaf ears. It was also the IDF’s policy during the war always to warn UNIFIL whenever Israel operated in their vicinity so they had the chance to move out of harm’s way.

Instead of praising Israel, however, for trying to protect UNIFIL, world leaders condemned it. Italy and France, for example, denounced Israel for firing on UNIFIL positions, calling its actions outrageous.

Originally published by Facts and Logic About the Middle East (FLAME).

The post Reward UNIFIL’s Epic Failure and Corruption in Lebanon by Shutting it Down first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Hungary Announces Withdrawal From ‘Political’ ICC as Netanyahu Visits Country, Defying Arrest Warrant

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban speaks to the media next to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in Budapest, Hungary, April 3, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Bernadett Szabo

Hungary on Thursday announced that it will withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC) as the country welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the capital city of Budapest, defying an ICC arrest warrant against him over allegations of war crimes in Gaza.

Despite Hungary’s status as a signatory of the Rome Statute, which established the ICC, Netanyahu was not taken into custody upon his arrival in Budapest. Instead, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban welcomed his Israeli counterpart with full military honors.

Netanyahu’s visit to Hungary, which is scheduled to last until Sunday, is his first trip to Europe since the ICC issued an arrest warrant against him last year. In February, he made his first foreign trip altogether since the ICC’s decision to the United States, where he met with US President Donald Trump.

As Orban and Netanyahu met to discuss regional developments and bilateral cooperation, Hungarian Minister Gergely Gulyas released a statement announcing that “the government will initiate the withdrawal procedure” from the ICC, which could take a year or more to complete.

After their meeting, Orban said he believes the ICC is “no longer an impartial court, not a court of law, but a political court.”

“I am convinced that this otherwise important international judicial forum has been degraded into a political tool, with which we cannot and do not want to engage,” Orban said during a press conference.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar praised Budapest’s decision to withdraw from the international court, highlighting the country’s “strong moral stance alongside Israel and the principles of justice and sovereignty.”

“I commend Hungary’s important decision to withdraw from the ICC,” Saar wrote in a post on X. “The so-called ‘International Criminal Court’ lost its moral authority after trampling the fundamental principles of international law in its zest for harming Israel’s right to self-defense.”

In November, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu, his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, and now-deceased Hamas terror leader Ibrahim al-Masri (better known as Mohammed Deif) for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict. The ICC said there were reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and Gallant were criminally responsible for starvation in Gaza and the persecution of Palestinians — charges vehemently denied by Israel, which until a recently imposed blockade had provided significant humanitarian aid into the enclave throughout the war. Israel also says it has gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties, despite Hamas’s widely acknowledged military strategy of embedding its terrorists within Gaza’s civilian population and commandeering civilian facilities like hospitals, schools, and mosques to run operations and direct attacks.

After the court issued the warrant against Netanyahu, Orban rejected the decision by inviting the Israeli leader to Budapest and accusing the court of “interfering in an ongoing conflict for political purposes.”

During Thursday’s news conference, Netanyahu commended Hungary’s withdrawal from the ICC, calling it a “bold and principled action” as “the first state that walks out of this corruption and this rottenness.”

“The ICC directs its actions against us fighting a just war with just means,” Netanyahu said. “I think [this decision will] be deeply appreciated, not only in Israel but in many, many countries around the world.”

After the Israeli leader was welcomed in Budapest, Hamas issued a statement calling on the Hungarian government to reverse its decision and extradite Netanyahu to the ICC to stand trial, calling the decision an “immoral stance that shows collusion with a war criminal who is running away from justice.”

In a post on X, Israel’s top diplomat reiterated his support for Hungary’s decision, arguing that Hamas’s statement only proves the country is taking the correct stance in this matter.

“Whoever needed further proof as to how justified, moral and necessary Hungary’s decision to withdraw from the ICC is: Hamas just condemned it,” Saar wrote.

“Hamas is defending the politicized and twisted so-called ‘International Criminal Court.’ And that’s the whole story.”

After the ICC’s decision to issue the warrants, several countries, including Hungary, Argentina, the Czech Republic, Romania, Poland, France, and Italy, have said they would not arrest Netanyahu if he visited.

US and Israeli officials issued blistering condemnations of the ICC move, decrying the court for drawing a moral equivalence between Israel’s democratically elected leaders and the heads of Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that launched the ongoing war in Gaza with its massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2o23.

The ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel as it is not a signatory to the Rome Statute. Other countries including the US have similarly not signed the ICC charter. However, the ICC has asserted jurisdiction by accepting “Palestine” as a signatory in 2015, despite no such state being recognized under international law.

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Jewish Individualism Will Not Work, But Solidarity Must

The Western Wall and Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

During the events of Purim, Haman approached King Xerxes I and said, “There is a certain race of people scattered through all the provinces of your empire who keep themselves separate from everyone else. Their laws are different from those of any other people, and they refuse to obey the laws of the king. So, it is not in the king’s interest to let them live.”

Queen Esther’s solidarity with her dispersed people in Persia, and her profound loyalty to her Jewish identity, saved them from Haman’s genocide and secured their self-defense when she courageously revealed her heritage to Xerxes I.

Today, Israeli Jews are once again fighting for their Jewish and Zionist survival. Since Oct. 7, 2023, this Jewish Armageddon has extended anew to Diaspora Jews, who have felt the past’s chilling draft. Antisemitism has reawakened, infecting non-Jews and Jews alike. Few people contribute to antisemitic attitudes more than “self-loathing” Jews. These “self-loathing” Jews, who cynically reveal only the negative aspects of their Jewishness, believe they can avoid antisemitic attacks if they condemn Israel. But they achieve only self-betrayal, gaining neither acceptance nor respect from those who hate all Jews. Jews are a nation of people who question, not people who answer.

Questions pervade the Jewish mind to such a degree that the adage, “two Jews, three opinions,” has become a common characteristic of Jewish identity. Moreover, the pursuit of an answer often serves as a springboard for further inquiry. For us, as Jews, the ultimate answer, akin to the messianic ideal, remains a distant, undefined future. This traditional perspective has granted Jews a sort of perpetual license to disagree. Jews enjoy engaging in debate with others, but they sometimes find particular delight in debating amongst themselves, which allows their intellects to roam and their sardonic wit to playfully engage with each other’s vulnerabilities, finding humor without causing offense.

This love for discourse, for questioning everything in sight, including Hashem himself, is by no means the only puzzle that makes up our Jewish identity. Another crucial element of our makeup is solidarity. In times of major upheavals, we have always stood together against the masses who rose against us. To our enemies, we Jews — atheists, nihilists, Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, Haredi, religious Zionists, non-religious Zionists, or undecided — look, taste, and feel the same. They care nothing for our ingrained liberalism. Our enemies seek cracks within our communities in order to break us apart and cause irreparable damage.

Years of relative peace and prosperity since the Holocaust have allowed us to gather again and engage in countless polemics over the fate of Israel, Jews, Judaism, and Zionism. However, we have failed to notice that we are at war again, and that our enemies eagerly exploit the divisions within a nation that comprises only 0.2% of the world’s population. These enemies — radical Islamists and progressive Western leftists who view Jews and Israel as white oppressors and colonizers — avidly listen to Jewish internal squabbles and criticisms of the Israeli government.

Despite the significant progress the Shin Bet and IDF have made in dismantling much of Hamas’s leadership and terrorist infrastructure, destroying its complex network of tunnels and command centers, and weakening Hezbollah, in addition to eliminating tens of thousands of Hamas terrorists, many Jews remain critical of, and disagree with, what Israel represents today. Aware of government problems, Israelis desire improvement. However, their rage and almost addictive pattern of anti-government protests have provided their adversaries with more opportunities to exploit perceived weaknesses.

This has resonated with some Jews worldwide. In New York, some Jewish intellectuals have defended “free-Palestine” and pro-Hamas protesters harassing Jewish students, invoking freedom of speech. They appear to have fallen prey to what they perceive as the lies of progressive anti-Zionist media, which systemically omits crucial facts about Israel. This includes the IDF’s efforts to minimize civilian casualties, and its role in eliminating thousands of Hamas terrorists and dismantling their terror network, which posed a significant threat to Israel (and innocent Palestinians themselves).

These “romantic” progressive Jews also forget that no matter how critical they are of that “brutal” IDF, it is still fighting on their behalf, because it is fighting on behalf of every Jew. Civilian deaths do occur, but they are either unfortunate incidents of war or, more often, a direct result of Hamas’s cruelty, as Hamas terrorists purposefully embed themselves within the civilian population. I once sat at dinner in Israel with a wealthy American Jewish couple who came on a sympathy tour a few months after Oct. 7. Nevertheless, the husband was convinced that the IDF was deliberately killing Palestinian children.

Those were wealthy, educated American Jews who thought they were charitable because they donated to Jewish causes, and therefore, believed they had the right to express their views on everything. This is where I, a Soviet Jew who grew up deprived of Judaism yet targeted by antisemitism, felt differently. To begin with, the husband was completely wrong. Second, in times of existential crisis, we, as Jewish people, must set aside our irresistible urge to disagree and criticize Israel on basic premises such as Israel’s fight to ensure Jews don’t live through a second genocide. The freedom to speak our minds has been ours for thousands of years. We conversed with Hashem, we obeyed Him, we sacrificed for Him, and then we quickly learned to disobey and question Him, even before we began arguing amongst ourselves.

Still, throughout our dotted and punctured history, it wasn’t our tongues or our disagreeable minds that kept our small nation together; it was our solidarity. In solidarity, we walked out of Egypt. In solidarity, tens of thousands of Eastern European Jews came to their promised land as early as the 1920s and began to build from nothing. In solidarity with his orphans, Dr. Janusz Korczak, despite being given the chance to save himself, chose to march with them, hand in hand, through the ghetto to the deportation point, on their way to Treblinka, where they met their final hour. In solidarity with other Jews across the Soviet Empire, Soviet Jews secretly tried to remember who they were, despite years of persecutions and purges.

In solidarity with their Soviet brethren, powerful American Jewry fought for Russian Jews to be able to emigrate to Israel and the United States. One of the main reasons our small nation has not disappeared into the abyss is because, in Diaspora, across oceans, and through impenetrable iron curtains, we never ceased to support one another. We knew we could not afford the luxury of neglecting our faith, traditions, and, most importantly, we could never abandon defending ourselves against our enemies.

Caesar’s “Divide et impera” (“Divide and Conquer”), though a cliché, is particularly relevant here. Seeing fractures within our communities, our enemies have intensified these divisions through incessant anti-Zionist and antisemitic propaganda and violence. Therefore, only as an undivided people, united by a single purpose — eradicating our enemies and protecting our promised land — do we stand a chance of survival. Perhaps only then will the day come when Jewish people gather on virtual street corners to argue and ask questions to which they seek no answers.

Anya Gillinson is an immigration lawyer and author of the new memoir Dreaming in Russian. She lives in New York City. More at www.anyagillinson.com.

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Trump Hits Israel With 17 Percent Tariffs; Israeli Officials Express Shock, Frustration

US President Donald Trump waves as he walks before departing for Florida from the South Lawn at the White House in Washington, DC, US, March 28, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

The United States will impose 17 percent tariffs on goods imported from Israel under a major new trade initiative that US President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday, sending shockwaves throughout the Jewish state as Israeli officials expressed frustration with the decision.

The duty on Israel is part of Trump’s newly unveiled sweeping set of tariffs in which the US will impose a 10 percent baseline tariff on all imports to the US and higher duties on some countries with which it has larger trade deficits. Washington decided on the 17-percent figure for Israel because it is half of the 33 percent tariffs that the White House says the Jewish state has put in place for some American products.

Israel sends over $22 billion worth of commodities to the US annually, including diamonds, medications, and electronic devices. Israeli officials reportedly expect the country’s robust high-tech sector to be spared because they believe the US tariffs will not be applied to services.

However, if the tariffs do apply to the high-tech sector, the implications could be profound.

“If the tariffs apply to software products as well, particularly Software as a Service (SaaS) – the main area of activity for many Israeli high-tech companies – this move could fundamentally alter how Israeli companies approach the American market and even discourage potential investors and customers,” Karin Mayer Rubinstein, CEO of Israel Advanced Technology Industries, told The Jerusalem Post.

“We are all going to feel this in our pockets,” Ron Tomer, president of the Manufacturers Association of Israel, told Israeli radio on Thursday, claiming that the American tariffs against the Jewish state are tantamount to “abandonment by a friend.”

Trump’s announcement came one day after Israel removed all tariffs on US goods. Israeli officials had hoped that dropping the tariffs would prevent the White House from placing its own tariffs on the Jewish state. 

“The removal of tariffs on American goods is another step … to open the market to competition, to diversify the economy, and to lower the cost of living,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a joint statement with Economy Minister Nir Barkat and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. 

Jerusalem will reportedly launch efforts to convince the Trump administration to reverse its decision. 

Smotrich said that the finance ministry is still “analyzing” the expected and potential impact of the impending tariffs on the country and will be starting “discussions” with key figures across various Israeli industries. 

Israel and the United States — the Jewish state’s largest trading partner — completed $34 billion in bilateral trade in 2024. Of that, about $22 billion came from exports from Israel to the US.

Trump announced his so-called “Liberation Day” on Wednesday, in which his administration unveiled an expansive slate of tariffs on international trade partners, citing a “lack of reciprocity in our bilateral trade relationships” that is “indicated by large and persistent annual US goods trade deficits.”

Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI), a US group advocating pro-Israel policies within the Democratic Party, slammed the Trump administration’s decision to levy tariffs against the Jewish state, arguing that the White House has fractured America’s relationship with arguably its closest ally. 

“President Trump made a grave error in slapping a higher tariff on Israel than on Turkey and even Iran, especially given the fact that Israel eliminated all tariffs on American goods,” DMFI President and CEO Mark Mellman said in a statement. 

Mellman argued that White House inadvertently helped the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement (BDS) against Israel advance some of its major goals. 

“The president’s action helps the BDS movement achieve one of its key goals — damaging the US-Israeli economic relationship,” he said. “This action undermines the longstanding and robust economic relationship between the United States and Israel, a relationship that has been built on trust, mutual benefit, and a commitment to free and fair trade.”

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