U.N.'s Ban Veers From Standard Line on Israel

By BENNY AVNI, Staff Reporter of the Sun
February 9, 2007

UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Security Council yesterday failed to endorse an Israeli characterization of a skirmish Wednesday night on the Israeli-Lebanese border, though Secretary-General Ban confirmed it.

In a statement based on observations from the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, Mr. Ban said the Lebanese armed forces fired the initial shot in the first armed clash on the border since the war with Hezbollah last August. Mr. Ban also indicated that their target, an Israel Defense Force bulldozer, was operating inside Israel's territory.

But the Security Council, which later issued its own statement, made no reference to the secretary-general's comments. Instead, it reverted to familiar U.N. language and appealed to "all parties" to respect the cease-fire.

Several diplomats said Mr. Ban's statement, read out by his spokeswoman, Michele Montas, was a departure from the style of his predecessor, Kofi Annan, who they said obscured the facts at times in an effort to appeal to all sides of every issue.

Strong opposition from the Arab member of the council, Qatar, as well as Russia and South Africa, prevented the council from adding the facts relayed by Mr. Ban to its statement, council diplomats told The New York Sun. "We wanted to pass a statement in a timely fashion, and had we started arguing about who started the skirmish, or who violated the cease-fire, it would be impossible to do so," a European council member who declined to speak on the record said.

At the beginning of the year, around the same time Mr. Ban took over at the United Nations, Major General Claudio Graziano, an Italian, replaced the French commander of UNIFIL, Major General Alain Pellegrini.

IDF commanders cheered the move, Israeli press outlets reported. General Pellegrini, Israeli officials said, often sided with Hezbollah and was hostile to Israel. General Graziano is considered a welcome change, and Israelis are seeking a more balanced approach, one that may have been reflected in Mr. Ban's statement yesterday.

Lebanese military commanders said that before the shooting began on Wednesday, Israeli bulldozers crossed the border, moving 22 yards into Lebanon's territory near the village of Maroun el-Rass.

But the Israeli press, quoting IDF sources, said the bulldozers came under fire from the Lebanese side after crossing a "technical fence" within Israel's territory, several yards from the international border, known as the "blue line."

The late-night bulldozing operation, near the Israeli village of Avivim, was aimed at clearing brush to deter Hezbollah from burying roadside bombs. Israeli forces discovered and detonated such bombs near Avivim on the Lebanese side of the border earlier this week.

Yesterday, Mr. Ban confirmed Israel's version of events. "The exchange of fire, which was initiated by the LAF after an IDF bulldozer crossed the technical fence in an apparent attempt to clear the area between the technical fence and the blue line of mines, constitutes a breach of the cessation of hostilities," he said in the statement.

But the Security Council did not mention those details in its statement, saying instead that its members are "looking forward to ascertaining all the facts." The council then "appealed to all parties to respect the blue line in its entirety," and called for "utmost restraint" from "all parties."

The council often bases its own declarations on statements from the secretary-general, but that proved impossible yesterday. Mr. Ban did not "say who started what, so that's why we thought it's a very incomplete statement," the South African ambassador to the United Nations, Dumisani Kumalo, told reporters.

An Israeli official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was unauthorized to speak on the record said the statements Mr. Ban has issued so far on Israeli-Arab issues have been "very different" from those of Mr. Annan. As an example, he cited a statement Mr. Ban made immediately after a deadly suicide bombing in the southern city of Eilat on January 29. The secretary-general made no attempt at "balance," the official said, and did not demand that Israel take measures to help the Palestinian Authority in the aftermath of the bombing.