UN Force ‘Totally Subject’ to Hezbollah, Erdogan’s Nemesis Dies, Meloni’s Migration Plan Hits a Snag

Readers of the Financial Times over the weekend were treated to an elegant tour d’horizon of the convulsions shaking Lebanon, a country long synonymous with Phoenicians and chaos. There is arguably a “re-engineering of the region” under way, that started with the recent Israeli incursion into southern Lebanon to root out Hezbollah terrorist encampments. The writer, a former adviser to the UN’s secretary-general, avers that Israel “has altered the balance of power, substantially crippling Hamas and Hezbollah,” but wonders less about this substantial change’s reality than its “durability.” The pace of change in the Middle East is startling even for the most seasoned observers of the region.One of the hottest topics is what to do about UN Resolution 1701, which among other things was supposed to see the disarmament of Hezbollah and keeping it at a remove from the “blue line” between Israel and Lebanon, starting in 2006, but in reality it never did either. This amounts to a spectacularly expensive failure of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, or UNIFIL, a peacekeeping mission under the umbrella of the UN’s Truce Supervision Organization, or UNTSO. On Sunday one of that group’s former soldiers told a Dutch news site what everyone already knew, namely that UNIFIL was “totally subject to Hezbollah.”As with other peacekeepers, the soldier’s remit included reporting violations of the resolution and it appears those violations were off the books. “We reported daily violations of resolution 1701 to our superiors, including in particular restrictions on our freedom of movement, and we were instructed to report all violations regardless of number. But nothing ever happened,” he said.”The soldier confessed that “aggressive” members of Hezbollah “simply blocked the road,” adding “we knew very well who decided things, especially in the Shiite cities. They didn’t want us to see what they were doing.”One thing they were doing was taking pictures of Israeli military installations and when that happened, the soldier said, “we withdrew and observed from a distance — we were simply instructed to do so.” In addition, some workers affiliated with UNIFIL and UNTSO were, according to the soldier’s testimony, “indoctrinated” into Hezbollah. Little wonder the soldier concluded, like many do in the region and elsewhere, that “the UN is incompetent.” Yet that hasn’t stopped countries who contribute to UNIFIL’s ranks, such as France and Italy, from jumping to the side of the discredited peacekeeping force, even as it remains a thorn in Israel’s side. North of Beirut, President Erdogan starts the week with one less thorn in his side. The Turkish foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, has confirmed the death at age 83 of Fetullah Gülen, the Turkish cleric whom Ankara accused of orchestrating a failed coup d’état in 2016.Mr. Gülen, the spiritual leader of the Gulen movement — called Hizmet in Turkey — was sometimes called Turkey’s second most powerful man but since 1999 had been living in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania.Hizmet ran hundreds of schools in Turkey and was once allied with Mr. Erdogan, but the Turkish president eventually called the Gulenists a “state within a state” and following its alleged role in the 2016 coup attempt Hizmet was declared a terrorist organization. At a press conference an unsentimental Mr. Fidan said that “Gülen’s death will not make us complacent. Our nation and state will continue to fight against this organization as they fight against all terrorist organizations.” No one can say that Mr. Fidan doesn’t have a robust and hypocritical heart, however. He wasted no time last week to offer his condolences to Hamas “officials” for the “martyrdom” of their slain terrorist mastermind, Yahya Sinwar. That is the kind of blistering tone-deafness that tends to relegate Turkey to the periphery of global affairs. As the turmoil in the Middle East that started with the Hamas massacre of Israelis just over a year ago continues, European countries are on alert for a spike in illegal immigrants, many of whom set off for Greece and Italy from the Turkish coast. Immigration is still at the center stage of debate in the European Union as Italy’s so-called return hub plan hits a snag. This is still being hailed by many as an innovative solution to managing flows of refugees and is a centerpiece of Prime Minister Meloni’s plan to tackle an ongoing crisis. However, last week a Rome immigration court ruled that the offshore detention in Albania of the first group of migrants was illegal. That decision prompted a rebuke from Ms. Meloni. Speaking from Beirut, where she was on an official visit, she said that “Italians have asked me to stop illegal immigration … I’m sorry that at a time when all of Europe is looking at something that Italy is trying to do, we’re trying, as always, to put spokes in the wheels.”At issue is who in Italy has the authority to determine what are “safe countries” — the countries of origin of those who would be detained in an agreed upon return hub like Albania. The magistrates think the courts should decide, while the Italian leader says that it is solely within the government’s competence. Ms. Meloni, no stranger to a showdown, was according to Italian news reports calling an emergency cabinet meeting on Monday.

UN Force ‘Totally Subject’ to Hezbollah, Erdogan’s Nemesis Dies, Meloni’s Migration Plan Hits a Snag

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