As Israel encounters stiffer than expected resistance to its attacks in Lebanon, and world outrage and condemnation of the mounting human toll rises, calls grow for a ceasefire followed by the deployment of a fresh peacekeeping force. The nature and prospects of a new mission will depend crucially on whether it is conceived and designed as a force to punish Israel for its aggression, reward Israel, or prevent attacks on Israel by Hezbollah.
Israel's U.N. ambassador is publicly contemptuous of the current U.N. peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, called the "U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon." He mockingly notes that "Interim in U.N. jargon is 28 years."
His condescension betrays an ignorance of history. The United Nations had been extremely reluctant to establish a peacekeeping force in that region in the circumstances of Israel's 1978 invasion of southern Lebanon. In the end the U.N. caved in to U.S. pressure because Washington wanted to rescue Israel from the ill-advised invasion, but inserted the word "interim" in the name as a compromise.
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