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Comment by rendall | Hacker News Reader

Israel has a pretty compelling argument. I wish the article had mentioned it. That they did not leads me to believe the article is biased.

The argument goes like this: UNIFIL had one mission, which was to disarm and disband any military force in Lebanon south of the Litani River that was not Lebanon's army. UNIFIL has not done this. This is known and well-documented. Hezbollah regularly fires rockets and missiles into Israel. Hezbollah has built bunkers within sight of UNIFILs own posts. If true, this is not only a clear, systemic failure of their mission, but such an egregious failure that their presence is actually dangerous to civilians.

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> UNIFIL has not done this.

...and therefore they deserve to be shot at, maimed or killed?

>> UNIFIL has not done this.

>...and therefore they deserve to be shot at, maimed or killed?

You quoted the wrong part. Here, let me fix that for you.

>> If true, this is not only a clear, systemic failure of their mission, but such an egregious failure that their presence is actually dangerous to civilians.

>...and therefore they deserve to be shot at, maimed or killed?

There. That's better. Now I can properly answer.

In my opinion, no, of course not. However, in light of their failure to accomplish their mission, and actually hindering peace, Israel asked them to leave. They did not. They have chosen to remain in an active war zone. So, "deserve" doesn't really come into play.

> However, in light of their failure to accomplish their mission, and actually hindering peace, Israel asked them to leave.

Asked them to leave a whole other country, that is not Israel or Israeli territory. Would this be reasonable to you if it were Ethiopia asking UN troops to leave Eritrean territory for failure to keep the peace, while there are active skirmishes between the 2 countries? This is an astounding ask for any country, and an affront to any semblence of a "rules-based order"

You're not addressing the most difficult point. The UN has failed spectacularly in their one single mission while giving cover to terrorists. You might disagree with Israel's response, but the scandal is with the UN. How is it possible that Hezbollah operated unimpeded for decades (e.g that Hezbollah dug a bunker tunnel mere 100 meters from a UN observation post)?

Frankly, I think Israel's reaction is way overdue. 40 years of Hezbollah firing rockets while the "peace keepers" sit on their thumbs. Facilitate terrorism, get the stick.

I suppose, by the same measure, that you approve of Israel's recent directive to the residents of northern Gaza to leave, for the nth time, or be considered a target?

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