The UN and Shaba Farms-->Fanning the Flames of WAR

The United Nations is supposed to be a peace making organization but in reality it finds new ways to incite war almost daily especially in the Middle East. The main weapon it uses to fan the flames of war is to single out Israel for everything bad that happens in the Middle East. By appeasing the Arab block and targeting Israel, the UN motivates the Palestinians and their Arab handlers to avoid making compromises in the "peace process."

Three examples have come to light in Just the past 24 hours:

1. The Human Rights Council has been rebuked by a UN Lawyer
2. United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOC) is blaming Israel for the rising tensions with Lebanon
3. The UN is set to announce that Sheba Farms is Lebanese not Syrian.

The Human Rights Council:
The United Nations Human Rights Council is known for its one sided anti-Israel agenda, and its failure to accept criticism. (see UN Rights Group Can't Handle The Truth). The latest critical analysis of the council comes from within the UN Ranks

(From JPOST) A United Nations legal expert harshly criticized his organization's recently-formed Human Rights Council on Tuesday, particularly its decision to permanently single out Israel as an item for debate.

"The council has been a huge disappointment," said UN Special Rapporteur Martin Scheinin of Finland in a conversation with The Jerusalem Post as he wrapped up an eight-day visit here. Officials in Israel have also been critical of the council for singling out the Jewish state.

Scheinin said that the council, which was created last year to replace the now defunct Human Rights Commission, had "repeated many of the mistakes for which people wanted to abolish" its predecessor.

He also said, "The council has created new problems by distracting attention from the protection of human rights to eternal discussions on its own procedures."

Scheinin, who is a former member of another UN monitoring body, the Human Rights Committee, blamed part of the problem on the speed with which the new council replaced the old commission.

"This was predictable," Scheinin said. He added that he still hoped there would be a turnaround in the council's attitude on Israel and in its ability to address human rights issues around the globe.

"I am not pessimistic in the sense that I would see this as eternal. I see it as a period of transition," said Scheinin. He added that there had been some improvements over the old Human Rights Commission, such as in the council's membership criteria. But I know that there are negative developments, and the agenda issue [which makes Israel a permanent issue of debate] that you are referring to is one of them, because it perpetrates certain patterns," he said.

The council was due to be reviewed by the UN General Assembly in four years, Scheinin said.

"The four other years are the real test, moving from institution building to real human rights work. It is time for the council to prove that it will be capable of addressing real human rights violation all over the world," Scheinin said.

He came to Israel on behalf of the Human Rights Council, to evaluate Israel's counterterrorism activities from the perspective of law and human rights.

He admitted that this mandate was asymmetrical in that his focus was on Israel and not on the Palestinian Authority, which he said, could be the subject of another visit.

This perpetual focus on trashing Israel has not only empowered the terrorist entities in the Middle East but has prevented the UN from focusing on real human rights violations in places such as Darfur, Iran and even Saudi Arabia.

UNDOC Israel/Lebanese Border
The UN is up to its old disingenuous tricks when it comes to the UNDOC and the UNIFIL "peace keeping" force (isn't that an oxymoron ?). It was just a few weeks ago that they discussed the fact that Syria was sending arms to Hezbollah. What did they used for proof? Pictures from the IAF flyovers that UNIFIL has been roundly criticizing. Today's Ynet takes a look at the UNIFIL Commander, Major-General Wolfgang Jilke, another oxymoron (without the oxy part)

"On the Syrian side I do not notice any unusual preparations," he says. "On the Israeli side, however, we see intensive activity… Israel's right to defend itself is self-understood, but its current activities do not contribute to the efforts to diminish the tensions in the region… The actions on Israel's side are not very helpful when it comes to calming the Syrians down."

The UNDOF commander is not worried by Syria's rearmament, although his soldiers would be the first victims should a war break out.

"We must remember that the antitank and antiaircraft missiles Syria is purchasing are not offensive weapons. Syria is renewing its weapon inventory like any other army in the world. I do not view this as something unusual," he says.

In light of the balance of power, Jilke estimates that "the chances the Syrians will surprise Israel are very low, and in any case, the Israelis have prepared and positioned themselves in a way that guarantees their advantage and deny the Syrians any gains."

UNDOF sources, who likened the Golan to a "crowded military camp", told Ynet of the poor state of Syrian forces. "Their trucks barely work, their tanks are rusty," sources said.

"In Syria, you see three soldiers with one shovel trying to prepare trenches in the hard rocks of the Heights. On the Israeli side, we see bulldozers massively altering the terrain," they explain.

According to some sources, the hard training schedule of the IDF has made it difficult for them to keep contact with Israeli commanders. "Your chief of staff works the officers day and night, they have almost no time to meet with us," UNDOF sources said.

So what I am hearing is Israel is patrolling ITS side of the fence, digging protective bunkers and training IDF officers. Well the first two items are just as defensive as he claims are the Syrian operations. As for the third---> Israeli officers were criticized for their conduct during last summer's war, it is nice to hear that they are in training.

UN is set to announce that Sheba Farms is Lebanese not Syrian

Despite the UN ruling that Israel completed its withdrawal from southern Lebanon, Hizballah and the Lebanese government insist that Israel still holds Lebanese territory in eastern Mount Dov, a 100-square-mile, largely uninhabited patch called Sheba Farms. This claim provides Hizballah with a pretext to continue its activities against Israel. Thus, after kidnapping three Israeli soldiers in that area, it announced that they were captured on Lebanese soil.

Israel, which has built a series of observation posts on strategic hilltops in the area captured the land from Syria; nevertheless, the Syrians have supported Hizballah's claim. According to the Washington Post, the controversy benefits each of the Arab parties. "For Syria, it means Hizballah can still be used to keep the Israelis off balance; for Lebanon, it provides a way to apply pressure over issues, like the return of Lebanese prisoners still held in Israeli jails. For Hezbollah, it is a reason to keep its militia armed and active, providing a ready new goal for a resistance movement that otherwise had nothing left to resist."

Part of the "Cease-Fire" agreement which ended the war last summer was that the UN would take a look at who owns Sheba farms. According to JPOST the UN is set to rule and as usual the wrong way.

The Sheba Farms, a small tract of land in the north of Israel, is Lebanese territory, according to an expert UN cartographer, Israel Radio reported Wednesday, quoting an unnamed official in Jerusalem.

An official UN statement on the issue was yet to be published.

The long-disputed farms were not returned to Lebanon during the 2000 pullout after Israel insisted the farms were claimed by Syria. Israel then said that only as part of a peace deal with Syria, which would potentially include returning part or all of the Golan Heights, would it consider returning the Sheba Farms to Syria.

The source said Israel rejected a request by the UN to be in control of the Sheba Farms until the dispute was resolved.

The cartographer, meanwhile, has moved to Jerusalem to continue his work, and a UN official denied that a demand from Israel to rescind control of the territory has been made.

Reportedly, Syria and Lebanon agreed that the Sheba Farms was Lebanese territory.

The confusion regarding the ownership of the farms dates back to the partition of the French mandate territory during the period between the two world wars that shaped the borders of Syria and Lebanon.

Israel was against any decisive UN statements regarding the area, fearing that a public admission that the territory was Lebanese would effectively render Israel's 2000 pullout from Lebanon incomplete and give Hizbullah justification to re-ignite a military confrontation with Israel.

The interesting part of this is that until Barak endangered Israel with the withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, Sheba farms was always part of Syria. Even afterward when Israel was trying to negotiate a peace deal with Syria---> one of the reasons it fell apart was the issue of who gets how much of Sheba farms. Over the past six plus years Sheba has gone from Syrian territory to a Hezbollah excuse to maintain its campaign of terrorism against Israel. Now that campaign is about to be legitimized by the UN.

Things don't always turn out the way we would like, jobs your are excited about sometimes turn out to be horrors, movies that other's have raved about turn out to be turkeys, but perhaps the best example can be seen on the world stage, where the United Nations an organization formed to create peace is in reality creating war. What a waste, what a shame!