Shooting at aid workers and peacekeepers is both a longstanding policy of the Israeli Defense Forces and a perfect summation of the Israeli government’s broken value system. No one, not even noncombatants literally there to keep the peace, can get in the way of its war machine. If it has to trample or even kill international law and those tasked with enforcing it, so be it.
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said that two of its peacekeepers were injured today after an Israeli tank “fired its weapon toward an observation tower at UNIFIL’s headquarters in Naquora, directly hitting it and causing them to fall.” UNIFIL also noted that IDF soldiers fired on UN Position 1-31 in Labbouneh, “hitting the entrance to the bunker where peacekeepers were sheltering” and that “an IDF drone was observed flying inside the UN position up to the bunker entrance” while “yesterday, IDF soldiers deliberately fired at and disabled the position’s perimeter-monitoring cameras. They also deliberately fired on UNP 1-32A in Ras Naqoura.” UNIFIL said all of this was “a grave violation of international humanitarian law” by Israel.
This comes on the heels of the Irish Mirror publishing photographs showing an Israeli tank pointing its cannon at Irish UNIFIL peacekeepers.
O.o
As of this writing, neither Joe Biden nor Kamala Harris has said anything about this latest episode of Israeli aggression towards noncombatants, despite condemnations coming from their allies in Italy, France and Spain–but you can imagine if Hezbollah did the same thing, the United States would be all over it. This is a great example of how the international order is designed around American imperial interests, not some supposed egalitarian vision for humanity centered around unenforceable laws that the U.S. and Israel toss away the moment it becomes inconvenient. It’s just bloodthirsty imperial power all the way down.
The post-World War II order is being destroyed in front of our eyes, killed by its creator failing a simple A/B test by correctly supporting those under imperial assault in Ukraine while also providing the weaponry for the genocide of Gaza. The hypocrisy and self-interest inherent in those two contradictory positions is undeniable. As a senior G7 diplomat told the Financial Times, “We have definitely lost the battle in the Global South. All the work we have done with the Global South [over Ukraine] has been lost…Forget about rules, forget about world order. They won’t ever listen to us again.”
I wonder why.