AP story reported on Yahoo this morning:
BEIRUT (Reuters) – Villagers threw stones at U.N. peacekeepers in southern Lebanon on Saturday, seizing their weapons and wounding their patrol leader, a U.N. spokesman said, in the latest confrontation near the Israeli border.
If you care about having peace in the Middle East someday, you should care about this story.
According to the story, it seems likely that Hezbollah members have encouraged and taken part in the confrontations. The demonstrators blocked a U.N. armored personnel carrier and light armored vehicle and started pelting the vehicles with stones. The patrol was surrounded by a crowd of people who deflated the vehicle tires, broke the vehicle windows and tried to seized their mounted guns.
There were several similar incidents in southern Lebanon last week. Some of these demonstrations were organized, not merely spontaneous uprisings.
The 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war reached a UN-brokered cease fire through the adoption of UN Resolution 1701. UN Resolution 1701 calls for a stop to arms smuggling and bans all unauthorized weapons between the Litani River and the Blue Line, the U.N.-monitored border between Israel and Lebanon.
Although the UNIFIL forces have been regularly criticized for doing too little to stop Hezbollah from building up additional weapons, it seems pretty clear that any UNIFIL activity is getting Hezbollah upset.
Any peace deal between Israel, the Palestinians and their neighbors is likely to involve some international peacekeeping force. The Palestinian Authority has even suggested that as part of a solution with Israel.
If you want peace, it's essential that you care that the peacekeepers are allowed to do their jobs without being attacked.
I'm curious what the dkos community thinks about this situation, and what you think the world's response should be.