Criticism
UNIFIL has been criticised for being unable to stop the Israeli destruction of civilian buildings and intimidation of civilians during the 2006 invasion, as evidenced by the many destroyed buildings in South Lebanon, still not rebuilt by 2011. A former Israeli diplomat, Itamar Rabinovich, cricised the efficacy of the force saying "UNIFIL, I'm afraid, is a joke. They’ve been there for 26 years and since then, there have been so many skirmishes ." Prime Minister Ehud Olmert also said "We didn’t like very much UNIFIL which was very useless and very helpless. Look what happened. Did you hear of any particular efforts of the United Nations UNIFIL force in the south of Lebanon to prevent the attacks against Israel in the first place. So they were not useful and that is why we were unhappy with them."
Both Israel and Hezbollah have accused UNIFIL of bias. Israel again accused them of failing to prevent, and even collaborating with, Hezbollah in its replenishment of military power. Hezbollah, in turn, said "certain contingents" of UNIFIL are spying for, if not assisting, Israel.
Read more about this topic: United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“Good criticism is very rare and always precious.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Parents sometimes feel that if they don’t criticize their child, their child will never learn. Criticism doesn’t make people want to change; it makes them defensive.”
—Laurence Steinberg (20th century)
“The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art—and, by analogy, our own experience—more, rather than less, real to us. The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)