Posted on 06/11/2013 6:53:38 AM PDT by Pan_Yan
Austria has begun withdrawing some of its 378 UN peacekeepers from the demilitarised zone on the ceasefire line with Syria and the Israel-occupied Golan Heights.
Tuesday’s decision comes after opposition rebels briefly seized the Quneitra crossing late last week in an incident that injured two of the peacekeepers.
The crossing lies in the demilitarised zone on the Israel-Syria armistice line and is monitored by about 1,000 UN peacekeepers, including the Austrians.
Al Jazeera’s Sue Turton in the Golan Heights witnessed armoured personnel-carriers transporting the Austrians to the main UN base on the Israeli side of the ceasefire line.
She said that the troops were from the logistics unit, and not from the main body of the peacekeepers.
“There isn’t a large number of them but it’s a significant that they’ve already started to come out,” Turton said, adding that Austria was expected to remove the rest of its force later this month.
Japan and Croatia have also withdrawn their troops in recent months, as battles between the Syrian government and opposition forces spread into the ceasefire zone.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that troops from his country could replace the Austrians, but under the terms of the 1974 accord that created the force, members of the UN Security Council are not allowed to take part.
The best that one can hope for are UN Observers who get out of the way when the shooting starts.
As a result of the 1956 Suez Crisis UN observers were stationed in the Sinai peninsula between Egypt and Israel.
In 1967 Egypt's Nasser booted them out and of course, they went willingly like good little diddums that they are. This helped bring about the 1967 war.
The Syrians actually honored the 1967 and 1974 separation of forces agreements (from the 1973 October Yom Kippur war) along the Golan Heights until the last few years so you have to give those murderous Assad's some credit.
Southern Lebanon is another story and the UN has done little do keep things from escalating since 1978. It could not stop the PLO from attacking Israeli towns and villages so the Israelis invaded Lebanon in 1978 and again in 1982.
From 1982 to the present, the PLO was replaced by the Hizbollah. Again, International observers can do nothing to stop Hizbollah from bringing missiles into all of Southern Lebanon so again, we had the 2nd Lebanon war (Israel vs. Hizbollah) in 2006.
So folks, the bottom line is that Israel cannot RELY on any external body to ensure her safety.
Even Egypt (armed to the teeth by stupid US administrations since Carter) has unraveled and they the anti-US Muslim brotherhood in power there.
Can you blame the Israelis for constantly having to carry out “preemptive” strikes all the time?
Look at Syria, look at all the Muslim Arab nations in upheaval. Can the UN or anybody else enforce ANYTHING at all? Of course they can't!
“Austria begins withdrawal from Golan Heights”
And in other news, Bolivia has ended its siege of Kiev.
(sorry)
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