Peacekeeping On Arabisraeli Fronts

Lessons From The Sinai And Lebanon

Nathan A Pelcovits

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367282523
• eBook ISBN: 9781000314489
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Since 1948, the United Nations has sponsored virtually every third party peacekeeping mission on Arab· Israeli fronts. Three recent events, however, have been responsible for significantly altering the pattern of peacekeeping in the region: the Camp David accords, which, because they were opposed in the U.N. by the Soviet Union and most Arab nations, prevented U.N. sponsorship of a Sinai peacekeeping force; the June 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, during which the U.N. Interim Force was made to look ineffectual; and the Sabra-Shatila massacres in South Beirut three months later, which prompted the deployment of a multinational peacekeeping force. Dr.Pelcovits analyzes these events to answer the questions they raise about peacekeeping in the Middle East: What advantages are afforded by U.N. peacekeepers compared with non-U.N. missions? What net benefits are derived from American participation in a non-U.N. multinational operation? And how do they compare to the classic U.N. peacekeeping rationale of insulating disputed areas from super power confrontation? Finally, what determines the success of such operations-geopolitical circumstance or institutional affiliation?

1.
1982: Turning Point for Middle East Peacekeeping

FOR MORE THAN THIRTY YEARS the United Nations (U.N.) played a constructive and virtually exclusive role in third-party peacekeeping between Israel and its neighbors. Since 1948 military observers of the U.N. Truce Supervisory Organization (UNTSO), including U.S. officers, have monitored armistice lines, supervised ceasefire arrangements, and verified arms-limitation zones. The earliest authentic U.N. peacekeeping force—if intervention in Korea is regarded as a quasi-enforcement operation and as legitimating American “police action”—was the first U.N. Emergency Force (UNEF I), deployed in the aftermath of the Suez War of 1956 to supervise the ceasefire and withdrawal and then to patrol the Sinai and Gaza border areas. In fact, UNEF I became the prototype for U.N. peacekeeping and the paradigm by which Dag Hammarskjold codified the rulebook for U.N. peacekeeping. The prerequisites for successful peacekeeping were defined as consent and cooperation of the parties, troop contingents volunteered by participants other than permanent members, impartiality, and use of force by U.N. troops only in self-defense.

Many thought the inglorious departure of UNEF I in May 1967, when U Thant recalled the force at President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s behest, might have signaled the requiem for U.N. peacekeeping efforts in the region. But an unexpected sequel to the Yom Kippur War brought the second U.N. Emergency Force (UNEF II) to the Sinai with uncommon assignments—not only to monitor the disengagement, but to control a buffer zone and verify limitations on armed forces and armaments in designated zones. A parallel arrangement was devised for the Golan Heights. A hybrid disengagement observer force, UNDOF, continues to keep watch on that front to this day.

By and large, the United States took the lead in these ventures, as it had in the Congo (UNOC, 1960–64) and in the installation of the U.N. Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP, 1964-present). America mustered the political consensus, provided indispensable logistical support, paid a disproportionately large share of the costs, and became the foremost champion of a dominant managerial role for the U.N. secretary-general. The American dedication to U.N. peacekeeping stemmed from a perceived national interest in insulating disputed or disorderly Third World areas from Soviet encroachment without incurring the onus and costs of unilateralism. From the U.S. perspective, U.N. peacekeeping served as a device for sharing responsibilities and costs.

By the end of 1978—that is, around the time of Camp David—some 14,000 personnel were serving in U.N. forces and observer groups in the Middle East (UNTSO, UNEFII, and UNDOF), Cyprus and Kashmir (UNMOGIP). In addition, plans were under way for the creation of a 7,500-man U.N. Transitional Assistance Group (UNTAG) to supervise Namibian elections and transition to independence. The United States had taken the lead in urging U.N. peacekeeping involvement in all these cases, including Namibia. America also was committed to paying about a third of the cost of U.N. peacekeeping and, in effect, acted as “contributor of last resort.”¹

True, international peacekeeping (which in practice meant U.N. peacekeeping) was self-limiting. Its authority and effectiveness depended on sustaining the political consensus, attracting a cross-section of troop contributors, and persuading the warring parties to cooperate with the peacekeepers rather than renew the fighting. But it was useful in certain conflicts, notably in the Middle East, where the balance of national interest lay in stabilizing a crisis while diplomacy attempted to move the conflict toward peaceful settlement.

American leaders often felt frustrated by the cumbersome and wasteful U.N. operations, which were always vulnerable to Soviet troublemaking. Still, if the alternative was to go it alone, as President Kennedy instructed Assistant Secretary of State Harlan Cleveland, the United States would opt to support, for instance, the U.N. action in the Congo despite all the frustration and cost.² Also, when it became clear that NATO would not or could not take over the British security responsibilities in the Cyprus troubles of 1963–64, the United States pressed the United Nations to deploy UNFICYP with the mandate of preventing the recurrence of fighting and of helping restore law and order.

A departure from this pattern occurred in 1975 when Israel insisted on an American presence as the sine qua non for the interim Sinai agreement. Despite misgivings in Congress, a civilian U.S. Sinai Support Mission (SSM) was established to keep watch over entrances to the passes and to manage a tactical early-warning system that monitored Egyptian and Israeli surveillance stations lodged on the heights overlooking the Giddi Valley. (The United States also conducted aerial surveillance with the knowledge and consent of the parties.) But this peace-keeping watch did not supplant the United Nations; it served to complement the U.N. peacekeepers who patrolled a demilitarized buffer zone.³

The Camp David accords, too, assumed that the United Nations would monitor the withdrawal of Israel from the Sinai and stay on to police the permanent security arrangements. Arab rejection of Camp David meant the Soviets would not acquiesce to a continued U.N. role. So, it became clear early in 1981 that the U.N. peacekeeping option was unacceptable. In accordance with a presidential pledge at the time the treaty was negotiated, the United States undertook to “ensure the establishment and maintenance of an acceptable alternative multinational force.”

The American Commitment: The Creation of the MFO

In a protocol of August 1981, signed by the parties and witnessed by the United States, the Multinational Force & Observers (MFO) was established as a non-U.N. international organization to recruit and install in the Sinai a multinational force and corps of civilian observers to monitor the security arrangements of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty of March 26, 1979. A ten-nation, 2,500-man force was deployed in April 1982 as the Israelis relinquished their last holding in the Sinai: Colombia, Fiji, and the United States provided infantry battalions; Australia, France, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Uruguay contributed specialized units; and the United States also provided a logistical support unit and approximately forty personnel for the civilian observer unit. Expenses, which come to about $100 million a year, were split three ways by the United States, Egypt, and Israel.⁴

The mission of the MFO was to monitor and verify the security arrangements in Annex I of the peace treaty, which established limitations on men and arms permitted within the four zones—three in the Sinai and one in Israel along the international border. These were the duties that the U.N. force and observers had originally been expected to perform. In Zone A, nearest the canal (see map), Egypt was permitted one mechanical infantry division of up to a total of 22,000 personnel; in Zone B, four border battalions comprising up to 4,000 soldiers; and in the demilitarized Zone C, the treaty as amended by the protocol allowed only MFO military components, although Egypt may maintain civilian police units armed with light weapons. In Zone D, Israel was allowed up to four infantry battalions totaling not more than 4,000 personnel. Limits were also placed on the number and types of military equipment and arms allowed in each zone. Operationally, the peacekeepers were assigned four essential tasks: (I) operating checkpoints, reconnaissance patrols, and observation posts within Zone C and along the international boundary and line B; (2) periodic verification, not less than twice a month, of limitations on men and arms in the other three zones; (3) additional verification within forty-eight hours after receiving a request from either party; and (4) ensuring freedom of navigation through the Strait of Tiran in accordance with Article V of the treaty.⁵

This venture into non-U.N. peacekeeping was a historic departure in more ways than one, with profound implications for U.S. policy.

In the first place, America assumed a commitment to organize the force and to keep it operating. Apart from ensuring that the force was effective and met the expectations of the parties, the United States, in effect, assumed responsibility for sustaining the political consensus on the basis of which the nine other countries were persuaded to participate in the MFO.

Second, for the first time since the Korean War, American troops (not civilian technicians or air-reconnaisance crews) became the mainstay of a multinational presence in an area where trouble could break out. It was the first time such a commitment had been made under non-U.N. auspices.

The third novelty was the need to invent an institutional structure. While the director-general of the MFO drew on the peacekeeping experience of the United Nations, there existed neither a political

Maps courtesy U.S. Department of State

structure comparable to the Security Council nor an established institutional machinery. Moreover, operational procedures and a command structure had to be improvised.

The peacekeeping landscape was also altered by another event in 1982 when the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was swept aside and made to look ineffective during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June. In an unusually candid report, the new U.N. secretary-general, Javier Perez de Cuellar, lamented the spectacle of an almost unrelieved failure of the United Nations to carry out its major assignment to halt conflict and, specifically, to keep the peace in Lebanon.⁶

The third significant peacekeeping event of 1982 was the creation of the Multinational Force (MNF). Given Israeli opposition and distrust, U.N. observers could not be effectively deployed between the Israeli forces and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), so a multinational force (comprised of a U.S. Marine contingent and French and Italian units) was rapidly organized to monitor the evacuation of the PLO fighters from Beirut. The multinational force was expected to withdraw a week or two after the evacuation was complete, turn the port over to the Lebanese army, and depart. This, indeed, is what happened. But the force soon returned.

At the urgent request of President Amin Gemayel following the assassination of President-elect Bashir Gemayel and the massacres in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, the United States, again in partnership with France and Italy, formed a new multinational force to enable the Lebanese government to restore internal security in Beirut. The MNF’s Italian unit was given the specific function of protecting the Palestinian refugee camps. In an exchange of letters with the Beirut government, dated September 25, 1982, the United States pledged to deploy “temporarily” a force of about 1,200 to help “establish an environment which will permit the Lebanese armed forces to carry out their responsibilities in the Beirut area.” A marine amphibious unit was sent in because it was judged to have a less permanent cast than an army presence. The mission of the marines was described in somewhat less restrictive terms in President Reagan’s letter to Congress four days later: They would be needed for only a limited period to meet the requirements of the current situation, but this step would support the broader objective of “helping restore the territorial integrity, sovereignty, and political independence of Lebanon.”

Eventually it became clear that the United States had taken on a larger commitment: to keep American troops in Lebanon until the Beirut situation stabilized, the “full sovereignty” of the Lebanese government restored, the foreign forces withdrawn, and the Lebanese army rebuilt to the point where it could take over responsibility for maintaining order. By the end of 1982 the Gemayel government sought a U.S. commitment to increase the marine contingent, with parallel increases from France and Italy. The nature and duration of the peacekeeping mission were imperceptibly changing. But it remained undetermined where the expanded MNF would be deployed, and, as noted below, all planning on where and of what magnitude and in what manner any peacekeeping presence would operate was suspended while negotiations proceeded on effecting the withdrawal of all foreign forces—Israeli, Syrian, and PLO—from Lebanon.

The future of UNIFIL also remained uncertain; its term was renewed in October 1982 for three months and, the following January, for six months under the old mandate. (As noted below, further renewals extended the mandate to April 1984.) Questions were raised with regard to restructuring and perhaps expanding UNIFIL under a new mandate. A question was also posed as to whether a non-U.N. peacekeeping force should be considered or, for that matter, whether the peacekeeping task should be shared.

In the immediate aftermath of the invasion, planners in Washington projected an augmented UNIFIL, perhaps doubling the 7,000-man force, with an expanded mandate. This was thought to provide the best chance of an international force of sufficient size with international acceptability, although Israel’s distrust of UNIFIL rendered the proposal problematic. Others stressed that direct U.S. participation (beyond sponsorship) was essential to strengthen the deterrent value of any international presence, to reassure the Israelis and persuade them to withdraw, and to provide the necessary psychological assurance to the government of Lebanon. While negotiations for withdrawal proceeded, proposals were advanced to divide the peacekeeping tasks among the parties, a multinational force, and UNIFIL II, although it was not clear where such a mixed force would be deployed and what its mandate would be.

Peacekeeping and Geopolitics

The events of 1982 posed novel policy considerations regarding third-party peacekeeping on Arab-Israeli fronts. How does one compare the cost-benefits of U.N. and non-U.N. options, of American participation as against the classical rationale for peacekeeping—that is, keeping disputed areas insulated from superpower confrontation? Is the experience of the MFO idiosyncratic, or can certain features be transferred to Lebanon, the Golan, or the West Bank? Is there a future for UNIFIL in Lebanon?

Most of the officials, diplomats, newsmen, and academics to whom I posed these questions during a visit to the area (March-May 1983) shared the presumption that the MFO experience was distinctive and would not be readily adaptable to other fronts. The propitious circumstances on the Sinai front could not soon be expected elsewhere—the stability prevailing in both Egypt and Israel, and their shared interest in observing the treaty; the fact that the peacekeepers were there to ensure a settlement already attained rather than to stabilize a crisis; and the commitment undertaken by the United States. Still, they could not exclude the possibility that certain aspects of the MFO experience might hold lessons for the multinational force in Lebanon and for a Syrian-Israeli settlement.

The initial focus of this study was to assess the balance sheet of costs and benefits (political, institutional, financial) that could reasonably be expected from recourse to a non-U.N. force as compared with a U.N. peacekeeping force. This mainly involved examining the MFO’s origins and its first year of experience: How had the mandate, operating procedures, rules of engagement, logistical and financial challenges, command and control, etc., stood the test of time? What political and institutional problems had been encountered and overcome? What were the problems that might portend difficulties down the line?⁷

Clearly, the auspices under which a peacekeeping operation is undertaken—particularly whether it is launched and managed by the United Nations or by an autonomous organization—is far from irrelevant. Thus, in Lebanon the policy choice between extending the purview of UNIFIL (or UNTSO) to Beirut as against deploying the MNF in August and September 1982 was measurably affected by the auspices under which the peacekeepers would operate. The case is instructive. On August 1, 1982, the U.N. Security Council (S.C.) authorized the secretary-general (S.C. Resolution 516) to deploy U.N. observers to monitor the situation in Greater Beirut—then under siege by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF)—in a campaign to force the PLO fighters to leave. Three days later the Security Council pressed Israel to comply with this decision (S.C. Resolution 517), and on August 12 passed S.C. Resolution 518, which “demanded” that Israel cooperate fully in the effort to secure the “effective deployment of the United Nations observers.” It was not only Jerusalem’s general disaffection with the United Nations nor even the harsh language of the resolution that led to Israel’s refusal to cooperate with the UNTSO in Beirut. Rather, Israel doubted that General Erskine’s group of twenty-eight observers (newly constituted as Observer Group Lebanon) could effectively ensure PLO withdrawal, especially as the Security Council had merely “taken note” of the PLO’s “decision … to move the Palestinian armed forces from Beirut” in S.C. Resolution 517 of August 4. In Israel’s eyes, only an American-led multinational force (the first MNF) had the credibility to ensure the departure of the PLO fighters.

Similarly, following the Sabra-Shatila massacres, the Security Council authorized the secretary-general (S.C. Resolution 521, September 19, 1982) both to increase the number of U.N. observers in and around Beirut from ten to twenty, and to consult w...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Series Page
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• Abbreviations
• Preface
• Chapter 1. 1982: Turning Point for Middle East Peacekeeping
• Chapter 2. The Travails of UNIFIL: Mandate and Expectations
• Chapter 3. Impartiality and Effectiveness: Measuring Peacekeeping Success
• Chapter 4. The MNF in Search of a Mandate
• Chapter 5. Peacekeeping in Lebanon: The Three Sectors
• Chapter 6. The Multinational Force & Observers: Unique or Paradigm?
• Chapter 7. The MFO and the U.N. as Peacekeepers: Costs and Benefits
• Chapter 8. Third-Party Peacekeepers for the Golan and the West Bank?
• Notes
• Appendixes
• Index