Gatekeepers

IT

I heads the way you do with us!" That bitter complaint

was made to a United Nations official in Beirut last week by Yasser Arafat, chief of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Like Lebanese officials, Arafat was angered by the failure of UNIFIL, the 7,000-strong U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, to mount more than token resistance to the Israeli invasion. Declared a Western diplomat: null credibility was a bit weak before. Now it has suffered a real blow."

One of the mandates of UNIFIL was to prevent the introduction of armed personnel into areas under its control--a definition that clearly included the Israelis. No one could realistically expect the lightly armed U.N. forces to put up a spirited battle for long against the invaders, but UNIFIL might have inhibited Jerusalem somewhat if the U.N. had made it clear that the blue-bereted forces would offer some resistance, thus confronting the Begin government with the unpleasant prospect of having to fire on troops from peaceful nations like The

Netherlands and Ireland. Indeed, the U.N. forces could have hindered the Israelis by blocking highways, as a few units did.

The seven peace-keeping forces established by the U.N. since 1956 have had mixed success in trying to prevent the renewal of hostilities between old enemies. The violators of the truces, says Lieut. General William Callaghan, the Irish commander of the ill-fated UNIFIL in Lebanon, "are thumbing their noses at the U.N. and what it stands for." One notable breakdown: from 1956 until 1967, a force helped maintain an uneasy calm between Israel and Egypt, only to be ordered out of Egyptian territory by President Gamal Abdel Nasser shortly before the Six-Day War. One notable success: since 1964, U.N. troops have served as a buffer between the antagonistic Greek and Turkish populations on Cyprus.

Instead of U.N. troops, an independent, multinational force, including U.S. soldiers, was created to patrol the Sinai desert along the Egyptian-Israeli boundary. Similarly, Britain's Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher wants the U.S. to be included in any future peace-keeping force that might protect the Falkland Islands. The danger of offending a superpower may be a greater deterrent than the fear of upsetting the U.N.

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