Defence Forces Review 2008

Defence Forces Review 2008
The Irish battalion can remember today both moments of contentment and moments of
wretchedness. Among the latter must surely be the murder of Privates Burke and Murphy and
Corporal Morrow by Private McAleavy on 27 April 1981, all three men finished off on the
ground with a shot to the head. Among the former, I can only quote an Irish commandant who
has served for three tours in Lebanon. ‘The best times’ he said, ‘ are when you prevent the de
facto forces going into villages, when over a period of time you can sense the development of
normality in southern Lebanon, see the people in the fields and the kids going back to school.
That gives you a sense of achievement, that and taking the ‘mingy man’ for a ride’.
It would be nice to think we’ll see a happy ending in Lebanon, a fulfilment of what the
Americans like to call the ‘peace-process’, and an Israeli withdrawal from Golan and southern
Lebanon, a symbolic move by UNIFIL to the International frontier before its mission is
formally terminated. I would have to say, however, that I don’t think the current Israeli-
American peace is going to work. I don’t think Arafat will survive. I don’t believe the Israelis
will give back East Jerusalem, and I don’t see any reason to believe the Jewish settlements will
not remain in occupied Arab land. I don’t seen President Assad of Syria settling for anything
less than the whole of Syrian Golan returned to him, and I don’t think most Israelis want to
hand it all back. If they don’t – and there’s no peace with Syria – then there’s going to be not
peace in southern Lebanon. I do see the continued disenchantment of Muslims with a peace
which has no international guarantees and which so deeply favours Israel at the expense of
Arabs. And many of these Muslims are giving expression to their anger in southern Lebanon,
indeed inside the Irish battalions area of operations.
In the event, I think any peace will have to be recommenced on the basis of UN security
council resolution 242, 338 and 425. But that is going to take a long time. So I’ll make a sad
bet with you today, that in ten years’ time UNIFIL will still be in southern Lebanon and 95
Irish UN Infantry Battalion will be in Tibnin.
Ed i t o r’s No t e
This article in The Irish Sword in 1996 and is re-published here by kind permission of the author who has been a
good friend to Irish soldiers serving in the Middle East for many years. His prediction was almost completely correct.
UNIFIL remains deployed in Lebanon in 2008 and looks likely to continue its operations for a very long time to
come. And in 2006 Irish soldiers returned to Lebanon with the 34 Infantry Group to occupy a new headquarters on a
hill overlooking Ebel es Saqqi near Marjoune.
44