Israeli cow incursion sparks border controversy
Israel withdrew from south Lebanon in May 2000 to a border — called the Blue Line — demarcated by the UN; problem is, Israel erected a security fence along the border, and in several places that fence is to the south of the Blue Line; the question: Do Israeli cows grazing north of the fence but south of the Blue Line violate Lebanon’s sovereignty?
The Blue Line dividing Lebanon and Israel has been a flash point for conflict ever since the Israeli withdrawal in 2000 and is closely guarded by two national armies, thousands of UN troops and the ever-vigilant militant group Hezbollah.
Despite these elaborate security measures, it seems one group has been crossing the security fence daily and with impunity. Lebanese shepherds report Israeli cows are being driven into Lebanese territory to drink from the Baathail Lake, which they claim lies entirely within Lebanon. “Each Israeli cow drinks more than 40 of our goats put together,” shepherd Ismail Nasser, from the border village Kfar Shuba, told the Daily Star’s Mohammed Zaatari. “Why doesn’t UNIFIL consider this as a violation of the Blue Line?”
The Los Angeles Times’s Meris Lutz reports that the Blue Line was drawn in 2000 by the UN as a withdrawal marker for the Israeli army, but it has since been treated as a de facto border in the absence of a formal demarcation between the two warring countries. To complicate matters further, the Israeli security fence does not follow the Blue Line exactly, veering south in several contested areas.
Although Lebanese shepherds complain that the cows have been crossing through holes in the security fence, former senior UN adviser Timur Goksel told Babylon & Beyond that the Blue Line actually runs across the lake, which, he added, is really more like a pond. “There is no dispute according the UN line; this is an Israeli area,” Goksel said. “The UN doesn’t take on the problem because, as far as they are concerned, [the cows are] in Israel.”
Residents of Lebanese border towns are unlikely to let the issue rest, especially after a Lebanese teenager was shot and killed within Lebanese territory by Israeli soldiers just three years ago for allegedly approaching the border. According to the Daily Star article, the mayor of Kfar Shuba has been charged with submitting a formal complaint to UN forces regarding the cow incursion.
