Turkey will also be contributing troops. An update on the foxes guarding the henhouse in southern Lebanon from Haaretz: “Indonesia says will send troops to Lebanon by end of Sept.”
JAKARTA, Indonesia – Indonesia said Saturday it will send up to 1,000 troops to southern Lebanon by the month’s end, after Israel dropped objections to its participation in the United Nations peacekeeping force.
“We are ready to send troops by the end of the month at the latest,” Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda told reporters while attending a conference on the resort island of Bali.
After talks that included UN peacekeeping officials, Israeli leaders reversed their stance that Indonesia should be barred because it does not reconize [sic] Israel, a UN official said. The official spoke anonymously because the negotiations were private.
A spokeswoman for Israel’s mission to the UN said she had not been told Israel had shifted its position and promised to check again.
UN officials and European diplomats have urged Muslim nations to make substantial offers for the force despite Israel’s refusal. Malaysia and Bangladesh have also offered troops.
[…]
The Turkish contribution to the expanded UN peacekeeping mission would include a naval task force to patrol the eastern Mediterranean and prevent arms smuggling.
Many Turks fear that their soldiers could end up facing hostile fire or could clash with their fellow Muslims. But Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered assurances that Turkish soldiers would not be disarming Hezbollah militants.
Just like the rest of the peacekeeping force.
According to the resolution, Turkish forces would also help train Lebanese army troops and provide sea and air transport in support of other national contingents in the UN force.
Europe, the United States and Israel are all eager to see peacekeepers from Muslim Turkey in Lebanon, in the hopes that strong Muslim participation would avoid any impression in Lebanon that the U.N. peacekeepers are primarily a Christian, European
force.
That would tempt the comparison of the peacekeepers with Crusaders, only they’d be doing nothing to defend anyone from jihad.