The United Nations was instrumental in the creation and recognition of the state of Israel some seventy-six years ago.

But virtually ever since, animosity between the preeminent global body and the tiny Middle Eastern country has steadily grown, escalating now as U.N. forces have been drawn into Israel’s attacks in southern Lebanon.

At least four members of the 50-nation U.N. peacekeeping force, known as UNIFIL, assigned to Lebanon in 1978 to monitor the border with Israel, were injured in recent days by Israeli fire.

Israel says it was targeting the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant and political faction.

But one incident involved Israeli tanks crashing through a gate at the UNIFIL compound in southern Lebanon, leaving numerous peacekeepers injured.

In another, Israeli fire generated a toxic smoke that sickened scores of peacekeepers, the U.N. said.

The Biden administration angrily condemned the actions harming U.N. forces. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was unapologetic, saying peacekeepers should evacuate the region, essentially abandoning their U.N.-mandated mission.

That dispute comes amid other points of escalation in the multiple conflicts Israel is battling.

Four Israeli soldiers were killed late Sunday, and many more wounded, at an army training base in northern Israel. Hezbollah claimed responsibility for one of the deadliest domestic attacks ever on Israeli military personnel. It involved a Hezbollah drone that managed to evade Israel’s vaunted air-defense system and plow into a mess hall at the base.

“We need to investigate it, learn the details and quickly and effectively implement the lessons [learned],” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Monday after visiting the site.

The drone strike followed a Pentagon announcement that it was sending Israel an additional, sophisticated air defense system to help protect the country from further ballistic missile attacks by Iran.

Around 100 U.S. troops will also be deployed to help operate the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense battery. It marked the first significant assignment of U.S. military personnel to Israeli territory since war broke out in the Gaza Strip a year ago and is now spilling over into Lebanon.

Early Monday in Gaza, Israel shelled a camp sheltering about 5,000 Palestinians outside a hospital, killing at least four and burning dozens more whose tents went up in flames, Palestinian officials said. Israel said it was targeting a Hamas “command center.” Hours earlier, Israel struck a nearby U.N.-run school, in the Nuseirat camp, that had also been converted into a shelter. At least 20 people were reported killed.

The latest offensive in Gaza constituted “an endless hell,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of the U.N. agency responsible for Palestinian refugees, said on the social network X.

At least 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza over the last year, Gaza officials say.

The U.N. refugee agency, known by its initials UNRWA, is another major point of contention between Israel and the 193-nation international New York-based organization.

More than 12,000 UNRWA employees have for years worked as a critical lifeline in the Gaza Strip, providing healthcare, running schools and operating food banks for Palestinians living in what they describe as a veritable open-air prison.

A small number of UNRWA workers were implicated in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on southern Israel that Israel says killed some 1,200 people. The U.N. said it fired those employees who participated in the attack.

Israel has sought to ban UNRWA from Gaza, and last week Israel announced it was confiscating UNRWA’s headquarters in East Jerusalem, with the aim of building more than 1,400 settlements, which are considered illegal under international law. Washington and a handful of other Western nations suspended aid to UNRWA last year, but most of it has been restored.

Israel’s fights over UNIFIL and UNRWA are only the latest in a long-running relationship of hostility with the U.N.

Israel’s former ambassador to the U.N., Gilad Erdan, told a small group of journalists earlier this year that the initial goodwill and appreciation that the fledgling Israeli state felt toward the U.N. in 1948 faded in the ensuing years. The U.N. expanded beyond its initial coterie of mostly Western states to include dozens of countries, including in the Arab and Muslim world, that did not recognize Israel.

Most reject Israel’s continued occupation of land claimed by Palestinians.

The U.N. routinely condemns Israel in an assortment of resolutions. But any resolution that might have concrete impact on Israel is usually vetoed by the U.S.

Now, with the controversy centered on UNIFIL, Israel accuses the peacekeeping force of having been ineffective in preventing violence on the Lebanese-Israeli border and of failing to stop Hezbollah from building up a formidable military presence in southern Lebanon, in violation of U.N. decisions.

Israel’s current ambassador to the U.N., Danny Danon, accused Hezbollah of using UNIFIL positions as hiding places, and said the peacekeepers’ refusal to leave the region is “incomprehensible.”

“The U.N. must stop turning a blind eye to the fact that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization holding Lebanon hostage,” Danon said Monday.

The UNIFIL troops who number some 10,000 say, however, they will continue to carry out what they see as their duty under U.N. mandates.

After the end of the last major war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, a wary truce was in effect in southern Lebanon. UNIFIL’s white armored vehicles, trucks and blue-helmeted personnel became a regular sight in towns and villages along the Lebanese side of the 74-mile “Blue Line,” the de facto border between the two countries.

Its maritime arm dispatched frigates and corvettes to patrol the coastal waters with little event. UNIFIL’s main job then was to coordinate troop movements on either side of the border, whether for security or maintenance purposes, and work on de-confliction. Though it had no direct dealings with Hezbollah, it nevertheless established contacts via the Lebanese army.

That changed when Hezbollah launched its cross-border rocket campaign the day after Hamas attacked southern Israel. Virtually overnight, what had been a relatively peaceful posting turned into an arena for an escalating tit-for-tat fight — with the U.N. caught in the middle.

“This is my third and worst tour here,” said Lt. Col. Bruno Vio, a UNIFIL press officer, during a visit to the area with UNIFIL over the summer. “The villages I knew from the past visits, now they’re empty; all the people gone.”

That was before Israel invaded Lebanon and ramped up airstrikes there in mid-September. At that point, rotations had been shortened from three months to 45 days because of the high risk. As of now, patrols have been suspended altogether, with troops hunkered in their compounds.

Times staff writer Bulos reported from Beirut and southern Lebanon; Wilkinson from Washington.

The Republican chairman of a Pennsylvania county that has voted for the ultimate presidential victor in the past four cycles says it is both the enthusiasm of the electorate and the makeup of the area that proves why it is key for both candidates this year.

“In 2016, Erie voted for Trump and in 2020, Erie voted for Biden. And obviously, Pennsylvania went the same direction in ‘16 and ‘20, and the nation did too,” Erie County Republican Party Chair Tom Eddy said in a Thursday interview.

“I look at Erie as being just kind of like this small ‘Little Pennsylvania’,” he said.

“Pennsylvania is a pretty big state and if you look down in the southeastern and the southwest corners, they are pretty industrialized: Pittsburgh; Philadelphia. And then, if you go to the middle of the state: pretty agricultural. And if you look at that Erie, it’s this little stamp up in this northwest corner.”

PA TOWN ROILED BY TALK OF MIGRANT HOUSING IN CIVIL-WAR-ERA ORPHANAGE BUILDING

Eddy noted Erie’s southern half is predominantly agricultural and leans heavily Republican, while the city of Erie in the north, including Pennsylvania’s only beachfront, is heavily Democratic, with purple suburbs in between.

“The city has some major industry. It’s pretty big in plastic industries and tool-and-die, but it also has a pretty large immigrant population: very ethnic, diverse, racially diverse. I mean, everything you see around the entire state is here in this little corner.”

Eddy said he tells candidates who visit his area that if their message can resonate there, it will resonate statewide largely for that reason.

“Erie is unique … in the fact it is able to pick the winners.”

Other than choosing former Secretary of State John Kerry, former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis and former Vice President Al Gore, the county has voted for the eventual president in races going back to the 1960s.

Eddy said the county went for former President Donald Trump in 2016 despite a 10,000-vote registration advantage for Democrats. Therefore, it is the independent voters who often make the difference for GOP candidates.

In that regard, Eddy said yard signs for other topline candidates, like state Sen. Dan Laughlin, R-Erie, have been flying out the door of his office, a few blocks outside the city proper.

PENNSYLVANIA LEADERS IN BOTH PARTIES TALK GROUND GAME AS GOP SEEKS TO UNDO MASSIVE GAINS

Laughlin’s seat is one of at least three that Democrats hope to flip this November, according to the Pennsylvania Independent.

Democrats are hoping for such a turn of events, which would give the party its first full operational control of state government in decades, according to state Sen. Sharif Street, D-Philadelphia, the state party chair. Lt. Gov. Austin Davis would be the tie-breaking vote in a 25-25 Senate, and winning four seats would give Democrats full control of the upper chamber.

In a recent interview, Street said Pennsylvania Democrats have seen 40,000 volunteers sign up since Vice President Kamala Harris became the party’s nominee.

“The vice president has sort of set the world on fire,” he said.

However, Eddy remained confident Erie would help return Trump to the White House and maintain at least a divided state government — with Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro not up for re-election, and a current four-seat GOP Senate majority and a one-seat Democratic House majority.

“Every week, Dan [Laughlin] brings in yard signs, and within two days they’re gone,” he said.

The same holds true for Trump-Vance and other races, he added.

He also credited his group of independent volunteers, including a local named Pat who has reportedly knocked on 2,500 doors in the county.

Eddy added that another strategy he and other Republicans are embracing this fall is mail-in and early voting.

On his regular visits to the courthouse to obtain more registration applications and the like, Eddy said he has seen lines of people waiting to vote early, something new to him and many others in the area.

When he would hand out such forms at GOP rallies during the 2020 cycle, many attendees did not want them because the practice was criticized on the right, Eddy said, adding that now, the party and Trump embrace early voting, and people are listening to the nominee’s advice.

Vice President Kamala Harris poses during the “Unite for America” livestreaming rally in Farmington Hills, Michigan, on Sept. 19, 2024. (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

Along with getting people to vote early, targeting low-propensity voters has been important in Erie. These voters, who are not likely to go to the polls for one reason or another, are the prime electors to utilize an absentee or early ballot.

“You have this right that has been given to us from people generations before who did a lot of sacrificing to ensure that we have this right to control our government and not the other way around,” Eddy said. 

“If we don’t take advantage of that, we’re going to wind up like a lot of other third-world countries … So we’ve got this unique right to be able to pick the people to represent us. You should go out and vote for that person. It may not always be who I like. But as long as it’s who you want. That’s the important thing.”

Fox News Digital reached out to Laughlin, the Erie County Democratic Party as well as local Democrats, including the campaign of state Rep. Ryan Bizzarro, who represents Erie. 

In comments to NPR, Erie County Democratic Chairman Sam Talarico said enthusiasm on his side has been “crazy” as well.

“[W]e had 60 people on our volunteer list the day before [Biden] dropped out. And right now, we have 310 people on our volunteer list,” he told the outlet.

Talarico added that it appears to be younger voters who are more energized now that Harris is the nominee.

For a long time, Donald Trump derided electric vehicles as expensive and impractical. “Nobody wants them,” he charged, even though almost 6 million have sold in the U.S. since 2012.

Then Trump met Tesla mogul Elon Musk, who began pouring millions of dollars into pro-Trump campaign advertising — and now the former president says EVs are “great.”

“I’m for electric cars,” Trump said in August. “I have to be, you know, because Elon endorsed me very strongly.”

That was only one of several flip-flops Trump has executed as he scours the business community for campaign donations.

He once derided bitcoin as “based on thin air,” but after crypto investors donated to his campaign he proposed putting federal assets in a “strategic bitcoin stockpile.” As president, he tried to ban TikTok and flavored vapes; as a candidate, he’s backed down.

But there’s one issue on which Trump has remained an unshakable man of principle: his love for fossil fuels and his disdain for renewable energy, especially wind power.

“I hate wind,” he told oil and gas executives at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida as he asked for $1 billion in campaign contributions (“a deal,” he reportedly said).

Trump has long dismissed climate change as “a hoax” and attacked programs to promote renewable energy as “a scam.”

But he’s been especially passionate in his opposition to wind power, especially offshore wind farms.

That’s a problem for California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom has launched a massive effort to make the state carbon neutral by 2045, requiring far more reliance on wind, solar and other renewable forms of energy.

Trump’s animus toward wind energy — surpassing even his loathing for California — dates from a losing battle a decade ago, when Scotland’s regional government built an 11-turbine wind farm in Aberdeen Bay near one of his golf courses. Trump complained that the turbines would ruin golfers’ views and “turn Scotland into a Third World wasteland.”

He’s pursued his anti-wind obsession ever since with hurricane-force gusts of exaggeration, misinformation and bizarre untruths.

“It’s the most expensive energy there is,” he said last year. (Offshore wind farms are expensive to install, but the energy is cheap once they’re up and running.)

“They say the noise causes cancer,” he said in 2020. (There is no evidence that noise from wind turbines causes cancer.)

“Windmills are causing whales to die in numbers never seen before,” he charged last year. “The windmills are driving them crazy.” (The federal government investigated whale deaths off New England and found no evidence that they were caused by wind turbines. Most were caused by boat collisions or abandoned fishing nets.)

Those may sound like sour grapes from a disgruntled golf course owner, but if Trump becomes president they would be premises of his administration’s energy policy.

At his Mar-a-Lago meeting with the oil barons and a later beachfront rally in New Jersey, Trump promised he would stop federal support for wind power. “It’s going to end on Day One,” he said.

So what does that mean for California?

The state already gets about 6% of its electricity from land-based wind farms, but offshore wind is considered more promising over the long run, mostly because ocean winds are more constant and more powerful. (Trump doesn’t like land-based windmills either — in 2016, he said they make Palm Springs “look like a junkyard” — but there isn’t much he can do about turbines that are already in place.)

In July, the California Energy Commission approved a plan for wind development that centers on deepwater wind farms off Morro Bay and Humboldt Bay, supported by new port facilities in Long Beach and Los Angeles.

The wind farms, about 20 miles offshore, would be massive arrays of floating turbines roughly 70 stories tall. They will be designed to produce 25,000 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 25 million homes — about 13% of the state’s projected electricity consumption in 2045.

Proposition 4 on the November ballot, a $10-billion bond act, includes $475 million for wind-related port infrastructure.

But before any turbines are built, the projects will need a daunting array of permits from the federal government examining not only their environmental impact, but their effects on commercial fishing, navigation and national security.

A new administration can’t cancel leases, which are binding contracts that typically run for decades.

And it can’t easily shut down wind farms that are already up and running. (California’s offshore projects are a long way from that stage.)

But federal agencies can easily slow or delay the long permitting process, which typically takes three to five years, for projects that haven’t been built.

“There are a lot of ways they can slow the process down,” said Jim Lanard, president of Magellan Wind, an offshore development firm. “They can slow-walk the approvals. They can change the rules in midstream. … A project can suffer death by a thousand cuts.”

“Projects that haven’t been permitted will go through excruciatingly long review periods,” he predicted. California’s offshore projects are in that category.

Wind developers will face one more hazard in a Trump administration: The GOP candidate has promised to repeal President Biden’s landmark climate law, which includes big tax incentives to entice investors into financing these long-term projects. Repealing the law would be up to Congress, though — not the president.

Neither of those obstacles would necessarily halt all progress on California’s projects off Morro and Humboldt bays. Developers may need as long as five years to identify the sites where they want to build — a timeline that means they might not seek permits until the next presidential administration.

But the prospect of those policy changes has already injected new uncertainty into the marketplace.

“Several developers have already hit the pause button,” said Lanard, who has worked on California’s North Coast but is not involved in the current projects. “We’re not even going to talk to potential partners [for future projects] for the first two years of a Trump administration, until we know what the environment will be like.”

In other words, a Trump administration probably can’t stop work on renewable energy projects entirely, but will almost certainly slow it down.

Unless, that is, a green-energy equivalent of Elon Musk steps forward — a wind-power devotee who wants to contribute millions of dollars to the Trump campaign.

I asked Lanard if he knew of anyone who fit that description. He laughed.