A Canadian U.N. observer, one of four killed at a UNIFIL position near the southern Lebanese town of Khiyam on Tuesday, sent an e-mail to his former commander, a Canadian retired major-general, Lewis MacKenzie, in which he wrote that Hezbollah fighters were "all over" the U.N. position, Mr. MacKenzie said. Hezbollah troops, not the United Nations, were Israel's target, the deceased observer wrote.

A senior U.N. peacekeeping operation official who briefed the press yesterday, however, said that on the day the deaths occurred, the only "known Hezbollah activity was 5 kilometers away."The official's briefing was conditioned on anonymity, but the undersecretary-general for peacekeeping operations, Jane Holl Lute, supplied the Security Council with similar information at an earlier briefing yesterday.

Yesterday evening at 19:30, at least one aerial bomb impacted directly on the building inside the patrol base of the Observer Group Lebanon (OGL) in the area of Khiyam in the eastern sector. The three-story building and the position were entirely destroyed. At the time, there were 4 unarmed military observers in the position from different nationalities. A UNIFIL rescue team was immediately dispatched to the location, and is still trying to clear the rubble. They retrieved the bodies of three observers, and are searching for the fourth, who is also feared dead. The Secretary General of the United Nations gave a statement last night in Rome concerning this incident.

Prior to this incident, very intensive aerial bombardment and shelling from the Israeli side was reported in the area of Khiyam, and there were 14 prior
incidents of firing close to this position by aerial bombs and artillery shells. At 18:30, four artillery shells fired from the Israeli side directly impacted inside the position, causing extensive damage on the building and the shelter. UNIFIL Force Commander was in repeated contact with Israeli Army officers throughout the afternoon, pressing the need to protect that particular UN position from firing.

Another UN position of the Ghanaian battalion in the area of Marwahin in the western sector was also directly hit by one mortar round from the Hezbollah side last night. The round did not explode, and there were no casualties or material damage. Another 5 incidents of firing close to UN positions from the Israeli side were reported yesterday. It was also reported that Hezbollah fired from the vicinity of four UN positions at Alma ash Shab, Tibnin, Brashit, and At Tiri. All UNIFIL positions remain occupied and maintained by the troops.

OK... hang on to your seats here, but I think Israel may be going too far with their Lebanon operation.

Yes, you heard it. Too far:

What I had expected to be limited, precision strikes targeting known Hezbollah facilities is rapidly blooming into something considerably larger. It appears that Israel is aiming to not only wipe out every Hezbollah facility in southern Lebanon, and cripple their broader infrastructure, but to also create a wasteland, a no-man land buffer zone along the Israel - Lebanon border.

The bombing campaign at the beginning was hitting targets I would have expected to see as a mission planner. We are now well into a much broader program, that has an entirely different goal than just hurting Hezbollah.

It also is starting to look like they are deliberately (honest it was an accident) targeting UNIFIL bases. You don't shell a UN post that has been there for over ten years for hours, while ignoring UN phone calls telling you to stop, within sight of the Israeli border by accident. You also don't send out a pilot armed with precision munitions and have him 'accidentally' target said position.

Based on my experience, and the facts revealed so far, that sounded pretty deliberate.

Considering the fact that the Hezbollah boys that kidnapped the Israeli soldiers drove a vehicle painted UN white, and wore UN uniforms, could be a factor. The fact that Israeli HATED UNIFIL, at best viewing them as useless, at worst as Hezbollah supporters, could be a factor.

Israel had better be careful. The ground campaign isn't going as well as they might have hoped. They have stirred up a hornet's nest in Lebanon that isn't being tempered by an overwhelming victory, and the international community is getting angry.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on which side you are on, it will be virtually impossible to prove the attack against the UNIFIL post was deliberate. Hell, PM Harper in Canada is already partially blaming the people that got killed by saying that they shouldn't have been there in the first place.

Israel can always say sorry, express regret, and the world marches on. Even something as really, really questionable as this can be excused by claiming 'fog of war' and all that [explicative].

I'd be willing to bet though that the UN will withdraw all the UNIFIL troops very quickly after this "accident."

Israel just might be able to pull off the 'Dead Zone', where nobody lives, and anything that moves is a legitimate target. I'd considered the possibility, but I never thought Israel would go this far. We are very close to the whole diminishing returns scenario.

To be a success, this operation had to kill about 20 Hezbollah troops for every 1 Israeli troop killed. That enforces the Israeli policy of deterrence. From what I can see they aren't even close to getting that kind of a kill ratio. I've heard as low as 2 to 1. Hezbollah wins just by coming out of this intact and able to post a media response.

That said, no other country is going to get involved, unless this drags on for months with increasingly appalling civilian casualties. Saudi made some rumblings, but at this point I'm betting it was just for internal consumption. As long as nobody else steps in, Israel has no reason to use nukes. Even if other nations stepped in, nobody in Israel is crazy enough to pop a nuke.

Though, there is always the Iranian issue...

It seems to me that some one in the UN has been playing fast and loose with lives of the UN ground forces, no doubt for dubious political reasons that have nothing what so ever to do with 'peace keeping'.

Moif I have read this sentence a few time and I must admit that I do not know what you exactly are trying to say here. Are you trying to say that the U.N. deliberately kept those peace keepers / observers there because they want to trouble the Israelis with their strategy / military campaign? Maybe I am completely wrong, but could you please explain it a bit further?

It was also reported that Hezbollah fired from the vicinity of four UN positions at Alma ash Shab, Tibnin, Brashit, and At Tiri. All UNIFIL positions remain occupied and maintained by the troops.

Yes. That is what I suspect.

Basically there are two alternative explanations for what happened. The first is that Israel targetted the UN on purpose and I note that this is pretty well echoed by a good many indpendent observers though few have any good reason why the Israeli's would do this. People seem to believe that Israel is just that trigger happy that it can bomb a UN installation all day long by accident, even when the base commander is on the horn asking them to stop. I know for a fact that all Israeli intel, including all field intel, passes through a central command point and its impossible for such an attack to carry on without the coordinaters knowing full well what they are shooting at and why. had this been a single errant salvo then the official Israeli position would be believeable, but a prolonged barrage... I don't buy it.

The second alternative explanation is not mutually exclusive to the first and is that the UN kept their 'unarmed observers' in position to influence the conflict, either by allowing Hezbollah to misuse their installations or by waiting until some one (read Israel) killed UN personnel. This view is not generally wide spread, mostly I suspect because the UN is generally believed to be a neutral party

Israel has always had a strained relationship with the UN and seems to consider it as an Arab tool. I agree with this perspective based on how busy the UN is with Israel as opposed to other long term conflicts. I do not consider the UN to be impartial in this matter.

This is from UNIFIL's own report (the one posted by Amlord in his opening post):
Link. (PDF)

This is from page 2 of the article Amlord quoted:
[i][color=#666666]Hess-von Kruedener wrote about heavy IDF artillery and aerial bombardment "within 2 meters of our position." The Israeli shooting, he added, "has not been deliberate targeting, but has rather been due to tactical necessity."

With the bold part I can agree. Keeping "observers" in position in order to have a chance to influence or at least monitor the situation could have been the reason why U.N. did not retract its personel. But in all honesty, I must admit that I do not agree with the Italic part. "Allowing Hezbollah to misuse their installations" implies that the U.N. has chosen sides in this conflict and up to now I haven't seen any fact to support this view. "Waiting until someone (read Israel) killed UN personnel." This would undermine the U.N. internally, why would anybody ever want to work for an organisation that is sacrificing its people deliberately? Besides that again in this second part is the implication that the U.N. has already chosen sides in this conflict which is only speculation without proove.

Come on Moif, now you are just following the war rhetoric of one of the fighting parties. Up to now I haven't seen one shred of evidence to suggest that the U.N. has chosen sides or that the U.N. is an Arab tool. But maybe you could disprove my opinion with more information?

The fact that Hezbollah misuses the presence of U.N. unarmed troops does not automatically mean that the U.N. sympatizes with this fighting faction. What could they have done to stop this? Attack them with sticks and stones?

Attacking an U.N. base due to tactical necessity? This sounds like a weak excuse. Fact is that Israel attacked unarmed people in service of the U.N. This is an unforgivable act, as much as the fact that Hezbollah is using the U.N. as cover for their own attacks.

Did the IDF intentionally target the UN observation post?

Did it do so recklessly?

Did Kofi Annan jump to conclusions when he issued his statement?

My personal distrust for the UN comes from the Balkans, and most particularly from my brothers experiences there with the Danish military. In the Balkans, the UN allowed its personnel to come under fire, repeatedly, whilst giving strict orders to not return fire. This state of affairs carried on for months with the Serbs shelling the Danish compounds several times with long range range artillery. On other occaisions Danish peace keepers came under sniper fire, and as usual were forbidden to return fire.

Finally the Serbs launched an ambush against a Danish armoured unit and the Danish commander returned fire on his own authority. With seven Leopard 1 tanks, all painted white, the Danes fought and destroyed the Serb armour, sparing only those vehicles whose weapons remained cold in the IR. For this act of clear self defence, the Danish commander was reprimanded by the UN.

The Serbs had been out to remove the Danes from the region so they could attack a Bosnian Muslim area with impunity. The Danish commanders actions probably saved hundreds, if not thousands of civilians yet he was punished for jeopardizing the neutrality of the UN.

I see clear parrallels with the Balkans in South Lebanon.

Cast your gaze upon the UN and tell me how many Arab/ Muslim nations there are as opposed to Israel (and the USA). Surely you must have noted just how busy the UN is with Israel as opposed to other conflict area's...

You are aware are you not that the quote you are refuting is actually the eye witness account of the Canadian Peace Keeper who was killed...? That in the days immedietly preceding his death, he had ample opportunity to see for himself what was going on and how Hezbollah was usng the UN as cover for its attacks.

Do you know of some other, more objective eye witness acount that renders his testimony irrellevent?

Come on Moif, now you are just following the war rhetoric of one of the fighting parties. Up to now I haven't seen one shred of evidence to suggest that the U.N. has chosen sides or that the U.N. is an Arab tool. But maybe you could disprove my opinion with more information?

I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you at this first U.N. conference on anti-Semitism, which is being convened six decades after the organization's creation. My thanks to the U.N. organizers and in particular Shashi Tharoor [the undersecretary-general for communications and public information] for their initiative and to the secretary-general for his willingness to engage.

This meeting occurs at a point when the relationship between Jews and the United Nations is at an all-time low. The U.N. took root in the ashes of the Jewish people, and according to its charter was to flower on the strength of a commitment to tolerance and equality for all men and women and of nations large and small. Today, however, the U.N. provides a platform for those who cast the victims of the Nazis as the Nazi counterparts of the 21st century. The U.N. has become the leading global purveyor of anti-Semitism--intolerance and inequality against the Jewish people and its state.

Not only have many of the U.N. members most responsible for this state of affairs rendered their own countries Judenrein, they have succeeded in almost entirely expunging concern about Jew-hatred from the U.N. docket. From 1965, when anti-Semitism was deliberately excluded from a treaty on racial discrimination, to last fall, when a proposal for a General Assembly resolution on anti-Semitism was withdrawn after Ireland capitulated to Arab and Muslim opposition, mention of anti-Semitism has continually ground the wheels of U.N.-led multilateralism to a halt.

There has never been a U.N. resolution specifically on anti-Semitism or a single report to a U.N. body dedicated to discrimination against Jews, in contrast to annual resolutions and reports focusing on the defamation of Islam and discrimination against Muslims and Arabs. Instead there was Durban--the 2001 U.N. World Conference "Against Racism," which was a breeding ground and global soapbox for anti-Semites. When it was over U.N. officials and member states turned the Durban Declaration into the centerpiece of the U.N.'s antiracism agenda--allowing Durban follow-up resolutions to become a continuing battlefield over U.N. concern with anti-Semitism.

Not atypical is the public dialogue in the U.N.'s top human rights body--the Commission on Human Rights--where this past April the Pakistani ambassador, speaking on behalf of the 56 members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, unashamedly disputed that anti-Semitism was about Jews.

For Jews, however, ignorance is not an option. Anti-Semitism is about intolerance and discrimination directed at Jews--both individually and collectively. It concerns both individual human rights and the group right to self-determination--realized in the state of Israel.
What does discrimination against the Jewish state mean? It means refusing to admit only Israel to the vital negotiating sessions of regional groups held daily during U.N. Commission on Human Rights meetings. It means devoting six of the 10 emergency sessions ever held by the General Assembly to Israel. It means transforming the 10th emergency session into a permanent tribunal--which has now been reconvened 12 times since 1997. By contrast, no emergency session was ever held on the Rwandan genocide, estimated to have killed a million people, or the ethnic cleansing of tens of thousands in the former Yugoslavia, or the death of millions over the past two decades of atrocities in Sudan. That's discrimination.

The record of the Secretariat is more of the same. In November 2003, Secretary-General Kofi Annan issued a report on Israel's security fence, detailing the purported harm to Palestinians without describing one terrorist act against Israelis which preceded the fence's construction. Recently, the secretary-general strongly condemned Israel for destroying homes in southern Gaza without mentioning the arms-smuggling tunnels operating beneath them. When Israel successfully targeted Hamas terrorist Abdel Aziz Rantissi with no civilian casualties, the secretary-general denounced Israel for an "extrajudicial" killing. But when faced with the 2004 report of the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions detailing the murder of more than 3,000 Brazilian civilians shot at close range by police, Mr. Annan chose silence. That's discrimination.

At the U.N., the language of human rights is hijacked not only to discriminate but to demonize the Jewish target. More than one quarter of the resolutions condemning a state's human rights violations adopted by the commission over 40 years have been directed at Israel. But there has never been a single resolution about the decades-long repression of the civil and political rights of 1.3 billion people in China, or the million female migrant workers in Saudi Arabia kept as virtual slaves, or the virulent racism which has brought 600,000 people to the brink of starvation in Zimbabwe. Every year, U.N. bodies are required to produce at least 25 reports on alleged human rights violations by Israel, but not one on an Iranian criminal justice system which mandates punishments like crucifixion, stoning and cross-amputation of right hand and left foot. This is not legitimate critique of states with equal or worse human rights records. It is demonization of the Jewish state.

As Israelis are demonized at the U.N., so Palestinians and their cause are deified. Every year the U.N. marks Nov. 29 as the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People--the day the U.N. partitioned the British Palestine mandate and which Arabs often style as the onset of al nakba or the "catastrophe" of the creation of the state of Israel. In 2002, the anniversary of the vote that survivors of the concentration camps celebrated, was described by Secretary-General Annan as "a day of mourning and a day of grief."

In 2003 the representatives of over 100 member states stood along with the secretary-general, before a map predating the state of Israel, for a moment of silence "for all those who had given their lives for the Palestinian people"--which would include suicide bombers. Similarly, U.N. rapporteur John Dugard has described Palestinian terrorists as "tough" and their efforts as characterized by "determination, daring, and success." A commission resolution for the past three years has legitimized the Palestinian use of "all available means including armed struggle"--an absolution for terrorist methods which would never be applied to the self-determination claims of Chechens or Basques.

Although Palestinian self-determination is equally justified, the connection between demonizing Israelis and sanctifying Palestinians makes it clear that the core issue is not the stated cause of Palestinian suffering. For there are no U.N. resolutions deploring the practice of encouraging Palestinian children to glorify and emulate suicide bombers, or the use of the Palestinian population as human shields, or the refusal by the vast majority of Arab states to integrate Palestinian refugees into their societies and to offer them the benefits of citizenship. Palestinians are lionized at the U.N. because they are the perceived antidote to what U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi called the great poison of the Middle East--the existence and resilience of the Jewish state.
Of course, anti-Semitism takes other forms at the U.N. Over the past decade at the commission, Syria announced that yeshivas train rabbis to instill racist hatred in their pupils. Palestinian representatives claimed that Israelis can happily celebrate religious holidays like Yom Kippur only by shedding Palestinian blood, and accused Israel of injecting 300 Palestinian children with HIV-positive blood.

U.N.-led anti-Semitism moves from the demonization of Jews to the disqualification of Jewish victimhood: refusing to recognize Jewish suffering by virtue of their ethnic and national identity. In 2003 a General Assembly resolution concerned with the welfare of Israeli children failed (though one on Palestinian children passed handily) because it proved impossible to gain enough support for the word Israeli appearing before the word children. The mandate of the U.N. special rapporteur on the "Palestinian territories", set over a decade ago, is to investigate only "Israel's violations of . . . international law" and not to consider human-rights violations by Palestinians in Israel.

It follows in U.N. logic that nonvictims aren't really supposed to fight back. One after another concrete Israeli response to terrorism is denounced by the secretary-general and member states as illegal. But killing members of the command-and-control structure of a terrorist organization, when there is no disproportionate use of force, and arrest is impossible, is not illegal. Homes used by terrorists in the midst of combat are legitimate military targets. A nonviolent, temporary separation of parties to a conflict on disputed territory by a security fence, which is sensitive to minimizing hardships, is a legitimate response to Israel's international legal obligations to protect its citizens from crimes against humanity. In effect, the U.N. moves to pin the arms of Jewish targets behind their backs while the terrorists take aim.

The U.N.'s preferred imagery for this phenomenon is of a cycle of violence. It is claimed that the cycle must be broken--every time Israelis raises a hand. But just as the symbol of the cycle is chosen because it has no beginning, it is devastating to the cause of peace because it denies the possibility of an end. The Nuremberg Tribunal taught us that crimes are not committed by abstract entities.

The perpetrators of anti-Semitism today are the preachers in mosques who exhort their followers to blow up Jews. They are the authors of Palestinian Authority textbooks that teach a new generation to hate Jews and admire their killers. They are the television producers and official benefactors in authoritarian regimes like Syria or Egypt who manufacture and distribute programming that depicts Jews as bloodthirsty world conspirators.
Listen, however, to the words of the secretary-general in response to two suicide bombings which took place in Jerusalem this year, killing 19 and wounding 110: "Once again, violence and terror have claimed innocent lives in the Middle East. Once again, I condemn those who resort to such methods." "The Secretary General condemns the suicide bombing Sunday in Jerusalem. The deliberate targeting of civilians is a heinous crime and cannot be justified by any cause." Refusing to name the perpetrators, Mr. Secretary-General, Teflon terrorism, is a green light to strike again.

Perhaps more than any other, the big lie that fuels anti-Semitism today is the U.N.-promoted claim that the root cause of the Arab-Israeli conflict is the occupation of Palestinian land. According to U.N. revisionism, the occupation materialized in a vacuum. In reality, Israel occupies land taken in a war which was forced upon it by neighbors who sought to destroy it. It is a state of occupation which Israelis themselves have repeatedly sought to end through negotiations over permanent borders. It is a state in which any abuses are closely monitored by Israel's independent judiciary. But ultimately, it is a situation which is the responsibility of the rejectionists of Jewish self-determination among Palestinians and their Arab and Muslim brethren--who have rendered the Palestinian civilian population hostage to their violent and anti-Semitic ambitions.

There are those who would still deny the existence of anti-Semitism at the U.N. by pointing to a range of motivations in U.N. corridors including commercial interests, regional politics, preventing scrutiny of human rights violations closer to home, or enhancement of individual careers. U.N. actors and supporters remain almost uniformly in denial of the nature of the pathogen coursing through these halls. They ignore the infection and applaud the host, forgetting that the cancer which kills the organism will take with it both the good and the bad.

The relative distribution of naiveté, cowardice, opportunism, and anti-Semitism, however, matters little to Noam and Matan Ohayon, ages 4 and 5, shot to death through their mother's body in their home in northern Israel while she tried to shield them from a gunman of Yasser Arafat's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. The terrible consequences of these combined motivations mobilized and empowered within U.N. chambers are the same.

The inability of the U.N. to confront the corruption of its agenda dooms this organization's success as an essential agent of equality or dignity or democratization.
This conference may serve as a turning point. We will only know if concrete changes occur hereafter: a General Assembly resolution on anti-Semitism adopted, an annual report on anti-Semitism forthcoming, a focal point on anti-Semitism created, a rapporteur on anti-Semitism appointed.

But I challenge the secretary-general and his organization to go further--if they are serious about eradicating anti-Semitism:

Start putting a name to the terrorists that kill Jews because they are Jews.

Start condemning human-rights violators wherever they dwell--even if they live in Riyadh or Damascus.

Stop condemning the Jewish people for fighting back against their killers.

And the next time someone asks you or your colleagues to stand for a moment of silence to honor those who would destroy the state of Israel, say no.
Only then will the message be heard from these chambers that the U.N. will not tolerate anti-Semitism or its consequences against Jews and the Jewish people, whether its victims live in Tehran, Paris or Jerusalem.

The unarmed observers, with a clear view of the fighting between Hizbollah and the Israelis, were apparently reporting whatever they saw, with other UNIFIL locations, over unencrypted ("in the clear") radio frequencies. This chatter could be picked up by Hizbollah. Since the Israelis have control of the air, and use aircraft and UAVs to gain an information advantage over Hizbollah, this UNIFIL chatter was giving the Hizbollah fighters information they would not otherwise have. That was endangering Israeli soldiers.

I recommend reading the entire article.

Peacekeepers that don't actually do anything resembling keeping the peace are worse than useless. UNIFIL should either beat feet or start capping Hezbollah fighters.

Did Kofi Annan jump to conclusions when he issued his statement?
Yes, he jumped to the conclusion that UNIFIL is actually doing peacekeeping.

UNIFIL’S ACTIVITIES
�� Before the current escalation of hostilities, UNIFIL’s activities included:
⇒ Maintaining the ceasefire through patrols, observation from fixed positions and close contact with the parties;
⇒ Within its limited means and thanks to contributions of Troop Contributing Countries, assisting the civilian population with medical care, water projects, equipment or services for schools or orphanages and supplies of social services to the needy;
⇒ Clearance of mines and unexploded ordnance.
�� In the current situation, UNIFIL has seen its freedom of movement severely impaired, yet it continues to occupy all of its positions.
�� Despite the restrictions to its freedom of movement, and at great risk to its personnel, UNIFIL continues to carry out the following humanitarian activities, albeit in a limited manner:
⇒ Evacuation of civilians away from the areas of greatest conflict;
⇒ Escort of a humanitarian convoys;
⇒ Distribution of food and water to vulnerable populations;
⇒ Evacuation of wounded civilians;
⇒ Treatment of civilians at UN medical facilities;
⇒ Provision of water to local hospitals;
⇒ Evacuation of foreign nationals.

Did the IDF intentionally target the UN observation post?
Not a chance in the world. Israel has no use for the UN at all, it is a worthless organization and in Lebanon has actively abetted Hezbollah. Given this they should target them, but have not.

What did the UN think was going to happen? I believe that what did happen was exactly what the UN was hoping to happen just so they would have yet another opportunity to attack Israel for their own purposes.

Did Kofi Annan jump to conclusions when he issued his statement?
No he has an agenda of hatred for Israel and his statement is consistent with that stand. He has lied repeatedly and singled out Israel for his condemnation. This is just part and parcel of is on-going attacks against a member state in total violation of the UN Charter.

for gordo

try this one from the Merriam-Webster dictionary:

anti-Semitism
One entry found for anti-Semitism.
Main Entry: an·ti-Sem·i·tism
Pronunciation: "an-tE-'se-m&-"ti-z&m, "an-"tI-
Function: noun
: hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group
- an·ti-Se·mit·ic /-s&-'mi-tik/ adjective
- an·ti-Sem·ite /-'se-"mIt/ noun

"Yet another opportunity to attack Israel"? Please could you tell me what the FIRST opportunity of the U.N. was to attack Israel?

And again Loreng please show some strong evidence for this "supposed" agenda of hatred for Israel.

It seems that you have no clue what role the U.N. is trying to play during this conflict. Its prime object is not to attack Israel or help Hezbollah, its prime objective is to help the innocent people who are trapped in the conflict. (see my earlier post) Something both fighting parties are unwilling to do.

And again Loreng please show some strong evidence for this "supposed" agenda of hatred for Israel.

Is it just a guess that maybe being I did not see any U.N personal using the vehicle that the vehicles had been misappropriated possibly? That is unless one is going to make the claim that the U.N gave the vehicles fully knowing that such a use was going to be the one made? I mean after all its not like such tactics are used in Iraq with people using Iraqi army uniforms to conduct operations against targets.

Then again, the UNIFIL post was right in the middle of a battlefield. There was a furious firefight going on around the UNIFIL position, and the Hizbollah gunmen were using the UNIFIL position for cover from Israeli fire (an old Hizbollah tactic.) Ya know, whenever I had to play peacekeeper between my boyos, if one of them hid behind me while still trying to hit his brother, I'd smack him. Standing there and allowing him to hide is aiding and abetting him.

The Israeli damage to the UN bunker may well have been accidental.

Good analogy. Sometimes you just have to state the obvious. If Hizbollah is hiding behind the UN, the UN is enabling Hizbollah. This is not a position of neutrality. I don't see an Israeli flag flying next to the Hizbollah one on the UN buildings...

Ya know, whenever I had to play peacekeeper between my boyos, if one of them hid behind me while still trying to hit his brother, I'd smack him. Standing there and allowing him to hide is aiding and abetting him.

When UN troops give Hizbollah a hard time, Hizbollah is not bashful about threatening the UN troops with violence. But the UNIFIL/Hizbollah cooperation goes beyond idle chatter. At about the same time the UNIFIL troops were killed, other UNIFIL troops were repairing roads in the area that had been bombed by the Israelis. UNIFIL engineers were making the repairs so UNIFIL vehicles could use the roads again, but UNIFIL was not going to do anything to keep Hizbollah off the newly repaired roads.

The UN has a tragic tendency to adopt a passive, weak neutrality, rather than a muscular neutrality, and this is the result. Dead UN observers. Sorry, but in the real world, peacekeeping means more than being a pacifist and standing between two warring parties, it means being prepared to actively defend yourself, the innocent civilians, and smacking down those who disturb the peace.

They should leave, their presence is making the situation worse, and they are enabling Hizzbolah (albeit inadvertently, IMO) with equipment and safe zones.

Once its neutrality has been compromised then the UN has no place in a conflict. Indeed, the UN has no place in any war since UN peace keepers are only supposed to be put into a region once a peaceful cease fire has been declared and the foundation for viewing the UN as biased comes about from this stubborn insistence on its retaining a presence in a combat zone.

This morning, Unifil provided a humanitarian escort for foreign nationals form the villages of Aitaroun, Ramiyh, Bayit Lif, Haris and Dibil, to Tinbin and further to Tyre. Similar humanitarian convoys, intended for Yarun, Rmaich and Ayn Ibil, were unable to reach their destination.

A French ship, which arrived to the waters of Naqoura yesterday morning, continued to deliver a critical supply of water, fuel and food to UNIFIL. The ship is also to evacuate a number of UN dependants and foreign nationals who were extricated from the border areas by UNIFIL. Sixty eight UN dependents and foreign nationals boarded the ship for evacuation yesterday. Today, UNIFIL provided escorts for another 120 UN dependents and foreign nationals from Rmaich and the neighboring villages to Naqoura for evacuation with the ship.

UNIFIL conducted one medevac, four humanitarian, and three re-supply convoys yesterday. One Lebanese Army soldier was medically evacuated from a UN position in Ras Naqoura to the UNIFIL Naqoura hospital. One wounded soldier of the Lebanese Joint Security Forces was medically evacuated by UNIFIL from Ramyah to the hospital in Tibnin.

Over 600 civilians from Naqoura, Alma Ash Shab, and other neighboring villages were sheltered inside the UNIFIL Headquarters in Naqoura yesterday, and provided with food and water. UNIFIL also provided humanitarian escorts to a group of 250 of them yesterday from Naqoura to Tyre, and to another
group of around 300 this morning. Around 100 civilians still remain in the UNIFIL compound. The ICRC distributed this morning some food to UNIFIL in Naqoura for the remaining group. UNIFIL hospital in Naqoura provided treatment for 39 civilians.

Approximately 1000 local civilians from Alma Ash Shab, Al Bustan, Yarin, Al Duharya, and other neighboring villages, were sheltered inside a UNIFIL position of the Ghanaian battalion in the area of Al Duharya at noon
yesterday. Around 670 of them left the position for Tyre later in the afternoon. A group of 330 remained inside the position, and UNIFIL will attempt to provide a humanitarian escort and transportation for them to Tyre today. There were other reports of convoys of civilian cars moving from these areas in the direction of Tyre. UNIFIL evacuated some 176 UN dependents and foreign nationals from the country on board a French ship which delivered supplies to UNIFIL in Naqoura yesterday.

UNIFIL provided humanitarian escort and transportation to a group of 278 Lebanese civilians from UNIFIL Headquarters in Naqoura to Tyre yesterday. This morning, UNIFIL provided a humanitarian escort and transportation to a group of 332 Lebanese civilians from a Ghanaian battalion position in Al Duhayra to Tyre. Another humanitarian escort is planned for today to transport 112 civilians from a Ghanaian position in the area of Alma Ash Shab to Tyre. There were also reports of convoys of civilian cars moving from areas of Ramyah and Yarin. UNIFIL hospital in Naqoura provided medical assistance to 19 Lebanese civilians. UNIFIL also provided assistance and escort to the civilian authorities to repair and restore electricity and water supply in the areas of Marjayoun and Ibil as Saqi.

So repairing roads so evacuations of innocent people from the battlefield can continue is cooperation with Hezbollah? UNIFIL does not have any military personel in Lebanon! Should they stop humanitarian aid, leaving innocent people to their fate, just because they do not have the ability to defend these roads?

Which of course would mean the following: if Hezbollah would use U.N. bases as cover to attack innocent people in Israel with their rockets they