UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is vexed. Yesterday, Israeli forces destroyed a UN outpost, killing four of its personnel. Annan quickly lashed out at Israel, claiming its forces deliberately targeted the outpost, and therefore murdered the UN peacekeepers inside. That’s a strong charge.
His evidence for the claim, made before any investigation is even possible, is that Israel was warned not to hit the site, and that precision strike bombs were apparently used. But again, there has been no investigation, and it’s not completely clear that it was Israeli forces that struck the site. That seems to be the case at this point, but it’s premature to state definitively that it is so, especially when Hezbollah has so much to gain by maneuvering in such a way to make such a strike happen. And Annan apparently hasn’t taken into account the very thing he rightly accused Hezbollah of doing a day before, namely “cowardly blending in” and around civilian and other sensitive positions to endanger them and bait Israel into striking them.
[Read on.]
Kofi's snap judgment
Ed Lasky
On what possible basis can Annan make this snap assertion? The Secretary General is now claiming that the unfortunate killing of UN personnel by the Israeli Defense Forces during its maneuvers against Hezbollah terrorists were the result of “deliberate” targeting. He has called for an inquiry into what he called Israel’s “apparently deliberate targeting ” of the UN observer force.
In the fog of war accidents inevitably happen and that Israel has already deeply apologized for this accident. Hezbollah has a tactic of locating its forces near UNIFIL and other UN outposts (as well as civilian outposts) to discourage Israeli attacks, since Israel, unlike Hezbollhah, tries to spare the lives of innocents.
Annan seems more exercised by this accident than the truly deliberate kidnapping and killing of Israeli soldiers and the indiscriminate mass rocket attacks Israel is being forced to endure because the UN was pusillanimous in refusing to enforce its resolutions regarding terror forces in Southern Lebanon.
