The unfortunate deaths of four UN observers in Lebanon were used as an opportunity for the UN's chief Israel-hater, Secretary general Kofi Annan, to launch a verbal assault on the Isralie, claiming the attack was intentional. And at least one press account has tried to make it appear that the UN monitors were targetted.

PEACEKEEPERS spent six hours begging Israeli commanders to halt multiple air bombings near a United Nations observation post before a missile killed four unarmed observers there, it emerged last night.

UN officials said that the monitors made ten phone calls to the Israeli army between 1.20pm on Tuesday — when an Israeli aircraft dropped a bomb 300 metres from the patrol base — and about 7.20pm, when the building was destroyed.

The details came to light as Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, condemned what he called an “apparently deliberate targeting� of the well- documented UN position that had stood in Khiam, southern Lebanon, for 50 years.

I won't get into the fact that if the peacekeeprs have been there for half a century, they have done a very poor job, given the continued attacks on Israel from south Lebanon. Rather, I will point to specific issues that raise doubt about the targetting the UN ooutpost. Rather, the Israelis were after legitimate Hezbollah targets in the same area.

Not that it is easy to distinguish UN and Hezbollah positions, as this photo clearly demonstrates.

As one of the dead observers -- a Canadia -- noted in an email the day before his death, Hezbollah was operating in the area of the post which was hit.

An apparent discrepancy in the portrayal of events surrounding the deaths of four unarmed U.N. observers in Lebanon threatens to unravel Secretary-General Annan's initial accusation that Israel "deliberately" targeted the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon.

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.

Now UN spokespeople have tried to argue that there was no firing of from the vicinity of the destroyed post on the day of its destruction, but that is a rather disingenuous position to take. Are the Israelis only to attack active Hezbollah positions? Or are any Hezbollah positions legitimate targets? The answer is obvious -- any Hezbollah position is fair game in this war that the terrorists started. And if the UN is allowing Hezbollah to opperate in and around UN outposts, then it is an unfortunate reality that there will be attacks in the area. Place the blame where it belongs -- on Hezbollah and the UN, not the Israelis, who are engaged in a legitimate operation to ensure their own security.

UNIFIL press releases even confirm Hezbollah's strategy of using UN personnel as shields for their attacks on Israel.

Read the UNIFIL press releases for yourself to learn that Hezbollah has not just shot at and seriously wounded UNIFIL observers - without any protest from Kofi Annan or The Age. You’ll also learn that UNIFIL has repeatedly reported Israeli shelling and bombing near UNIFIL outposts because Hezbollah fighters were shooting from right beside them .

Says the UNIFIL press release of 20 July:

Hezbollah firing was also reported from the immediate vicinity of the UN positions in Naquora and Maroun Al Ras areas at the time of the incidents (of Israeli return fire).

Tell me -- where were Kofi Annan's calls for Hezbollah to cease using UN positions as a shield for their attacks on Israel? There were none -- because the anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist Annan considers any tactic used to attack Israel and kill Jews to be a legitimate one. And this is not a new tactic -- for years, hezbollah and hamas have used refugee camps and other civilian populations as shields. Remember the uproar when the Israelis hit a refugee camp some years back? What was generally uncommented upon was that Hamas was firing from just beyond the boundaries of that camp -- realizing that any Israeli response would likely cause civilian casualties, bringing instant condemnation upon Israel.

But then again, why would anyone expect Hezbollah to have any sense of decency, given its long history of Jew-killing jihad? After all, this is the same group responsible for this little attrocity.

The Shiite terrorist group has erected a billboard facing Israel on which it placed enlarged photos showing mutilated Israeli soldiers killed in Lebanon.

Yes, hezbollah even desecrates teh dead and proclaims its disgusting actions to the world.

And some of these dead are israeli soldiers kidnapped from across the border.

Just like the kidnappings that touched off this latest war.

Now whose fault is this conflict, and these deaths?

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