It is unacceptable that UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is now willing to use his “good offices” to help secure the release of two abducted Israeli soldiers, considering that they are only in captivity because Annan’s impotent UN forces failed to do their job by keeping the peace along Israel’s northern border.

UN forces have been on the ground in southern Lebanon for nearly 30 years. They were supposed to prevent acts of aggression like Hizb’allah’s July 12 assault and kidnapping, and the resulting devastation suffered by both Israel and Lebanon. But they have failed to do their job for a very long time now.

So Annan will forgive Israel and those of us who support her if his offer of assistance (if a negotiating a prisoner exchange with terrorists can be called “assistance) is viewed with contempt.

Tellingly, Lebanon last month complained that UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the fighting and mandated the removal of Hizb’allah as a fighting force, was also too little, too late. And they were absolutely right, though not in the way they meant it (Beirut had wanted the UN to force Israel to stop defending itself much earlier).

As stated above, the UN was supposed to prevent such conflicts from ever arising.

Come to think of it, can anyone recall even one conflict that the UN has managed to contain and resolve by deploying its silly blue-helmeted peacekeepers? Why in the world does any nation, let alone Israel, allow itself to believe UN intervention is the answer to its problems, the antedote to conflict?

Kofi Annan, sporting his pacifist/humanist goggles, declared from Tehran Sunday that the Iranian nuclear crisis could be easily solved in a diplomatic manner if the West would just show a little patience.

The lack of Western patience, not Iranian defiance, is the problem. Right. How in the world is sitting around twiddling our thumbs going to suddenly cause the Iranians to realize they don’t want nuclear weapons?

Doesn’t it seem odd to anyone that Iran is not actually making any demands in return for not enriching uranium? That’s because they don’t want anything. Anything but nuclear weapons, that is. All patience is going to do is give them an opportunity to build an A-bomb, rendering irrelevant any effort to prevent Ahmadinejad from ushering in the Islamic age of “justice,” diplomatic or otherwise.

Kofi Annan’s anti-Semitic core apparently prevents him from taking a rational cause-and-effect view of hostilities between Israel and its Arab enemies. Twice did Annan publicly blast Israel for “violating” a UN-imposed ceasefire by sending IDF commandos Saturday to disrupt Syrian arms shipments to Hizb’allah.

“All such violations of Security Council resolution 1701 endanger the peace in the region that was reached after much talk and time,” Annan said in an official statement released at UN Headquarters in New York.

Of course, the Israeli raid was a reaction to something - an arms shipment that was itself a flagrant violation of the ceasefire. The agreement provides Israel the right to defend itself, which includes thwarting enemy efforts to rearm with the kinds of missiles that pounded northern Israel for 34 days. Common sense provides Israel the right to defend itself in such cases.

Only people like Annan, with a deep (perhaps subconscious) hatred for the Jewish state, would purposely turn a blind eye to violations by the Islamic enemy, while attacking Israel for exercising its legitimate right to self defense.

Kofi Annan and the international community are so busy trying to find Israeli violations of international law in the current fighting, they are completely ignoring daily war crimes being committed by Hizb’allah. Continue reading »

Kofi Annan and his buddies at the UN are daily fretting over the mounting humanitarian crisis in Lebanon, pointing to the hundreds of thousands of people displaced by Israel’s military operations against Hizb’allah.

Meanwhile, the two million residents of Israel’s northern regions who have either been forced from their homes or into cramped bomb shelters by incessant Hizb’allah rocket fire are virtually forgotten. With the conflict dragging on longer than most had hoped, many can no longer afford to stay away, and find themselves forced to return north, full of fear and despair, putting themselves and their children in harm’s way.

Forgive me for playing the anti-Semitism card once again, but this smacks of precisely the attitude of the international community as Jews were being slaughtered in their millions by the Nazis during World War II. Then, too, the world did its best to ignore the Jewish humanitarian crisis until it had no choice but to acknowledge it due to the horrendous death toll.

How could Israel with its precision weapons accidentally hit a UN post while fighting the Hiz’allah? This is how:

That is a UN observer post on the Israeli-Lebanese border, with UN and Hizb’allah flags flying side-by-side from its walls. When UN posts ARE Hizb’allah positions, no one should be surprised when UN personnel are killed in Israel’s offensive against the terrorists.

So I guess Kofi Annan was right, Israel did purposely target the position. But the blood of the four international troops killed are on his hands alone since, to use Annan’s words, the UN “apparently deliberately” facilitated the terrorist enemies of Israel.

And the UN has the audacity to demand an apology from Israel.

Kofi Annan and his buddies are trying really hard to keep news of Israel’s accidental killing of four UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon on the front pages. But the truth is, the UN itself is to blame for the deaths of those four international troops.

Israeli bombs may have (unintentionally) taken their lives, but if UNIFIL (the UN Interim Force In Lebanon) had done the job it was given 28 years ago, Israel wouldn’t have to be dropping bombs at all today. Continue reading »

Israel appears to have accidentally killed four UN observers in southern Lebanon, and has promised to thoroughly investigate the incident to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

(My money is on a Hizb’allah cell having used the UN base as cover for attacks on the Israelis, prompting IDF return fire close enough to the position that any slight deviation would harm the foreigners.)

Immediately following the incident, UN chief Kofi Annan admitted to reporters that he was still “trying to get all the details,” but did not let that stop him from accusing Israel of “apparently deliberately targeting” the position. As if Israel doesn’t have enough problems with the international community that it would purposely kill UN troops.

United Nations chief Kofi Annan, who consequently has a dismal record of conflict resolution, announced Thursday his plan for ending the fighting between Israel and Hizb’allah.

An immediate and simultaneous cessation of hostilities by both sides, the transfer of Israel’s abducted soldiers to the Lebanese army, and the creation of yet another toothless international committee tasked with overseeing the disarmament of Hizb’allah - and everything should be right as rain.

Just one problem: those terms are inconsistent with Hizb’allah’s present objectives and strategic goals. Continue reading »

The international community bears no small degree of responsibility for the current fighting between Israel and Hizb’allah.

Israeli academic and sometimes government advisor Gerald Steinberg wrote this week about how in early 2000 he had participated in a meeting with European Union officials at the forefront of international pressure to get Israel out of southern Lebanon.

“In detailed talks that took place at the French ambassador’s residence in Jaffa…the Europeans assured us that once Israel retreated, Hezbollah would lose its raison d’etre as a ‘militia’ and transform itself into a political party. France and its partners would send peacekeepers to prevent terror and missile attacks against Israel, help the Lebanese army take control of the border, and disarm Hezbollah.”

When the IDF withdrew a few months later, Europe and the rest of the world heralded Israel’s capitulation as a real chance for peace, and did absolutely nothing as Hizb’allah, drunk with victory, turned it into anything but.

It took only five months for an emboldened Hizb’allah to launch its first cross-border raid, which resulted in the abduction and slaying of three IDF soldiers.

Had Europe and the world fulfilled their promises to Israel back then, the region would not be in “crisis” today.

Islam’s rejection of Israel may be the root cause of the violence, but the international community - in particular Europe and the UN - is its primary facilitator.

If the world really wants to see peace and stability in the Middle East, it needs to learn from its mistakes, shut its mouth, and let Israel take care of business.