U.N.-beat reporter Warren Hoge forwards without question a U.N. smear against Israel in “U.N. Says It Protested to Israel for 6 Hours During Attack That Killed 4 Observers in Lebanon.”
“The United Nations said Wednesday that its top officials in New York and its officers on the ground in Lebanon made numerous calls on Tuesday to the Israeli mission and the Israeli military to protest repeated firing on its outpost in Lebanon where four unarmed observers ended up being killed.
“Jane Holl Lute, the assistant secretary general for peacekeeping operations, said at an emergency meeting of the Security Council that over the six-hour period in which the United Nations’ warnings were being conveyed to the Israelis, the observation post at Khiam, in southern Lebanon, continued to come under fire.
“The firings persisted even after rescuers reached the hilltop site, she said, and in all it was subjected to 21 strikes, 11 of them aerial bombardments and at least 6 artillery rounds.
“She described the observation post as ‘well known and clearly marked’ and added that no Hezbollah activity was reported in the area.”
Thursday’s lead story by Craig Smith and Helene Cooper forwards the same smear against Israel.
The text box emphasizes the anti-Israel portion of the story: “The U.N. leader is furious over the deaths of 4 observers.”
“In a news conference after the talks, the normally placid Mr. Annan made no effort to control his rage at Israel for what he had called an ‘apparently deliberate targeting’ of a United Nations observer post in southern Lebanon by Israel on Tuesday. Four observers were killed. ‘Mr. Olmert definitely believes it was a mistake,’ said Mr. Annan, referring to Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert. But despite at least 10 calls from United Nations personnel to Israel that their positions were being shelled, Mr. Annan added, ‘The shelling of the U.N. positions began early in the morning and carried on all day.’”
Times reporters may be too credulous when it comes to pronouncements from the United Nations, which, after all, has a long history of anti-Israeli bias.
Today’s New York Sun reports what the Times doesn’t.
“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.
“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.”
For more New York Times bias, visit TimesWatch.
