A UN official professes shock and horror at the leveling of the Hezbullah neighborhoods in Beirut.
Israeli bombing of a Beirut neighborhood where Hizbullah had its headquarters has breached humanitarian law, a senior UN official said on Sunday.
“It is horrific. I did not know it was block after block of houses,” Jan Egeland, the UN emergency relief coordinator, told reporters as he toured the shattered Haret Hreik district. “It makes it a violation of humanitarian law.”
“It’s bigger, it’s more extensive than I even could imagine,” he said, surveying a pile of rubble.
Yes, and Hezbullah was bigger, and more extensive, than the UN is willing to acknowledge.
“We are setting up a major relief operation but the violence has to stop,” Egeland said, calling for a halt to the war.
“The rockets going into Israel have to stop,” he said. “The enormous bombardment that we have seen here with one block after another being leveled has to stop.”
Do you see the disaparity in those statements above? It’s as if the rockets raining down on northern Israel are just fireworks, and do no damage. They are not. They killed two more in Haifa last night. Hundreds of Israelis have been wounded by Hezbullah rocket fire—aimed deliberately at the civilian population.
But this is the quote that boils my blood:
“It is costing too many lives and it will not lead to a solution in the south. There is no military solution to these things, it is only a political solution.”
The UN has had six years of political solutions. It has been unable to dissuade Hezbullah that they’re full of crap regarding the Shebaa Farms. It has a two-year-old binding UN resolution stating that Hezbullah and all other militias in Lebanon must be disarmed.
The political solution did not work. Therefore, Egeland’s logic is not only wrong, it is entirely backwards. Obviously, the only solution to the Hezbullah problem is military force.
The political solution got Israel 13,000 Hezbullah rockets aimed at her cities, and she is now paying the price for six years of “political” solutions.
To yet another useless UN bureaucrat, I say: STFU.
I always love that line that “there’s no military solution” to certain problems. On the contrary, military solutions are often available and most likely to be effective.
Since even this official concedes that Hezbollah is attacking Israel, he doesn’t seem to draw any conclusion from the fact that it put its headquarters in a residential area. Typical UN approach: it’s OK to shoot at Israel from behind civilians, but it’s a humanitarian outrage for Israel to shoot back.
Is this UN spokesliar the same guy who criticized the US during Hurricane Katrina. If it is – he can go and suck eggs.
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What the F*** is Humanitarian Law? Is the UN going to send in the Humanitarian Police to arrest Olmert, and try him in Humanitarian court?
Yes, Jan Egeland is the twit who criticises US relief efforts. Not just Katrina: the preceding tsunami prompted him to say that we were not giving enough money to UN efforts – while we had a carrier task force and support working there but the UN was still “studying the problem” to ascertain if relief was even needed.
I stopped wondering why we have never heard a rational solution to anything from Egeland about anything. Mayhaps he would like to remove his coat and tie and do a bit of work that would dirty the hands…such as digging a ditch, feeding a child, or wiping Kofi’s … face?
Hey, he’s just doing his job, providing cover for terrorists. It’s just like when the UNIFIL troops who filmed the kidnapping of three Israeli soldiers (all subsequently murdered) by Hizbollah then the UN stonewalled on releasing the evidence of this act of war abd war crime (murder of POWs) for nine months. It’s their job to run interference for terrorist swine, and Jan-boy is doing his job.
Israel must kill every Hizbollah fighter Zahal can catch and drive the survivors out of Lebanon for good. Then a NATO force can occupy South Lebanon until the Lebanese Army can come in and take over maintaining order. That will be Israel’s only chance for peace on this border in the future, and it will be Lebanon’s only chance for sovereignty and independence in the future. Otherwise Lebanon will become a puppet colony of Iran. Hizbollah has already been blathering about an Islamic Republic of Lebanon.