Cowardly Blending

A UN official kind of gets it right on the Israeli/Hezbollah conflict.

The U.N. humanitarian chief accused Hezbollah on Monday of “cowardly blending” among Lebanese civilians and causing the deaths of hundreds during two weeks of cross-border violence with Israel.
The militant group has built bunkers and tunnels near the Israeli border to shelter weapons and fighters, and its members easily blend in among civilians.
Jan Egeland spoke with reporters at the Larnaca airport in Cyprus late Monday after a visit to Lebanon on his mission to coordinate an international aid effort. On Sunday he had toured the rubble of Beirut’s southern suburbs, a once-teeming Shiite district where Hezbollah had its headquarters.
During that visit he condemned the killing and wounding of civilians by both sides, and called Israel’s offensive “disproportionate” and “a violation of international humanitarian law.”
On Monday he had strong words for Hezbollah, which crossed into Israel and captured two Israeli soldiers on July 12, triggering fierce fighting from both sides.
“Consistently, from the Hezbollah heartland, my message was that Hezbollah must stop this cowardly blending … among women and children,” he said. “I heard they were proud because they lost very few fighters and that it was the civilians bearing the brunt of this. I don’t think anyone should be proud of having many more children and women dead than armed men.”

What’s sad is that this sort of clear-cut condemnation for Hezbollah and its terror tactics – couched in a double standard for Israel as it may be – is surprising coming from the UN.
Let’s hope we here more along these lines from the UN.
Really, though, I don’t know where this guy gets off criticizing Israel for killing civilians when, by his own admission, it is Hezbollah purposefully putting those civilians in harms way in order to draw out that very sort of criticism.