Earlier this week, four U.N. officials were killed in Lebanon by an apparent Israeli airstrike. Within hours of the event, U.N. Secretary Kofi Annan announced his belief that Israel had deliberately targeted the U.N. personnel. Annan demanded that “any further attack on U.N. positions and personnel must stop.”

Yesterday, strong evidence came to light suggesting that Hizbollah was effectively using the U.N. position as a shield, conducting attacks against Israel, knowing that any Israeli response was likely to hit the U.N. post. The New York Sun reports that one of the U.N. officials killed in the attack had earlier sent e-mails saying that Hizbollah was “all over” his position. The recipient of those e-mails, a former major-general in the Canadian military named Lewis MacKenzie, described their contents:

“What he was telling us was Hezbollah fighters were all over his position and the IDF were targeting them, and that’s a favorite trick by people who don’t have representation in the U.N. They use the U.N. as shields knowing that they cannot be punished for it.”

To Hizbollah, civilians and U.N. positions are strategic assets. The terrorist group routinely launches attacks from residential areas and near U.N. posts. Hizbollah knows that this puts Israel in a bind: if Israel decides to respond, that response will provide a tear-jerking scene for the evening news where the headline will be “Israeli Bomb Kills Civilians,” or “U.N. Officials Killed in Israeli Airstrike.” But if Israel backs down out of a fear of how the media will report the story, then Hizbollah gets a safe haven where they can launch attacks with impunity. Hizbollah wins either way, with a propaganda victory or a military one.

Of course, to any fair-minded person, it is obvious that Hizbollah bears the responsibility for the deaths of those U.N. officials. It’s too bad the U.N. doesn’t have a leader who understands that.