Steven Edwards’ recent article (“UN Backs Off Claim…“) is a stunning addition to the National Post‘s unintentional ongoing expose of the pro-Israel bias of the CanWest Global Communications empire.

The Post article, on the recent killing of 4 UN observers by Israel bombardment, strangely makes a deliberate effort to paint the UN in an unflattering light. The misleading headline, and Edwards’ subjective editorializing, however, are at odds with the actual facts, even as reported in the very article itself.

Kofi Annan did not “back down” from his earlier statement, as Edwards suggests, but rather, diplomatically, acknowleged that the Israeli PM has a different opinion. As the senior UN official quoted in the article notes,

“Whether or not they thought they were going after something else, we don’t know. The fact was, we told them where we were. They knew where we were. The position was clearly marked, and they pounded the hell out of us.”

The UN observers’ post, a well known and clearly identified landmark, was destroyed by a state-of-the-art precision guided missile (no clumsy homemade rocket), a killing blow “preceded by 20 other strikes that hit within 300 metres of the base, including 12 from artillery fire that hit within 100 metres.”

The UN commanders “had been in touch with Israeli commanders in the field at least 10 times. They had pleaded with the Israelis to stop firing and spare the base, UN officials said. A senior UN official added separate pleas were made to the Israeli mission in New York by a top peacekeeping official and Mark Malloch Brown, UN deputy security general.”

Considering these facts, it does appear that this was a deliberate attack on the UN position, even if we might grant that the consequences were unintended (which is not to say unexpected).

Funny that… the same could be said of Edwards’ article.