No Reasonable Explanation

No reasonable explanation, from ANYONE involved.

I can see no reason myself that the Israelis would do something as obviously stupid (and wasteful of more innocent life) as try to kill UN observers.

It may come out in this investigation that Olmert has said he'd do how exactly this came about, but the IDF has to answer to the taxpayers and international law, so it doesn't just throw wads of (expensive) ordnance at things that aren't at least perceived to be a threat. This being said, I have two questions:

• Why did the UN not pull them out of there?
• Why did the IDF not co-ordinate with the observers to do so?

I can probably answer the first question. The UN is worse than useless when things go balls-up, so I can easily see them failing to do anything except complain until somebody gets killed, and then express outrage at the fact that (whatever bad thing) happened.

The next question is a bit more difficult. They were obviously in radio contact, and if Hezbollah was sniping at the UN post and/or operating close to it, the reasonable (under the circumstances) course of action would be to launch an aggressive rescue mission, bagging some jihadist sheisskopfs in the bargain.

Is the IDF really that lazy/cowardly that they won't do such a thing these days? I hope not, or the only progressive democracy in the area is doomed. Avoiding the huge Hezbollah public-relations windfall resulting from this idiocy alone would have made it worth it. To show themselves co-operating with the UN to rescue some unarmed observers would have had some much-needed good publicity for the Israelis, and saved the lives of those observers who should have been protected by SOMEBODY.

The UN has no business anymore with troops, because it's proved over and over again that it has no clue how to use and if need be protect them. The IDF needs a kick in the ass to smarten it up, as the "optics" of what it's doing are not great for the results achieved.

The IDF may be hurting Hezbollah (however it's spelled), but it's not making any new friends, and may be alienating people it has some common cause with (read: Lebanese Christians). And the bottom line, it's not hurting the terrorist wankers terminally, so think hard and think fast, because it's not going to get any easier if shit like this keeps happening.