Hezbollah in passive voice

Soccer Dad
06 October '10

Many of us have noted that since the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, Hezbollah has rearmed in violation of UN Security Council resolution. I always wondered when the MSM would catch up with the story. Today the New York Times published, Stronger Hezbollah Emboldened for Fights Ahead, which is a pretty good title if you're working in Hezbollah's PR department. ("Hezbollah threatens Israel in violation of UN resolution" would have been accurate.)

After informing us how Hezbollah has built up the area with houses, weapons and a command infrastructure, the reporter, Thanassis Cambanis writes:

United Nations peacekeepers and the Lebanese Army now patrol the hilly, wooded border, and under the terms of the United Nations resolution that ended the war, Hezbollah was supposed to demilitarize the area between the Israeli border and the Litani River, a distance of about 18 miles.

But Hezbollah appears to have done just the opposite. Its operatives roam strategic towns, interrogating foreigners and outsiders. New residents have been recruited to the border, and Hezbollah officials say they have recruited scores of new fighters, by their own estimates either doubling or tripling their ranks.

As we know from August, those "peacekeepers" and "Lebanese" troops are working together with Hezbollah. But what struck me here was how the reporter writes that Hezbollah was "supposed to" act and "appears to have done just the opposite" of the UN Resolution. Is there are more passive way to describe a terrorist organization operating in defiance of international law?

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