<html>
<body>
<font size=1>
<a href="http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20editorials/2006%20Opinion%20Editorials/August/3%20o/Israel's%20latest%20invasion%20of%20Lebanon%20and%20western%20culpability%20By%20Habib%20Siddiqui.htm" eudora="autourl">
http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20editorials/2006%20Opinion%20Editorials/August/3%20o/Israel's%20latest%20invasion%20of%20Lebanon%20and%20western%20culpability%20By%20Habib%20Siddiqui.htm<br>
<br>
</a></font><font size=5>Israel's latest invasion of Lebanon and western
culpability <br><br>
</font><font size=3>By Habib Siddiqui<br><br>
Al-Jazeerah, August 3, 2006 <br><br>
It should be quite obvious by now that Israel’s latest invasion of Gaza
and Lebanon had very little to do with rescuing her fallen soldiers. As I
write, the rogue state, run by some of the worst war-criminals of our
time, has killed some 750 unarmed Lebanese civilians - mostly women and
children, destroyed mosques, bridges, roads, houses, schools, hospitals
and much of the infra-structure of southern half of Lebanon. As in 1996,
the terrorist state has massacred scores of civilians in Qana this past
weekend (July 30, 2006). <br><br>
Israel has bombed Red Cross center and ambulances, and a UN observation
post killing 4 observers. She has displaced a million people inside the
country, some of whom are forced to take shelters in even prisons.
Infants have been forcibly separated from their parents, and the elderly
from their care-taking children. Relief supplies are difficult to get to
the internally displaced refugees. Nothing is immune from Israel’s
bombing campaign.<br><br>
If a small fraction of these crimes were to be committed by any invading
state, in contravention to international laws, Christ-loving Bush and
Blair and their European friends in the NATO would be screaming aloud
demanding cease-fire, failing which they would threaten the invading
nation with all kinds of actions - UN sanctions, embargo and war. But
when it comes to crimes of Israel, these western warlords are her
greatest cheer-leaders and are insanely, as if demon-possessed,
unperturbed by gruesome killings and massive destruction, wreaked by the
pariah state. Like psychopathic and megalomaniac serial killers, they
want to see more Muslim blood, more destruction, literally hell on earth
and not cease-fire, because to them Muslim lives and properties are cheap
and expendable. What a display of compassionate conservatism by Bush and
Blair! <br><br>
As Michael Schure, an ex-CIA analyst and the foremost expert on al-Qaeda,
has said, Bush and Blair through their both overt and covert supports of
such monumental crimes against Muslims have repeatedly shown that they
are the worst enemies of Muslims. They have given credence to everything
that their adversaries -- conveniently depicted in the West as the ‘bad’
guys, the so-called terrorists -- have been saying about the West. No
bones about it. Truly, it is not OBL and al-Zawahiri that is radicalizing
Muslims throughout the world, but these two white-collar Christian
warlords that epitomize evil and hypocrisy. With world leaders like
these, who needs OBL to bring the Armageddon on earth?<br><br>
Exchange of prisoners between contending parties is not new. It takes
place all the time. Even Israel has, in the past, negotiated such
exchanges. Moreover, the demand of Hizbullah and Hamas to exchange
captured Israeli soldiers for Muslims prisoners held by Israel is
justified given the fact that it is Israel that for decades has been
holding thousands of Palestinian prisoners and hundreds of Lebanese
citizens -- many of whom are women, children and (even) infants -- some
literally kidnapped.<br><br>
Remember that although Israel was forced to withdraw from southern
Lebanon in 2000, some 22 years after its invasion, she continued to hold
onto the Sheba Farms in defiance of UN Security Council resolution 425,
and refused the release of 300 Lebanese prisoners including a number of
Hizbullah leaders. Israel also refused to handover to the Lebanese
government the map of land mines planted in south Lebanon. She continued
to violate the air, water and land sovereignty of Lebanon. Even the plea
of Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora with the Bush Administration to
pressure Israel did not produce any result. So, when all the options for
a peaceful resolution of these legitimate concerns were balked at by the
Zionist regime, Hizbullah captured two Israeli soldiers when they
violated Lebanese sovereignty on July 12. <br><br>
Like any honest dealer, Hizbullah promptly called for the exchange of
prisoners. Unfortunately, Israel does not care about the fate of those
soldiers. She used the event as a pretext for something more sinister,
something that remained unfulfilled from the Zionist blueprint for
six-decade long history of annexation and annihilation, massacre and
manipulation – all sanctioned as ‘kosher’ acts by her goy western
patrons. The current murderous campaign of Israel inside Lebanon cannot,
therefore, be grasped without an understanding of statements of its
founding fathers -- all conniving individuals, if not homicidal
terrorists, some later to be honored as ministers and presidents in the
pariah state of Israel.<br><br>
In 1919,<i> </i>the World Zionist Organization submitted to the
Versailles Peace Conference, held near Paris its official plan for the
creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. The submitted map included the
southern part of Lebanon to the Litani River, the Syrian Golan Heights,
and the West and East banks of the Jordan River. -<br><br>
Theodore Herzl, the father of modern Zionism, said of his negotiation
with the German Chancellor: "<i>He asked what territory we wanted to
have, whether as far north as Beirut or even beyond that. I said: We will
ask for what we need - more immigrants, the more land.</i>" (The
Complete Diaries of Theodore Herzl, p. 701) That was probably in late
19th or early 20th century, before his death. Now let us see what the
founder of Zionist state of Israel, David Ben Gurion, wrote in his diary
on May 21, 1947: "<i>The Achilles heel of the Arab coalition is the
Lebanon. Muslim supremacy in this country is artificial and can be easily
overthrown. A Christian state ought to be set up there, with its southern
frontier on the river Litani. We would sign a treaty of alliance with the
state. Thus, when we have broken the strength of the Arab legion and
bombed Amman, we could wipe out Trans-Jordan; after that Syria could
fall. And if Egypt still dared to make war on us, we would bomb Port
Said, Alexandria and Cairo. We should thus end the war and would have
paid to Egypt, Assyria and Chaldea on behalf of our
ancestors.</i></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3>"</font>
<a name="_ftnref1"></a>[1]<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3> He also
said, “<i>The present map of </font>Palestine was drawn by the British
mandate. The Jewish people have another map which our youth and adults
should strive to fulfill -- From the Nile to the
Euphrates."<br><br>
</i>Moshe Dayan told the Times of London (June 25, 1969) that,
"<i>Our fathers had reached the frontiers which were recognized in
Partition Plan. Our generation reached the frontiers of 1949. Now the
Six-day generation (referring to those who participated in 1967 war) has
managed to reach Suez, Jordan and the Golan Heights. This is not the end.
After the present cease-fire lines, there will be new ones. They will
extend beyond Jordan - perhaps to Lebanon and perhaps to Central Syria as
well.</i>"<br><br>
<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3>From the sample of statements of
Zionist leaders, shared above, it is not difficult to fathom why Israeli
Prime Minister Olmert preferred invasion of Lebanon over negotiation to
exchange prisoners. Israel has always been a colonial enterprise that
thrives on opportunities for practicing state-run terrorism and
colonization against
Arabs.</font><a name="_ftnref2"></a>
[2]<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3> The capture of Israeli soldiers
provides that criminal justification to destroy and slaughter, let alone
an opportunity to set up a client state in the plundered territory that
would safeguard Israel’s so-called inalienable rights to intervene.
Invasion comes rather easy with Israeli warlords. To these hawks, Barak’s
2000 pullout from the ‘Security zone’ was a mistake and needed to be
corrected. They want a ‘Buffer zone.’<br><br>
</font>Taking advantage of civil war inside Lebanon, arisen out of power
struggle between various Lebanese factions and foreign meddling, Israel
occupied south Lebanon in March 1978. She withdrew in June after
transferring control of the territories to her surrogate Christian South
Lebanese Army (SLA). In 1981, fight broke out between Israeli-supported
Christians and Syrian forces, and Beirut was heavily bombed by Israel. In
June 1982 in a genocidal mood, Ariel Sharon’s Israel Defense Forces (IDF)
invaded Lebanon to eliminate the PLO. According to western analysts
nearly 18,000 Muslims were killed, about a million rendered homeless,
another half-a-million awaiting death in Israeli seized territories of
southern Lebanon. <br><br>
After destroying much of Beirut and southern Lebanon, and aiding in the
massacre of thousands of refugees in the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps,
the IDF partially evacuated from occupied Lebanon (holding onto what it
described as the 'southern security zone' that ran along Israel's
northern border and extended 18 miles deep into Lebanese territories in
the south) and let multi-national forces from U.S., Britain, France and
Italy to enter into the arena. These so-called "peace keepers",
instead of really preserving and working for peace as neutral arbiters,
took the side of Israel and her surrogate forces among the Falangists.
Worse still, the U.S. Sixth Fleet fired mortars that killed hundreds of
Muslim civilians, destroyed villages, towns and mountains that were lived
by the Shi’a and Druze. <br><br>
Such atrocities and betrayals brought about the emergence of resistance
fighters of Hizbullah, born in families of the Shi’ite victims and out of
the ashes of south Lebanon. As the USA and France acted more like proxies
to pro-Israel forces in the region, the U.S. Embassy (April 1983), and
French and U.S. Army barracks (October 23, 1983) were attacked by these
resistance fighters killing nearly 300.
<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3>By the time the Civil War ended,
Hizbullah, with its militia, refused to disarm in fighting the Israeli
presence in the security zone. The Lebanese government with a weak
military was in no position to contest IDF and found it prudent to
overlook Hizbullah’s efforts to securing the southern border. Thus, the
latter had a de facto approval from its constituency. [A poll
conducted by the Arab-American Institute as recently as April of 2006
showed widespread support for Hizbullah. Only 6% of Lebanese people
agreed to a disarmament of the
group.]</font><a name="_ftnref3"></a>
[3]<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3> <br><br>
</font>Hizbullah also did a superb job building clinics, hospitals and
schools, paving roads and constructing homes, and rebuilding houses and
other infrastructure in war-torn Lebanon. These activities earned them
immense popularity in the south and made them a major political and
social force to be reckoned with.<br><br>
The presence of the IDF and its surrogate SLA in the south was a source
of constant irritation for Lebanon and her people, and led to hostilities
with Hizbullah and the Lebanese forces. In April 1996, during Israeli
"Grapes of Wrath" campaign to destroy Hizbullah guerrillas,
Israeli artillery gunners shelled a United Nations base in Qana, east of
the port city of Tyre, killing more than 100 civilians sheltering there.
That massacre at Qana galvanized the western leaders to arrange a
ceasefire. <br><br>
Fighting between the Hizbullah and the IDF resumed again in June of 1999.
In May 2000, under the new Prime Minister Ehud Barak, the IDF started to
gradually withdraw from southern Lebanon turning over its positions to
its ally - the SLA. However, amidst incessant pressure from the
Hizbullah, SLA collapsed, leading Israel to accelerate its withdrawal,
which it accomplished by late May. Nonetheless, she held on to the Sheba
Farms. <br><br>
On Sunday, July 30, 2006, under new Prime Minister Olmert, the IDF
repeated the war crimes of 1996 through missile strikes in the village of
Qana. Villagers had gathered in a shelter in one of Qana's buildings,
probably thinking that the massacre of 1996 would not be repeated by
savage Israelis. But they were wrong. Lebanese Red Cross officials
said that 58 people died in the Israeli assault on the village, including
34 children. Rescuers dug through the debris to remove dozens of bodies.
(See
<a href="http://habibsiddiqui.unibd.org/">
http://habibsiddiqui.unibd.org</a> for pictures of war from
Lebanon)<br><br>
In 1996, Qana was the price Lebanon had to pay for world leaders to end
the killing. But this time, with the US and its neoconservative,
pro-Likud, Bible-believing leadership (with members in the Senate and
Congress, with rare exceptions) firmly behind Israel’s war-crimes, no
such ceasefire is in the making. So, when the rest of the world cries out
foul and is saddened with savagery of Israel, and demonstrates for
ceasefire, leaders like Bush, Blair and Condi Rice show how evil western
leadership has become. Their behavior is immoral, demented, sadistic and
criminal. Truly, if we are looking for a modern-day Nero, we have it in
these blood-thirsty maniacs.<br><br>
In their delirious mindset, these warlords and war-criminals have
forgotten that when the doors of negotiation, seeking fairness and
justice, are shut down, radical elements -- prone to seek alternative
ways to redress their grievances -- always emerge. If that happens, don’t
mumble ‘why they hate us?’ It is events like Qana that produces recruits
for 9/11, 7/11 and 7/7.<br><br>
The current events in the Occupied Palestine and Lebanon once again have
shown the utter moral bankruptcy of the West and its leadership,
especially of the USA and the UK. Hypocrisy is its hallmark. The West can
preach equality, liberty, democracy and human rights, but they truly
don’t mean them when it comes to vast majority of non-whites. So, when
Israel commits monumental crimes against Arabs, violating scores of
international laws and UN charters, the USA and her western allies have
consistently cheered and supported her criminal activities. <br><br>
It is a high time for conscientious human beings around the world to
demand trial of President Bush of USA and Prime Minister Blair of UK in
the International Court of Justice for aiding in the massacre of hundreds
of civilians in Lebanon and the Gaza strip (let alone causing deaths and
destruction in Iraq), failing which, I am afraid, the UN and its agencies
will increasingly be viewed, and justifiably so, only as a club to
inflict pain on victims and never to redress their grievances. <br><br>
It is said that when criminals and demons rule our world, it is better
for human beings to be dead than alive. How long will humanity let these
modern-day Neroes to rule our world?<br><br>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<font size=3 color="#FF0000">The Freedom Archives<br>
522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br>
(415) 863-9977<br>
</font><font size=3>
<a href="http://www.freedomarchives.org/" eudora="autourl">
www.freedomarchives.org</a></font></body>
</html>