Lebanon
Massacre Will Live In Infamy
By Ghali Hassan
24 July, 2006
Countercurrents.org
In
one week of deliberately calculated act of aggression and savagery against
Lebanon and the Lebanese people, the Israeli army have destroyed the
entire nation civilian infrastructure and massacred more than 400 innocent
civilians in cold blood, injured at least 1,000 people and caused a
million people to flee their homes.
The “civilised”
U.S. (and its Western allies) justified this massacre of innocent civilians
and wanton destruction by publicly stating (at the UN) that there is
no “moral equivalence” between innocent Lebanese civilians
killed by Israel’s terror and those Israelis killed by Lebanese
resisting it.
Israel and the U.S. alleged
that the motive behind this criminal atrocity is that Israel trying
“to free” two Israeli soldiers, taken prisoners of war by
the legitimate Lebanese resistance movement (Hizbullah) during a heroic
military operation. However, “freeing” the soldiers was
never an Israeli priority; it is only a pretext used to justify state
terrorism. Israel’ real motives are:
(1) The destruction of Lebanon
economy;
(2) The destruction of legitimate
anti-Israel resistance movement;
(3) The terrorising of the
Lebanese civilian population; and
(4) The imposition of subordinate
dependent (puppet) government. In other words, Israel’s planned
agenda is designed to perpetuate violence against legitimate resistance
to Israel’s terror and in the process instigate a region-wide
war.
If Hizbullah is the target,
why then is Israel deliberately killing innocent civilians and destroying
the country's vital civilian infrastructure?
In violation of international
law, Israeli war paleness (U.S.-made F-16s) destroyed the country’s
largest milk factory, a major food factory and two pharmaceutical plants.
In addition to the destruction of electricity supply, roads and bridges,
water purification plants, power plants and grain silos have been destroyed.
As the media reported, a convoy of two trucks carrying medical supplies
was hit and destroyed. Furthermore, Israeli force deliberately massacred
eleven and injured many Lebanese soldiers while sitting in their base.
In the village of Srifa (Sreefa), Israeli warplanes (U.S.-made F-16s)
destroyed an entire neighbourhood murdering at least 18 innocent civilians,
including many children. According to UN, one third of all victims are
innocent children. “Israel has thrown an atom bomb on Lebanon,
it is the Israeli Hiroshima”, wrote Palestinian author Azmi Bishara.
The U.S. has given Israel
an unconditional “green light”. By rejecting a proposed
"ceasefire", it has given Israel sufficient time to inflict
maximum terror on Lebanon and the Lebanese people. However, despite
Washington's obvious complicity in this mass murder, the Bush Administration
continues to accuse Iran and Syria of orchestrating the violence. Robert
Fisk, the British correspondent of the London (not so) Independent accused
Syria of being “behind all of it [Israel’s terror] …
And this is Syria’s work. This is Syria saying, ‘We're back’”.
Of course, Fisk provided not a shred of evidence for this ranting. If
the U.S. and Israel want to attack Iran and Syria, why are they committing
such heinous crimes against Lebanon and innocent Lebanese civilians?
Syria has been trying to avoid war with Israel and the US.
It is important to note that
while Hizbullah have targeted the Israeli military in its operations
and self-defence, all Israeli attacks were indiscriminate and deliberately
targeting innocent civilians, mostly children, and civilian infrastructures.
Indeed, Hizbullah stopped short of attacking the petroleum installations
in Haifa, fearing that it may cause massive numbers of civilian casualties.
Further, the majority of the Israelis killed by Hizbullah’s fighters
were soldiers.
Hizbullah is not a proxy
of Iran or Syria, as the U.S., Israel and other Western governments
continue to mislead the public. Hizbullah is an independent Lebanese
resistance and political movement. Hizbullah is a resistance and political
movement or party composed of indigenous Muslim and Christian Lebanese
with massive grassroots support. Hizbullah’s aim is to defend
the territorial integrity of Lebanon and to free Lebanese and Palestinian
prisoners who are languishing in Israeli jails and subjected to torturous
treatment. Further, Hizbullah is the only Lebanese force willing and
able to stand up to Israel’s terror.
Contrary to Western views,
Hizbullah did not provoked the current massacre and Hizbullah did not
act “very irresponsibly” as the “Left” and “Progressives”
trying to justify Israel’s terror against Lebanon. To the contrary,
Hizbullah retaliated against Israel’s violent behaviour and illegal
occupation , including; (1) Israel refusal to adhere international law
and exchange prisoners in a peaceful way; (2) Israel routinely enters
Lebanon, abducted and assassinated prominent Lebanese and Palestinian
leaders in cold blood; (3) Israel continues to occupy Lebanese territory,
known as the Shebaa Farms, where Israel continues to illegally steal
topsoil and draw water from the Litani River, and Israeli soldiers have
often abducted and murdered Lebanese shepherds and farmers; and (4)
Israel refuses to provide location maps for the 400,000 landmines Israel
planted in Lebanon during the 18-years occupation.
The Lebanese people are no
stranger to massacres; they have lived Israel’s terror and aggression
in the past. In 1982 the Israeli army invaded Lebanon and massacred
more than 20,000 innocent Lebanese civilians. After 18-years of brutal
occupation, including the massacre of 2000 Palestinian refugees for
which the criminal Ariel Sharon was found to be directly responsible,
Israel withdraw its army from southern Lebanon in 2000. Thanks to the
heroic resistance of Hizbullah fighters.
In April 1996, for more than
two weeks, the Israeli army bombarded Lebanon destroying civilian properties
and besieged the entire country. At least 800 innocent Lebanese civilians,
including more than 100 civilians who had taken refuge at the UN compound
(UNIFIL's Fiji BATT) in the village of Qana, south east of Tyre were
massacred in cold blood.
In July 1993, the Israeli
army attacked Lebanon in the same act of terror as today. In addition
to the massacre of more than 130 Lebanese civilians, Israel destroyed
Lebanon civilian infrastructure, resulting in 300,000 civilians being
displaced. The UN condemned Israel’s aggression, but failed to
act strongly due to U.S. pressure. These are only few examples of countless
Israeli atrocities against the Lebanese people. The root cause of the
violence is Israel’s terror and U.S. financial and political support
for Israel‘s terror.
While Western governments
condoning Israeli crimes and competing with each other to evacuate their
citizens from Lebanon, they are condoning and providing tacit support
to Israel’s war crimes against the Lebanese people. It is self-evident
that the West and the U.S. in particular, do not see Arabs as human
beings and continue to live in self-imposed culture of racism.
One has to read Robert Fisk
to understand why the “civilised” West, led by the U.S.,
is so silent while Israel is massacring innocent Arab civilians with
impunity – even those Arabs who look like Westerners. Fisk puts
the icing on the cake when he unashamedly described the Lebanese people
as; “sophisticated, educated, cosmopolitan, people who don't look
like the Arab world, they look like us”. Fisk added, “I
mean, people who could be quite at home on the streets of Paris or New
York and London, and some of them are people who read, who are very
well educated; people who speak English fluently, French beautifully,
and fluent Arabic, as well, of course”. After 30 years in the
Middle East, Fisk has not noticed or learned that the Arab World –
particularly, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and Iraq – is a heterogeneous
world, where people, regardless of colour, religion and ethnicity, managed
to coexist peacefully until Western imperialists and Zionists started
to interfere in their internal affairs.
Like major historical war
crimes against innocent civilians, the complicity of major Western powers,
particularly the U.S., in Israel’s war crimes against Lebanon
and the Lebanese civilian population will live in infamy. Israel’s
terror will fail to achieve its intended goal.
Ghali Hassan lives in Perth,
Western Australia.