US-backed Israeli assault on Lebanon has left the country numb,
smouldering and angry. The massacre in Qana and the loss of life is not
simply “disproportionate”. It is, according to existing international
laws, a war crime.
The deliberate and systematic
destruction of Lebanon’s social infrastructure by the Israeli air force
was also a war crime, designed to reduce that country to the status of
an Israeli-US protectorate. The attempt has backfired. In Lebanon
itself, 87% of the population now support Hizbullah’s resistance,
including 80% of Christian and Druze and 89% of Sunni Muslims, while 8%
believe the US supports Lebanon. But these actions will not be tried by
any court set up by the “international community” since the US and its
allies that commit or are complicit in these appalling crimes will not
permit it.
It has now become clear that the assault on
Lebanon to wipe out Hizbullah had been prepared long before. Israel’s
crimes had been given a green light by the US and its loyal British
ally, despite the opposition to Blair in his own country.
In
short, the peace that Lebanon enjoyed has come to an end, and a
paralysed country is forced to remember a past it had hoped to forget.
The state terror inflicted on Lebanon is being repeated in the Gaza
ghetto, while the “international community” stands by and watches in
silence. Meanwhile, the rest of Palestine is annexed and dismantled
with the direct participation of the US and the tacit approval of its
allies.
We offer our solidarity and support to the victims
of this brutality and to those who mount a resistance against it. For
our part, we will use all the means at our disposal to expose the
complicity of our governments in these crimes. There will be no peace
in the Middle East while the occupations of Palestine and Iraq and the
temporarily “paused” bombings of Lebanon continue.