The causes and objectives of the bloody Israeli aggression against Lebanon Only international solidarity will stop the bloodbath

Lebanon, the whole of Lebanon, has been burning and bleeding for the past 14 days, without the United Nations or the Security Council coming to a basic decision: to demand that Israel declares a ceasefire accompanied by a clear and unequivocal condemnation of the massacre of civilians, the destruction of the infrastructure and the use of prohibited weapons (white phosphorous, gas, cluster bombs).

More than 400 people have died and 3500 been mutilated and injured, tens of thousands of homes destroyed, dozens of bridges and roads ripped open, plus twenty factories razed to the ground, thousands of cars and lorries dislocated, thousands of hectares of crops and fruit trees gone up in flames. And the crime is being committed under the watchful eyes of George W Bush and his ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton. But also those of all the heads of states, large and small, powerful and weak, and above all, the Arab heads of state who find it quite normal to give in to American demands while the soldiers of the UNFIL (Interim Forces of the United Nations in Lebanon) refuse to give any assistance to the inhabitants of the village of Marwahine, where 25 have perished under Israeli bombardment. This happened right on the doorstep of the troops sent by Kofi Annan to protect the civilians.

These images only hint at the awful reality which cannot be fully ascertained until Israel has ended its aggression against Lebanon.

Lebanese detainees and international law

Much ink continues to be used in the West to write about the causes of this aggression. It also helps the television channels to find topics for discussion. And the accusation that we hear being repeated incessantly all day long is this: why did Hezbullah chose this precise moment in time to take two Israeli soldiers hostage in order to demand the release of other Lebanese hostages currently being held (illegally, of course) in Israel for the past 24 years and, in the case of Samir Qantar, for more than 28 years?

To this question we respond with two others: Why have successive governments in Israel refused to free the Lebanese hostages, despite their retreat from the major part of Lebanon over five years ago? And why do they refuse to apply the previous UN resolutions passed in the years 1948, 1967, 1973 concerning the retreat of their occupation of Nkhaileh, seven Lebanese border villages, the Shabaa farms and the Kfarchouba hights? Especially as John Bolton, and before him George Bush and Condolezza Rice and other heads of states have given Israel their backing to enforce, with fire and blood, UN resolution 1559 passed only in 2004 concerning the disarmament of the Lebanese national resistance against Israeli occupation.

Of course, those who are strongest are not short of justifications – “their reason is always the best one,” since some regard it as fact that these arms are in the service of Iran or even Syria, as if Hezbollah today, and before it the communists and other resistance movements, were not Lebanese patriots and as if international law and the United Nations Charter (to the writing of which Lebanon had actively contributed) only exist for certain peoples and to the detriment of others. Otherwise, how can one explain this unanimity to support the murderer instead of the victims? (i.e. the Palestinians in Gaza and the Occupied Territories).

The Lebanese resistance has the right to do all it can to liberate the Lebanese detainees as well as the remaining occupied territories. It is not necessary to have, as some claim, recognition that Syria had taken, by force, these territories in early 1950’s. To confirm these areas belong to Lebanon, one only has to examine mandate-era documents held in France. As far back as 1968 the Lebanese President Charles Helou had, through international intermediaries, demanded that Syria leave the Shabaa Farms. The communist Lebanese National Resistance Front, had spoken about Shabaa Farms in 1978 and the Annals of the History of Lebanon notes that more than one operation by the resistance has been carried out for the liberation of that region even before the birth of Hezbollah.

The Israeli plan for Lebanon and the region

The aggression that Lebanon is today subjected to is about much more than the two Israeli hostages or three Lebanese hostages. It has a number of wider objectives:

First, the plan for Lebanon is to pursue resume the objectives of the aggression of 1982, to turn Lebanon into a satellite state which unconditionally accepts the Israeli leadership in the region within the frame of the project which had been hatched for several years and emerged in 1993: a Greater Middle East directed by the United States and by Israel as its accessory; In other words a Middle East disarmed and therefore incapable of defending itself. This is why the Egyptian and Iraqi armies were neutralized, and this is why the Palestinians and the Lebanese have to surrender their arms.

Second objective is the seizure of water, considered an essential resource at this beginning of the third millennium. Israel has been heavily banking on the control Lebanese water (Litani, Hasbani, Wazzani) as well as on the water originating on the Golan Heights. This is why it needs to control the Shebaa farms which guard the strategic waterways. This is also why it needs to control a no man’s land in the South of Lebanon, and to eliminate, above all, the very real presence of resistance forces in the 21 Lebanese border villages in the area.

The third objective is related to the situation in Palestine. Actually, the war against Lebanon has made people forget what is happening there: weekly massacres, destruction, taking of hostages etc. All this in the name of American-style “democracy”, so that the United States of George W. Bush find it normal that an entire people can be punished because they have dared to vote against the will of the one who occupies them while the occupier and murderer of these people is rewarded with unconditional aid: $2.2 billion sophisticated armaments in a single year (2005), and the perfected F15s and F16s with which they bombard us today.

Fourth and final objective is about Iraq (and Iran) where the current American administration is stuck. It wanted, before the start of the presidential campaign, to boost its chances at the ballot box by once-again fanning fears of terrorism at home. This terrorism of course was created but none other than America which had given full support to Bin Laden and his “Mujahedeen” to carry out a “holy war” against the old Soviet Union. It is within that objective that we place what is happening in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Let’s not forget the campaign over “the sole nuclear threat from Iran” which Henry Kissinger had evoked in the newspaper Le Monde several months ago where he had refused to address nuclear arms held by Israel because, as he said, that country “defends American values”!!!

The American-Israeli plan continues because the Lebanese government has not managed to carry out the part which it was supposed to, and which consisted of putting an end to the presence of the Hezbollah army and the Palestinian factions in Lebanon: which made it possible for these Palestinians to settle in Lebanon and allowed the speed of development of the stages towards the Greater Middle East mentioned above to accelerate.

Conclusion

For all these reasons, the generalized aggression by Israel will be pursued under the direction of the United States. Only a huge campaign of protest and public pressure can hope to stop it before it is too late. An immediate cease fire has to be demanded. As for resolution 1559, that raises the spirit of Lebanon which also requires the application of other international resolutions, like those which demand the right of return of the Palestinian people and the construction of an independent state on its national territory.

The Lebanese people need all the international help they can get to stop the bloodbath into which Israel has plunged it for more than 30 years. Its children, dead and injured, demand a unanimous outcry against their murderers and those who direct it and procure their arms. Stand up for Lebanon! ———————————

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