Israel escalates violence

Smashing of Lebanon green-lighted by President Bush at G-8 meeting


Friends of war say Israel does nothing but defend itself. Boxer, friend of war where Israel is concerned, is disappointed that the US military is too ``bogged down'' due to its ``obsession with Iraq''.

See full story on the Israeli blockade, widespread killing, and destruction of essential infrastructure all around Lebanon here.

Israel and a coaltion of Western countries--with essential and fundamental diplomatic support from the United States--has mercilessly punished the Palestinian people since January for freely and fairly electing a Hamas-led government. Sure, Hamas is the Palestinian war party. But then, no such international pressure ever befalls America for electing Democrats and Republicans who form the most savage war party the world has ever known. Maybe Hamas, as well as the Lebonese Hezbollah have learned from us and because of us the lesson that force is the only answer when state interests are at stake.

Let's also recognize that Palestine, and now Lebanon too, are fighting for their very survival against vastly superior military powers (America and its Israeli client) who would much rather see the region's Arabs subdued to the status of Bantustans or POW camps surrounded by networks of walls and Israeli-only expressways.

Months ago, the attack on the Palestinians was already reaching a critical stage with Israel intentionally halting Gaza's economy, about which I posted here. Last month, Alexander Cockburn ran through the state of shambles and carnage that Gaza and all of Palestine had become under the brutal violence and de facto sanctions enforced by Israel, the US, and Europe:

bank transfers suspended

contacts with and visas for new government members effectively banned

$55 million in tax revenues illegally withheld each month

comprehensive closure has been imposed on the territories restricting access to goods and services within the West Bank and imposing draconian movement restrictions on the entire Palestinian population.

Israel has kept the Karni (al-Muntar) industrial crossing into the Gaza Strip shut for weeks at a time locking out medicines, food and goods as well as preventing the export of agricultural produce from Gaza

Approximately 165,000 employees of the Palestinian Authority have gone without pay for more than three months affecting the lives of at least 700,000 people. Doctors, nurses, teachers, civil servants, policemen and others return home empty handed each day to families whose overall levels of poverty and malnutrition have grown dramatically

Save the Children UK Program Manager Jan Coffey reports that in Gaza now 78% of the population lives below the poverty line ($2 per day) and that 10% of children under five suffer from chronic malnutrition

Israeli artillery shelling [thousands of shells every month, resulting in multiple atrocities like the June 9 Gaza beach killings]

targeted assassinations

incursions into cities and towns, arrests and raids continue with impunity

Here's an example of how to look back farther than just a minute ago to see how these events have precipitated. On May 25, a clandestine group thought to be run by the Israeli Mossad assassinated an Islamic Jihad leader and his brother on Lebanese soil.

Does the put Wednesday's capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah near Lebanon following the capture of one near Gaza some days earlier in any sort of context? All I can say is that the US president has declared such right of killing, capture, and detention worldwide when at his whim he specifies ``enemy combatants'', perhaps pointed to for bounty. Israel uses cross-border assasins with impunity. Why should not other entities engaged in armed struggle for survival claim the same rights, as long as the captives are treated with the rights afforded by the Geneva Conventions? The Arab dictatorships clearly are uncomfortable with such a formulation, witnessed by a Saudi statment disavowing the captures as having any legitimacy as acts of resistance. I have rejected repeatedly in this blog warfare through detention, so I reject this tactic here as well. But the Israeli response is beyond any possible measure of self defense and should be condemed under Article 33 of the 4th Geneva Convention.

Of course, as long as the American light for Israeli dealing of death and destruction is glowing brightly green, no appeal to international law means a damn thing. In yesterday's State Department briefing, spokesman Sean McCormack laid out in full detail the precepts re-stated today by President Bush at the G-8 meeting. McCormack banged the drum, ``This is, in our view, an act of self-defense on the Israeli part...'' and then responded,

QUESTION: As the operations continue, it seems as if there are few ways as -- you know, not only for Americans but for humanitarian supplies, oil, and other supplies to get into the country. Are you talking to the Israelis about, I don't know, a ceasefire or something like to get more supplies into the country? Are you worried about a humanitarian crisis or an economic crisis? When you talk about supporting the Lebanon Government, is there anything you're doing in that respect?

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, certainly I think the -- I think all the countries in the region, including Israel, are attuned to the fact that they do not want to cause any harm to innocent civilians. This is a very difficult situation right now for the Lebanese people, I think. We understand that. And that's why we're doing everything we can, why the UN is doing everything it can, to deescalate the situation. The way out of this, as I said, is for the rocket attacks to stop, for these two captives to be returned. Then, if you have that situation and you have a situation where the Government of Lebanon actually controls all of its territory, you can start to get back to a more normal situation....

Now, at the moment, I don't have a good read on the situation of the Lebanese people. I know it certainly must be very difficult for them right now. But this underscores the reason why you have to implement 1559. And the effect is that Hezbollah has dragged the Lebanese people into this situation. Hezbollah and its benefactors are attempting to drag the Lebanese people, drag the -- and with regard to Hamas and its benefactors, drag the Palestinian people into an abyss of violence. [emphasis added]

Israel does nothing. America does nothing. Only Arabs do the ``dragging''. Cast your eyes away from Lebanese civilians. No list of outrages upon the Palestinian people following their democratic election (that came out wrong) need be reviewed. The Cedar Revolution is over, smashed-up Lebanon is set back 20 years, and the Palestinians are on a ``diet'' near starvation.