Naked Terrorism

By Ghali Hassan
Aug 1, 2006, 05:10
AxisOfLogic

‘Terrorism’ means activities that - (A) involve violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or of any State;(B) appear to be intended - (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping. United State Code Title 18, Section 2331.

Since its creation by Western powers and Zionists in 1948, Israel has used terrorism to terrorise the native population (the Palestinians) and expand. It uses terrorism to threat, coerce and intimidate its neighbours. Under international law Israel is a terrorist state and must be condemned.

According to Article 2(4) of the UN Charter; “All members [of the UN] shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state or in any manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations”.

The UN is also very specific about the right of people’s resistance to aggression. Here, the people of Lebanon (and the Palestinians) have ‘unalienable rights’ to defend themselves and to resist Israeli aggression by all means available to them.

Every Israeli act of terrorism is financed and supported by Israel’s Western allies, the U.S. and Britain in particular. Moreover, whatever Israel does, it does openly in the name of all Jews, and it uses the crimes committed against Jews by Europeans in the past to justify its acts of terrorism and vilify any criticism as “anti-Semitism”. Jews around the world – with a few honourable exceptions – have financed and supported Israel’s war crimes against defenceless population.

For their part, European leaders have vehemently supported Israeli action, because Israeli action of playing victim covers-up the existence of European crimes against Jews. In addition, any legitimate resistance to Israel’ acts of terrorism is labeled “terrorism” to justify greater terrorism.

Furthermore, Israel can count on its powerful Western allies, particularly the U.S and Britain, for unconditional political, massive financial and military support. Hence, in a short period of time, Israel built the strongest army in the region, if not one of the strongest in the world. Israel’s arsenal of weapons includes nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. With the support of its Western allies, Israel is rarely condemned for its acts of terrorism and war crimes, even when Israel kills UN peacekeepers from countries such as Canada, Austria and Finland.

Israel also has an army of Western intellectuals and scholars placed in higher positions in the U.S. and Europe, who are ready to shield Israel and deflect the main responsibility of Israel’s war crimes on the U.S. They alleged that Israel is an “innocent bystander” and is simply a U.S. proxy force serving U.S. imperialist interests. This is simply a falsehood. Although Israel is close ally of the U.S. and the U.S. can impose punitive measures on Israel, Israel can renounce violence and pursue a destiny of peaceful coexistence.

Unmentioned is also Israel’s militarised and extremely fanatic society. Most Israelis support Israel’s aggression against defenceless Arab population regardless of the pretext. Indeed, Israeli children are manipulated to the extent that they are often taken on tours during war to view weapons and are encouraged to write hate messages on the missiles and bombs that were destined to kill innocent Lebanese and Palestinian children.

For nearly six decades, Israel has violated every international law, every humanitarian law and every UN Resolution. It does so with the tacit support of Western powers, the U.S. and Britain in particular.

For decades, Israel routinely conducted terrorism attacks in Lebanon, including bombing and shelling of refugee camps, terrorist raids and assassinations of Lebanese and Palestinian politicians and activists in Beirut and elsewhere, invasion of Lebanon in 1978, and the occupation of Lebanon in 1982.

To get away with terrorism, Israel uses the crimes committed against Jews by West Europeans to justify its acts of terrorism and vilify any criticism of its terror as “anti-Semitism”. Europeans have vehemently supported Israeli action, because Israeli action of playing victim remove the guilt and covers-up the existence of European crimes against Jews. In addition, any legitimate resistance to Israel’ terror is labeled “terrorism” in order to justify greater terrorism.

In playing victim, Israel manipulates and uses the mainstream (mass) media –inherently pro-Israel, and anti-Arabs and Muslims – in very sophisticated and efficient way to portray its acts of terrorism as “self-defence” and at the same time demonise its victims as “Untermenschen” or subhumans – in the same way Nazis demonised Jews – whose lives are cheaper than Jewish ones. The task is made easy by the fact that most of the mainstream media are own by either pro-Israel Jews or by pro-Israel Zionists concentrated mostly in the U.S. and in Britain with a global audience.

When Lebanese (or Palestinian) civilians are killed by Israel’s acts of terrorism, Israeli propagandists and Western media immediately exonerate Israel by blaming resistance fighters of using civilians as “human shields”. As it is happen in the current Israeli aggression against Lebanon. Israeli and Western media are deliberately distorting the facts and blaming the Hizbullah resistance fighters of hiding among the civilian population. However, reports from the ground in Lebanon consistently show that Israeli claims are always false. Firstly, knowing that they risk being betrayed by collaborators, Hizbullah’s fighters go to great length to avoid contacts with civilians and stay as far away from civilians as possible. Secondly, rockets and missiles are fired from open spaces and could not be fired from built-up areas.

Furthermore, Israeli soldiers are well-known and publicly use Palestinian children to shield them when attacking Palestinian resistance. In fact the currents Israeli aggression on Lebanon – a defenceless nation – is designed to coerce not only the Lebanese people to rise up against Hizbullah, but also to blackmail other nations and to use the war as a rehearsal for a region-wide war against Iran or Syria.

Such is the case on Sunday 30 July 2006. When Israeli war planes (U.S.-made F-16s) bombed a shelter housing refugees in the village of Qana – the site of a 1996 massacre of more than 100 Lebanese civilians by Israeli forces – killing more than 60 innocent civilians, including at least 40 children, a war crimes by any standard, Israeli propagandists and Western media tried to exonerate Israel by claiming that Hizbullah were firing rocket from the site.

Also ignored by the media are Israel’s indiscriminate bombings of civilian infrastructure and population centres, using banned weapons such as Cluster bombs and incendiary white phosphorous bombs against defenceless population in contravention of international humanitarian laws.

According to conservative estimate, the current Israeli act of terrorism on Lebanon killed at least 800 innocent Lebanese civilians, although journalists on the ground put the figure much higher, injured more than 4000 and caused the displacement of a million people. As always, more than a third of the victims are innocent children.

Be Lebanese or Palestinians, Israel dose not discriminate between civilians and combatants, a flagrant violation of the Geneva and The Hague Conventions.

Like Israel’s previous acts of terrorism, the pretext to justify the current terrorism attacks against Lebanon is that Israel was allegedly provoked by the Lebanese resistance crossing into Israel and capturing two Israel soldiers. However, contrary to Israel’s propaganda which is becoming a global propaganda, the Israeli soldiers were captured and taken prisoners on Lebanese side of the border in purely heroic operation. The other Israeli soldiers were not killed by Hizbullah’s fighters, but rather because their tank rolled over a landmine – planted by Israel – while pursuing Hizbullah’s fighters. In sharp contrast from earlier Israel’s response to previous tit for tat skirmish between Hizbullah and the Israeli army, Israel held the Government of Lebanon responsible and instigated a total war against the entire state of Lebanon.

The current Israeli aggression against Lebanon is a U.S.-Israel engineered war planned long time ago. It is a premeditated U.S.-Israel aggression aimed at imposing a “New Middle East", where Lebanon, like Jordan, Egypt, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and today’s Iraq would be under U.S.-Israeli domination or hegemony. To use Antonio Gramsci’s conception of hegemony, where an oppressive power structure, in which the domination is concealed through an Arab façade and the consent of the oppressed, is not coerced; rather it is consensual and the oppressed are complicit in their oppression. The dominant ways have become naturalised and normalised. The same form of power was tried during Fascism’s occupation of Europe.

The U.S. refusal to condemn or at least allows the UN to condemn Israel’s “disproportionate” use of violence against civilians is evident that the U.S. is complicit in Israel’s war crimes. Israel’s “disproportionate” use of violence violates the basic tenets of the laws of war. Indeed, the Geneva and The Hague Conventions prohibit the use of military force that causes “collateral damage” to civilian infrastructure that is disproportionate to the military value of the objective.

As mentioned earlier, Israel uses violence to coerce and threat the population in order “to attain” its goals. However, the Lebanese people (regardless of their affiliation) seem to be undeterred by Israel’s acts of terrorism. According to a recent opinion poll conducted by the Centre for Research and Information in Beirut, 87 % of all Lebanese support Hizbullah's resistance against Israel. The poll includes some 80% of all Christian respondents, 80 % of all Druze respondents, and 89% of all “Sunni” Lebanese. The poll also shows that 89.5 % of respondents believe the U.S. was not an “honest broker”. This is far more than George Bush and Tony Blair can master together in their countries. As revealed by Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a professor at the American University in Beirut, only 8% of Lebanese see the U.S. playing an honest role. Most Lebanese see the U.S. as being complicit in Israel’s terror against Lebanon and want to join the Hizbullah resistance to defend their nation against Israel’s aggression.

Finally, while Israel and its allies (U.S. and Britain) demanding that Lebanon implement UN Resolution 1559 to disarm Hizbullah, Israel refuses to implement countless UN Resolutions passed against it, including Resolution 638, which is calling for the “immediate safe release of all hostages and abducted persons [including 10,000 Palestinians and Lebanese among them are hundreds of women and children] wherever and by whomever they are being held”, the well-known Resolution 242, which is demanding Israel to withdraw from all Arab lands – including Palestinian land, Lebanese land (the Shebaa farms), and the Syrian Golan Height, seized in Israel’s pre-emptive aggression (a.k.a. terrorism) in 1967 –, and Resolution 194 calling for the ‘right of return’ for all Palestinian refugees to their land, to mention just three. In fact UN Resolution 1559 was an illegitimate Resolution because it infringes on the sovereignty of Lebanon by requesting the disarmament of a legitimate resistance movement.

Why the UN is unable to force Israel to accept an immediate cease-fire? Regardless of what Britain, U.S. and Israel think of the Lebanese people, a cease-fire is a paramount starting point to peace and to save innocent civilian lives.

Terrorism must be treated as terrorism, regardless who is the perpetrator. Westerners can not pretend to fight terrorism while at the same time remain complicit in Israel’s ongoing acts of terrorism.

As long as Westerners continue to play double standard and ignore their complicity in terrorism, Israel and its leaders will remain an obstacle to world peace.

Ghali Hassan lives in Perth, Western Australia.

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