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.

Aug 1, 2006

Posted by Bulatlat

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