[Marxism] Chomsky et al letter on Lebanon

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Outstanding letter, and particularly including this crucial sentence:

"We offer our solidarity and support to the victims of this brutality
and to those who mount a resistance against it. "
==================================================================

War crimes and Lebanon

Thursday August 3, 2006
The Guardian

The 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.

Tariq Ali
Noam Chomsky
Eduardo Galeano
Howard Zinn
Ken Loach
John Berger
Arundhati Roy
London

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1835915,00.html



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