Bush, Blair and Israel
WORKERS, SEPT 2006 ISSUE
Since 27 June, when the Israeli government started its brutal attack on Gaza, its forces have killed more than 140 innocent civilians (as Workers went to press). They have destroyed bridges, water and fuel pipes and the territory's only power station, cutting off water, fuel and electricity to the 1.4 million residents. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared, "I want nobody to sleep at night in Gaza." They have arrested a third of the government and 36 members of the Palestinian parliament and forced the rest of the government into hiding. They bombed the Palestinian Foreign Ministry for proposing negotiations.
The US government vetoed a Security Council Resolution demanding that Israel halt its attack on Gaza and end its "disproportionate use of force" and calling for the immediate release of the captured soldier. The Labour government's representative cravenly abstained. Blair rejects universal demands that he call for a ceasefire. Last year, Britain doubled its arms sales to Israel; the US rushes two-ton "bunker-buster" bombs for Israel to use.
So, encouraged by the US and British governments, the Israeli state launched a second war, its savage attack on Lebanon. Israeli Brigadier General Amir Eshel warned, "nothing is safe" in Lebanon and threatened to "turn back the clock in Lebanon by 20 years". As of 16 August, 1,076 Lebanese civilians (a third of them children) and 29 Lebanese soldiers had been killed, more than 3,293 wounded and a million driven from their homes. Israel has lost at least 144 killed, 104 soldiers and 40 civilians, and 1,867 wounded.
The Israeli Justice Minister said that all those people still in southern Lebanon must be considered "terrorists" and called for the Israeli air force to flatten all the villages there. He also accurately described the Rome Conference's US- and British-inspired decision not to call for a ceasefire as "permission...to continue the operation".
Bush and his PR man Blair assert Israel's "right to defend itself". How can targeting civilians, ambulances and bridges in another country be acts of self-defence? These are war crimes. Doesn't Lebanon have the right to defend itself against Israel?
A US spokesman said, "We hold Syria and Iran – which directly support Hizbollah – responsible for this attack and for the ensuing violence." This whitewashed Israel of all blame for its two illegal assaults. It encourages the Israeli state to start more wars and opens the way for more US aggressions in the Middle East.
Far from bringing peace and democracy to the region, the US state is starting wars and provoking terrorism. And in all this US-inspired carnage, Blair is disgracefully complicit.