Tag Archives: Hezbollah

Israel’s new strategy: “sabotage” and “attack” the global justice movement

The following article by Ali Abunimah is from Electronic Intifada:

An extraordinary series of articles, reports and presentations by Israel’s influential Reut Institute has identified the global movement for justice, equality and peace as an “existential threat” to Israel and called on the Israeli government to direct substantial resources to “attack” and possibly engage in criminal “sabotage” of this movement in what Reut believes are its various international “hubs” in London, Madrid, Toronto, the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond.

The Reut Institute’s analyses hold that Israel’s traditional strategic doctrine — which views threats to the state’s existence in primarily military terms, to be met with a military response — is badly out of date. Rather, what Israel faces today is a combined threat from a “Resistance Network” and a “Delegitimization Network.”

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End the U.S. and Israeli Attacks on Lebanon and Palestine – Victory to the Resistance!

By Freedom Road Socialist Organization

Israel has added another offense to its long roster of crimes by attacking Lebanon. It is conducting an air war that intentionally targets civilians; even refugees fleeing in their cars are killed. Israel is systematically destroying the infrastructure of southern Lebanon by targeting people’s basic needs – apartment buildings, warehouses full of food, gas stations, powers plants, bridges and roads. Almost a million people have been driven from their homes. Now Israeli ground troops have crossed the border into Lebanon.

Right now Israel is carrying out a war on the Arab peoples on two fronts. Lebanon is one and Palestine – particularly Gaza – is the other. The Israeli authorities have kidnapped Palestinian legislators, cabinet ministers and mayors. No one is safe from Israel’s ceaseless shelling. Not old folks in their homes or children by the seashore. Occupied Palestine has been turned into an open-air prison. The medical system is in shambles and the hand of hunger is touching the majority of families. On one day, July 26, the Israeli authorities killed at least 23 people.

None of this would be possible without the complicity of the United States government. Israel is a client state, created on stolen land and existing on borrowed time. Israel is a country brought into being by Western imperialism, and it is armed and financed by the U.S. The Bush administration is doing much more than ‘giving a green light’ to these attacks. In fact the two parties have arrived at of crude division of labor. American diplomats are charged with preventing a ceasefire while American-made bombs and artillery rounds are being rushed to the Israeli army. The Israelis’ role is to carry out the actual bloodletting and murder of women and children.

The United States has built an empire for the purpose enriching the corporate elite by looting the land, labor and natural resources of others. Israel serves as a thuggish enforcer of this empire in the Middle East.

At this point it should be clear to all that full-scale war unleashed in Gaza and Lebanon has little to do with that the capture of a few Israeli soldiers by Lebanese and Palestinian resistance forces. According to a number of press accounts, active planning for the invasion of Lebanon began five years ago.

To understand what Bush and the Israeli authorities are doing, several important factors need to be kept in mind. First, a profound radicalization of the broad masses of people is unfolding across the Middle East and Israel is in a position of relative weakness. Hezbollah defeated Israel and forced it leave south Lebanon in 1999. The Palestinian resistance is strong and broad based. Additionally, Israel’s main backers, the rulers of the United States, are facing a defeat of historic proportions in Iraq. The U.S. government and its outpost in Israel are trying to break out of the cycle of defeat and decline though the war on Lebanon. The have lifted a rock that will end up on their feet.

Both the Lebanese and Palestinian resistance deserve the support of peace movement, progressives in general and all people of goodwill. The men and women who are giving their lives to resist Israeli/U.S. aggression represent what is best in humanity: a willingness to sacrifice for the collective good, a commitment on the part of the oppressed and exploited to achieve national freedom and a determination in the face of adversity to right a long history of wrongs. The best way we can support these movements for justice is to unite all who can be united to end the occupations of Palestine and Lebanon.

If a movement weakens imperialism it should be supported. No one wants to live under the shadow of an empire – that’s a matter of fair play and justice. Also, whatever weakens the rich and powerful who rule the United States is good for us, the working and oppressed people who live here.

The people of Lebanon and Palestine are heroes. They are farmers and grandparents, moms and factory workers, scholars and people from all walks of live who are stepping on to the stage of world history. They know what hell is like and have decided to destroy it. They deserve solidarity and support of the American people.

U.S. out of the Middle East!
End all aid to Israel!
The Arab peoples are sure to win!

Statement by Palestinian Marxist-Leninist group PFLP on the Escalation of Zionist Aggression against the Territory of Lebanon and Palestine

Epic Resistance in the Land of Palestine and Lebanon
Statement issued by the Political Bureau of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine on the Escalation of Zionist Aggression against the Territory of Lebanon and Palestine.

Epic steadfastness and resistance — the epic of Ghazza and al-Karama — continue in the land of Palestine and Lebanon. The Lebanese and Palestinian peoples are writing a page of glory in the history of the Arab Nation and Islamic world community and in the history of all humanity. At a time of impotence, collusion, and submission by official Arab regimes, as evidenced by the results of the meetings of Arab foreign ministers, the knights of Hizballah and the knights of Palestine continue their heroic defiance of the Israeli terrorist war machine in defense not only of Palestine and Lebanon, but in defense of the entire Arab Nation, its future generations and children.

In the shadow of this genocidal war that is being waged by the Zionist entity against Lebanese and Palestinian lands and peoples, the Political Bureau of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine declares as follows:

First. The fighting people of Lebanon, their vital forces and heroic resistance under the leadership of militant Hizballah, with his excellency Sayyid Hasan Nasrallah, the image of pride and honor and defiance, at their head, are today writing an epic that will go down in history and have the most profound effect on the present and future of the whole region. This epic marks the beginning of the foundation, formation, and construction of a new stage in the history of the Arab Zionist conflict.

The heroic hands that fired the missiles of resistance at the cities of Haifa, Akka, Safad, Tabariya, and Nahariya inflicted dozens of killed and wounded in the ranks of the Zionist forces. Those hands are reasserting respect for the idea of struggle against this rapacious entity with which there can be no coexistence after it has become clear to everyone how false and useless are calls for peace and negotiations with gangs of murderers and criminals who understand nothing but the language of weapons and resistance.

The strikes at Palestinian cities by missiles fired by the heroic Lebanese resistance created and will continue to create a new balance of terror that will have the most profound effect on the Zionist enemy, psychologically, politically, economically, militarily, and in their morale. Those who occupy the land of Palestine will realize that the continuation of their occupation will come at an enormous cost.

The escalation of the strikes at the land of Palestine by the Palestinian and Lebanese Resistance has great historical meaning and will have the most profound effects on and ramifications for the future of the criminal Zionist entity.

Second. The contemptible results of the meeting of Arab foreign ministers amounted to a stab at the resistance in Palestine and Lebanon and showed once again to what depths of decay, collusion, and submission some Arab rulers have sunk in compliance with the dictates of the American administration, pursuing policies that are in total contradiction with the interests of their peoples and the supreme interests of the Arab Nation. The inability of the Arab foreign ministers to take a clear stance in support of the resistance and to take practical measures to stop the Zionist aggression against Lebanon and Palestine demonstrate to what an extent the official Arab regimes have fallen into ruin and collapse.

Third. The Political Bureau of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine calls on the Arab masses and their vital popular forces, it calls on the trade unions and federations, to shoulder their responsibility and duty in defending Lebanon and Palestine and in going out in demonstrations and all forms of popular activity to pressure the Arab governments and to give all forms of support and assistance to the Lebanese and Palestinian peoples and their heroic resistance movements in defiance of the American-Zionist plan for the region.

Fourth. The blows of the heroic resistance in Lebanon and Palestine have placed the Zionist entity in a deep dilemma and have created new equations. Therefore, Israel is trying to export its crisis by attempting to flee forward and make Syria and the Islamic Republic of Iran responsible for what is going on, even though everyone near and far is well aware that what is going on is an American-Israeli plan aimed at subjugating the region, an attempt to put it under their complete control. This is what explains the intensification and escalation of pressure on steadfast Syria and Iran, which constitute a mighty barrier in the face of such hostile plans.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine offers its salute and expresses its admiration for the fighters of resistant Hizballah and the steadfast people of Lebanon. It declares that it stands beside them will all its energy in the confrontation with the brutal, barbaric enemy, and it reaffirms its pledge to continue the struggle and resistance until all the goals for which legions of martyrs have sacrificed themselves have been achieved.

Greetings to the people of Lebanon and their heroic resistance!

Greetings to the people of Palestine and their legendary steadfastness!

Freedom for the prisoners and detainees in the dungeons of the occupation!

Glory to the martyrs! Victory belongs to the peoples in battle for freedom!

17 July 2006

From MR Zine: http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/pflp180706.html