23 Temmuz 2006
Public demonstrations are essential, but even more is demanded of us. The system has to be disrupted completely if there is to be any chance of minimizing the casualties of Israel's coming ground invasion and re-occupation of South Lebanon.We call on all workers, all management, all professions, all unions and syndicates, and all Arabs to begin immediately a general strike.We appeal especially to dockers, oil workers and airport workers. Anyone who has a position in the supply chain for Israel should act on their conscience.This action is needed now. We believe the invasion will begin this week.General strike, now!Hana Abdul Ilah Al-Bayaty, BRussells Tribunal Executive CommitteeIan Douglas, BRussells Tribunal Advisory CommitteeSpread this call for actionWe call on people who endorse the sentiment of this call for action to diffuse it widely.Below are excerpts of a statement released by The BRussells Tribunal Committee:Israel’s wanton bombing of Lebanese civilians is an unequivocal war crimeStates are obliged to protect Lebanon, militarily if necessary, lest international law become a travestyIf the Security Council won’t act, the General Assembly can and mustFollowing the intended destruction of the Iraqi state and society by the United States and the brutal military repression by Israel of the Palestinians' rightful struggle for self-determination, no one can maintain that the United States and Israel — global tyrant and regional proxy — have anything but the most contemptuous plans for the Arab world and its people. Not only do we have to stomach a barrage of lies and endless attempts by Bush and his paymasters to enact their own version of the domino theory across the Middle East, last week witnessed the beginning of what could be the endgame: one that likely will lead to a major, multi-state regional war which surely would include, sooner or later, the use of nuclear weapons.From Iraq to Palestine and across all the crooked pro-Washington Arab regimes, the US alliance with Israel — which now has reached insane proportions of mutual devotion — has brought nothing but torture, violence and mass destruction to the Arab world. The opening years of the second millennium have crystallized all the injustice of the last century. And in this conspiracy, corporate media plays a willing, opportunist role.Now we are obliged to sit back and watch Lebanese citizens be exterminated in an orgy of Israeli violence. We refuse. We are cajoled to believe that Israel is the victim and the only fair-playing actor in the Middle East. We do not believe.The right to resistThe resistance operation that was the alleged trigger for Israel’s latest foray of war crimes was legitimate under international law. Despite Israel’s withdrawal from much of South Lebanon in 2000, it has continued to occupy the Shebaa Farms area, contrary to UN determinations, kept thousands of prisoners, as well as routinely violate Lebanese sovereignty with flyovers by Israeli warplanes.For over a quarter of a century, customary international law has explicitly sanctioned the use of “all means” necessary to achieving effective self-determination for peoples under colonial rule or occupation. There are hundred of thousands of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon since 1948 whom Israel refuses the right to return to their homes, as stated in resolution 194 of the General Assembly of the UN. The nature of Israel’s colonial designs on Lebanon is well established. So long as Israel occupies Lebanese land, Hizbullah — or any other popular force — has a right under international law to repel and resist that occupation. Nothing in international law prohibits the taking of prisoners of war, which Israel’s captured soldiers are.Whether Israel likes it or not that its colonial plans are resisted by those it would subjugate, nothing permits it to displace its fury upon a civilian population. This is what it is doing. Israel is also engineering the ethnic cleansing of South Lebanon. The incursion will be permanent. The international community is complicit with the coming re-occupation and likely annexation of South Lebanon.Israeli colonialismIsrael’s bombing of Lebanon has nothing to do with two soldiers. Bush and advisors are saying now that Hizbullah should be addressed militarily: that a ceasefire “won’t solve the problem,” which in their view is resistance to US-Israeli colonial plans.History has taught repeatedly that no grievance is ever forgotten until justice is attained. Thus, it is impossible to separate Israel’s bombing of Lebanon from its history as a state founded on the dispossession of another national entity — the Palestinians. It is also impossible for Israel to achieve its ends through force, just as the United States has failed in Iraq.The State of Israel claims, nonetheless, a free hand to do whatever it wishes, wherever it wishes. In this, the US is its most valued apologist. It is time that the Middle East ceases to be the abyss around which the entire world revolves for the sake of the State of Israel. The attempts to justify Israel’s state of exception — a racist conception of blood purity and regional supremacy — have poisoned not only the Middle East but world politics as a whole. Yet Israel continues to be given carte blanche; permission to kill and destroy in violation of the numerous instruments of international human rights and humanitarian law aimed at codifying the most basic moral principles of human relations.Justice means addressing the unjustifiable exception to all contemporary norms that is Israel. Justice will begin when the world admits what it knows about Israeli strategic intentions, and acts to end Israeli colonialism.The BRussells Tribunal Committeehttp://brusselstribunal.org<http://brusselstribunal.org/>
