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To pick up on Giant Haystacks question: "can anyone inform me what Hisbullah’s strategic aims are or were when they started the attacks?"
Johann Hari wrote a very good piece in yesterdays Independent which covered Hezbollah’s aims:
"Hezbollah is at its core a self-defence organisation, however ugly, and its recent operations have been limited largely to this function. It was formed to expel Israeli troops who mounted an unprovoked invasion of Lebanon in 1982 in order to crush the Palestinian groups operating there. By the time the Israeli forces finally left in 2000, they had killed 17,000 Lebanese citizens and Palestinian refugees. Since the end of the occupation, Hezbollah had only fired across the border once, until Israel began its aerial bombardment last week. It was when the Israelis blew up Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of Hamas, outraging the world. (It is also worth remembering that half a million people in Lebanon get their drinking water from tanks provided by Hezbollah. At least 100,000 people depend on the hospitals and health clinics they run.)
There was always a way for Israel to put Hezbollah’s rockets beyond use without a single innocent Lebanese child being bombed. Hasan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, has been asked repeatedly if he would accept a two-state solution. He always replies that he will never sabotage “an internal Palestinian matter,” and that if Israeli and Palestinian leaders negotiate a settlement both sides can accept, Hezbollah’s missiles will never be used across the border again. Hezbollah will be reduced to a local Lebanese problem. Revolting though he is, Nasrallah has always kept his word on these matters: he even explained to Sharon back in 2004 that at some point in the future he would kidnap more soldiers in a bid to reclaim the remaining fighters Sharon clung onto."
It seems cruelly ironic that Israel is trying to destroy a group that emerged as a result of Israeli aggression towards Lebanon, by further aggression against Lebanese people. Although I despise what the Israelis are doing, I can understand that it is driven by a warped sense of self preservation, fear and maybe even persecution/revenge (although I believe that if there were any serious threat to Israel, they would be strongly defended by the US and EU). What seems worse to me are the actions and inactions of the US and Britain. I don’t know about the boundaries Israel sets with Washington policies, but I think that the US>UK may be using this conflict in setting the boundaries of the fight against terrorism i.e. anything is justified in fighting terrorism.
I ask myself how i can support the Lebanese during this conflict. I have been so moved, saddened and disgusted by this conflict and disgusted with the politicians who supposedly represent my country, I will be going to my first demonstration and hopefully do a little bit to show my support for the Lebanese people.
End Britain's Complicity in Israeli War Crimes
Assemble at 12/noon in Whitehall Place, between Withehall and Victoria Embakment, London.
Nearest tube: Embankment and Charing Cross.
National Demonstration called by Muslim organisations, Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Stop the War Coalition. |
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