Gentle reader, do you know that Israel is engaged in ethnic cleansing in southern Lebanon? Israel has ordered all the villagers to clear out. Israel then destroys their homes and murders the fleeing villagers. That way there is no one to come back and nothing to which to return, making it easier for Israel to grab the territory, just as Israel has been stealing Palestine from the Palestinians.

Do you know that one-third of the Lebanese civilians murdered by Israel's attacks on civilian residential districts are children? That is the report from Jan Egeland, the emergency relief coordinator for the UN.

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Of course, you don't know these things, because the US print and TV media do not report them.

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Despite the Israeli spin on news provided by US "reporting," a majority of Americans do not approve of Israeli atrocities against Lebanese civilians. Hezbollah is located in southern Lebanon. If Israel is targeting Hezbollah, why are Israeli bombs falling on northern Lebanon? Why are they falling on Beirut? Why are they falling on civilian airports? On schools and hospitals?

Now we arrive at the main point. When the US Senate and House of Representatives pass resolutions in support of Israeli war crimes and condemn those who resist Israeli aggression, the Senate and House confirm Osama bin Laden's propaganda that America stands with Israel against the Arab and Muslim world.

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You can observe three important things simultaneously in the Middle East: One, Israel's total disregard for the lives and property of the Arab people; two, the effectiveness of the Israeli propaganda machine; and three, the utterly craven support for Israel by the U.S. government.

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One reason Lebanon never disarmed Hezbollah is because its members are considered heroes by the Lebanese Shi'ites. They were the ones who made Israel's occupation of Lebanon so costly that the Israeli people demanded that it be ended. They also provide a wide range of welfare services to the Lebanese people, and they are not terrorists. The largest terrorist organization in the Middle East is the state of Israel, which kills civilians by the hundreds.

What you are witnessing is a disaster in the making – not only for Lebanon, which will require 50 years to recover, but for the United States, which stands exposed once again as a prejudiced hypocrite and an accessory to Israel's war crimes.

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On July 20, the U.S. House of Representatives, by an overwhelming 410-8 margin, voted to unconditionally endorse Israel's ongoing attacks on Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. The Senate passed a similar resolution defending the Israeli attack earlier in the week by a voice vote, but included a clause that “urges all sides to protect innocent civilian life and infrastructure.” By contrast, the House version omits this section and even praises Israel for “minimizing civilian loss,” despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The resolution also praises President George W. Bush for “fully supporting Israel,” even though Bush has blocked diplomatic efforts for a cease-fire and has isolated the United States in the international community by supporting the Israeli attacks.

The resolution reveals a bipartisan consensus on the legitimacy of U.S. allies to run roughshod over international legal norms. The resolution even goes so far as to radically reinterpret the United Nations Charter by claiming that Israel's attacks on Lebanon's civilian infrastructure is an act of legitimate self-defense under Article 51 despite a broad consensus of international legal scholars to the contrary.

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317 Lebanese, 3 of which were Hezbollah 'guerillas'
31 Israelis have been killed, among them 16 soldiers

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Clare Short, Former UK Secretary of State for International Development

This policy of our Government is so unbalanced and so disrespectful of international law, and the equal human rights of all people in the region, that it is inflaming the situation and inciting large numbers of angry young Arabs and Muslims to conclude there is no political route to justice.

Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, MUSLIM COUNCIL OF BRITAIN

By wilfully turning a blind eye to Israel's indiscriminate killing of women and children and the destruction of Lebanon's infrastructure, we have further tarnished how our country is viewed in the eyes of the Muslim world. There can be no doubt that Israel's actions constitute war crimes.

Mark Thomas, COMEDIAN AND ACTIVIST

It is absolutely shameful that our Government is standing by while collective punishment and war crimes are meted out on the people of Lebanon. Let us be clear: if America and Britain had not given Israel the green light to do this, then it would not be happening. It is beyond horrific.

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U.S. President George Bush has repeatedly claimed that Israel has a "right" to defend itself.

And Israel has repeatedly claimed that Iran is an accomplice in this war against it.

Both claims, from those of us living the Israeli "defence" in Lebanon, are left to wonder where the moral compass of the world has gone and whether justice will ever prevail.

What is the definition of defence and what are its acceptable limits?

Hezbollah seized two Israeli soldiers along the border with Lebanon to force an exchange for Lebanese prisoners that Israel has held without due process. One of them, Samir Quntar, has been held for 27 years.

Hezbollah's attack may not have been justified, but it has learned through past experience that Israel pays no heed to United Nations resolutions and international law and only responds to force. For this, Israel is pounding all of Lebanon to a pulp.

Its U.S.-made F-16s and bombs crash down on the fragile cities below, demolishing homes, lives, a country that has tried to get back onto its unstable feet after an uncivil civil war that had turned a little paradise into a little forgotten hell.

Israel claims that Iranian hands are all over the bombs and training of Hezbollah and its arms.

The hypocrisy is not lost on any Arab, because we all know, especially those of us at the receiving end, that U.S. hands are all over Israeli bombs and ammunitions and war machines.

The argument is the same. The only difference appears to be who makes the accusations and which accusations "count" in this lopsided war.

Israel cannot win over an entire population of people by pulverizing them. America needs to also understand that what goes around comes around. There is a point where even the meek will fight back.

America's blind support of Israel even as it tramples international law, brazenly inflicting war crimes on innocent people promises less-than-pleasant consequences.

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Mideast warning from U.S. intelligence: Blowback
Graham Fuller, former Vice Chairman of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA:

"Most of the U.S. thinks this crisis was started by Hamas and Hezbollah and that therefore those parties should be made to pay the price. A more objective reading of the situation would note U.S. and Israeli determination to strangle Hamas in the nest from day one, to starve it, humiliate it and, typically and expectedly, to drive its radical wing to undertake a guerrilla operation against Israel. So the region does not view this conflict as prompted by Hamas and Hezbollah, but rather as one made inevitable and justifiable by unrelenting and merciless pressure from the U.S. and Israel. I fear in the end this will be one more bloody chapter in this now widening struggle. In the interim, unseen to our eyes, the radical jihadis are making silent recruits every night through the flickering television images of yet new regional horrors. But sadly we will be seeing those recruits as they turn to action in weeks, months or even years from now.

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