[Peace-discuss] Findley: ISRAEL AND U.S. SEEN AS TERRORISTS

[David Green]

[Published Aug 3, 2006 on op-ed page State
Journal-Register, Springfield, Illinois, the state's
largest newspaper outside Chicago.]

IN WAKE OF QANA, ISRAEL AND U.S. SEEN AS TERRORISTS 
by Paul Findley

The ghastly human carnage at Qana, Lebanon, should
awaken everyone to the 
grim reality that our nation's attachment to Israel is
bad news. It entangles America in one awful mess after
another: first 9/11, then Afghanistan, then 
Iraq, and now Lebanon. None would have occurred if our
government had refused to support Israel's long
subjugation of the Palestinians. Instead of continuing
to ignore this entanglement with near-total silence,
our citizens should now seek a way out through
civilized open debate and discussion. If so, Qana will
be a silver lining--although a bloody one--in this
otherwise engulfing cloud.

Striving as usual to live by the sword, Israelis seem
unwilling to face the stark fact that they will never
be truly secure until Palestinians feel 
secure in an independent state of their own.
Hezbollah's recent border skirmish 
was motivated partly by leader Hassan Nasrallah's
desire to show solidarity with the Palestinians in
their lonely, desperate struggle for survival in 
Gaza. 

Using the skirmish as a pretext for war, Israel is now
trying to wipe out northern resistance to their
colonialism. The initial goal is the destruction 
of the Hezbollah, a popular Lebanese Shiâ ™ite
organization that has long provided social services
for local citizens along with armed resistance to 
Israeli occupation policies. Six years ago, Hezbollah
handed Israel its only battlefield defeat in history
by forcing it to withdraw its forces from South 
Lebanon. Perhaps Israelis believe that bombing
Hezbollah and much of Lebanon back to the Stone Ages
will ease the memory of defeat. Israel's major 
objective in its latest war-making is the installation
of a compliant new regime in Beirut. 

The U.S. government is not a bystander in this
gruesome enterprise. President Bush strongly supports
Israelâ ™s invasion and publicly opposes an 
immediate ceasefire until Israel finishes its
long-planned schedule of killings and destruction.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleessa Rice smilingly
calls these horrors the â œbirth pangs of a new
Middle East.

If past is prologue, with the help of Congress, Bush
will provide further evidence of U.S. complicity by
sending Israel a U.S. Treasury check big 
enough to cover Israelâ ™s expenses in this latest
of seven invasions of Lebanon. Our government has
already expedited a new supply of laser-guided
missiles to Israel and donated $150 million worth of
aviation fuel, a gift that will help finance, among
other ugly missions, the deliberate recurrent
terrifying sonic booms that deny sleep for hapless
Palestinians in Gaza. 

The Bush team may seriously view Hezbollah as a bunch
of evil terrorists, but the organization rides high as
heroes in the Arab/Muslim world and far 
beyond. Polls show close to 90 percent support
throughout Lebanon, even in government circles and
among Christians, and strong majority â œstreetâ 
support in other Arab/Muslim countries. Hezbollah in
Lebanon and Hamas, a similar group 
recently elected to leadership in Palestine, are
broadly admired for standing tall against Israel, the
United States and other Western powers. 
In the wake of the ghastly tide of blood at Qana, the
people of the Middle East--except in Israel--view
Israel and Washington as the real terrorists. 

In recent years, anti-American passions have focused
mainly against President Bush and his team, but the
recent near-unanimous approval of congressional 
resolutions endorsing Israelâ ™s war in Lebanon now
put Americans generally on the hate list. Only eight
of the 435 members in the U.S. House of 
Representatives self-styled as “the peopleâ â„¢sâ
branch of government had the courage and 
decency to vote no. No wonder Americans are hated as
never before. 

Surely, the American people are wise and resolute
enough to elect a government that will suspend all
government aid until Israel sheathes its 
sword, lives by the rule of law, and vacates all Arab
territory it has illegally held since the June 1967
Israeli-Arab war. 

Americaâ ™s dangerous attachment to Israel must
end. We should have made a clean break from this
warrior state years ago, but better late than never. 






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