A Call To Rise Up
Call to Action in Defense of Lebanon
Statement by Eyad Kishawi
As a Palestinian who grew up in Lebanon, I lived through the Lebanese civil
war and the multiple Israeli attacks on the country. Most of the attacks
were targeting Palestinian and Lebanese resistance, not only by attacking
obvious anti-aircraft sites and ammunition storage areas, but also by
attacking highly populated civilian areas. Israeli strategy, ever since the
war of 1947 has been to attack civilians, and even publicize its atrocities
in megaphones as was the case of Deir Yassin, in order to achieve two
objectives:
1) Either to depopulate the region so that it could conquer the land,
or
2) To alienate the guerillas from their civilian support base.
Israel even has a euphemistic name for this illegal aggression, and is an
accepted norm in military practice. The label is: Rational Prospect. If
Israel¹s battle is with the indigenous people, and not necessarily with the
local bankrupt regimes that were setup by colonial rulers, then later on
supported by the United States government, then it targets the people who
produce the guerillas. In an interview during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon,
the Israeli chief of staff was asked why target children as young as eight
years old. He answered that some of these children are attacking Israeli
tanks with magnetic explosives, and although it is a tiny minority
participating in the resistance, there is a high probability that these
children would grow up to become guerillas. The subtext: Kill them before
the grow.
In short, no photographs or footage could capture the degree of devastation
that Israel is capable of inflicting on a neighborhood. It has and
continues to attack residential towers, with weapons such as vacuum and
phosphorous bombs that facilitate the collapse of high rises to the ground,
while scorching every piece of flesh within reach. Israel continues to use
illegal nerve gas and cluster bombs, without the so-called international
community flinching. It is now time to admit that although Israel is a
violator of tens of UN resolutions, including 194, 242, 338 and 495, the UN
is even less of an international body in a unipolar world. Even Kofi Anan
attends the G8, where the real decisions are made. The United Nations, in
its Security Council and powerless general assembly has become an occupation
force for the Haitian people and a sick playground for the criminal John
Bolton, who vetoed resolutions condemning the Zionist state for its actions.
Mr. Bolton proudly proclaims that he engineered overturning Zionism is
Racism.
I speak as a Palestinian and say that what is happening to the Lebanese
people in intensity and scale is much more horrific than the brutality
endured by the people of the West Bank and Gaza. It is devastation beyond
the scope of human imagination, because it is unnatural for us to think that
people ought to, or could be killed in this manner. Israel drops leaflets
for people to leave their areas, and then bombs them on the roads. When we
escaped Lebanon, the Israeli proxy militias, the Phalangists who helped
Israel commit the massacres of Sabra and Chatilla, stopped us and tried to
convince us that our convoy would be bombed and coerced us to join another.
We quickly escaped from the new convoy and joined an international caravan
and soon found out that our assigned car caravan was destroyed by Israel¹s
fighter jets.
In short, this is Israel and this is how it behaves and it is exactly for
these reasons that George Bush and previous presidents have supported it
with your tax dollars. A country that is built on settle-ethnic purity,
left unchecked, has finally reached its natural outcome, a genocidal
exclusionary state.
If we don¹t rise up and mobilize during this all-out massacre, then we are
complicit, for silence is an act of participation. We must intensify our
actions and escalate in a manner that is compatible with the demands of the
era. Iraq is occupied. Palestine is experiencing a systematic campaign of
sociocide, displacement, and collective imprisonment coupled with
starvation. The Lebanese people are being slaughtered in front of our own
eyes, and yet there are Zionist apologists who feel that there is a place
for them to participate in the discourse and come out to the streets waving
these flags representing supremacy and devastation.
Shame on the Israel Action Committee, the new manifestation of the Ku Klux
Klan. Shame on the JCRC for calling for an action in support of these
atrocities, as if the words of the Holocaust survivors of ³Never Again²
simply ring hollow in their ears and empty conscience. It is time to
protest, time to escalate and intensify our actions. It is time to stop the
attacks on the Lebanese people. Moreover, we ask the Jewish community to
rise up with us and break away from the criminal representative of their
identity, the State of Israel and the local bankrupt institutions that
support it. Let us all take to the streets and think Vietnam.
Eyad Kishawi
Statement by Eyad Kishawi
As a Palestinian who grew up in Lebanon, I lived through the Lebanese civil
war and the multiple Israeli attacks on the country. Most of the attacks
were targeting Palestinian and Lebanese resistance, not only by attacking
obvious anti-aircraft sites and ammunition storage areas, but also by
attacking highly populated civilian areas. Israeli strategy, ever since the
war of 1947 has been to attack civilians, and even publicize its atrocities
in megaphones as was the case of Deir Yassin, in order to achieve two
objectives:
1) Either to depopulate the region so that it could conquer the land,
or
2) To alienate the guerillas from their civilian support base.
Israel even has a euphemistic name for this illegal aggression, and is an
accepted norm in military practice. The label is: Rational Prospect. If
Israel¹s battle is with the indigenous people, and not necessarily with the
local bankrupt regimes that were setup by colonial rulers, then later on
supported by the United States government, then it targets the people who
produce the guerillas. In an interview during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon,
the Israeli chief of staff was asked why target children as young as eight
years old. He answered that some of these children are attacking Israeli
tanks with magnetic explosives, and although it is a tiny minority
participating in the resistance, there is a high probability that these
children would grow up to become guerillas. The subtext: Kill them before
the grow.
In short, no photographs or footage could capture the degree of devastation
that Israel is capable of inflicting on a neighborhood. It has and
continues to attack residential towers, with weapons such as vacuum and
phosphorous bombs that facilitate the collapse of high rises to the ground,
while scorching every piece of flesh within reach. Israel continues to use
illegal nerve gas and cluster bombs, without the so-called international
community flinching. It is now time to admit that although Israel is a
violator of tens of UN resolutions, including 194, 242, 338 and 495, the UN
is even less of an international body in a unipolar world. Even Kofi Anan
attends the G8, where the real decisions are made. The United Nations, in
its Security Council and powerless general assembly has become an occupation
force for the Haitian people and a sick playground for the criminal John
Bolton, who vetoed resolutions condemning the Zionist state for its actions.
Mr. Bolton proudly proclaims that he engineered overturning Zionism is
Racism.
I speak as a Palestinian and say that what is happening to the Lebanese
people in intensity and scale is much more horrific than the brutality
endured by the people of the West Bank and Gaza. It is devastation beyond
the scope of human imagination, because it is unnatural for us to think that
people ought to, or could be killed in this manner. Israel drops leaflets
for people to leave their areas, and then bombs them on the roads. When we
escaped Lebanon, the Israeli proxy militias, the Phalangists who helped
Israel commit the massacres of Sabra and Chatilla, stopped us and tried to
convince us that our convoy would be bombed and coerced us to join another.
We quickly escaped from the new convoy and joined an international caravan
and soon found out that our assigned car caravan was destroyed by Israel¹s
fighter jets.
In short, this is Israel and this is how it behaves and it is exactly for
these reasons that George Bush and previous presidents have supported it
with your tax dollars. A country that is built on settle-ethnic purity,
left unchecked, has finally reached its natural outcome, a genocidal
exclusionary state.
If we don¹t rise up and mobilize during this all-out massacre, then we are
complicit, for silence is an act of participation. We must intensify our
actions and escalate in a manner that is compatible with the demands of the
era. Iraq is occupied. Palestine is experiencing a systematic campaign of
sociocide, displacement, and collective imprisonment coupled with
starvation. The Lebanese people are being slaughtered in front of our own
eyes, and yet there are Zionist apologists who feel that there is a place
for them to participate in the discourse and come out to the streets waving
these flags representing supremacy and devastation.
Shame on the Israel Action Committee, the new manifestation of the Ku Klux
Klan. Shame on the JCRC for calling for an action in support of these
atrocities, as if the words of the Holocaust survivors of ³Never Again²
simply ring hollow in their ears and empty conscience. It is time to
protest, time to escalate and intensify our actions. It is time to stop the
attacks on the Lebanese people. Moreover, we ask the Jewish community to
rise up with us and break away from the criminal representative of their
identity, the State of Israel and the local bankrupt institutions that
support it. Let us all take to the streets and think Vietnam.
Eyad Kishawi