Pip Hinman
A holocaust is engulfing Lebanon. Hundreds of civilians are dead, thousands injured. Entire villages and suburbs have been destroyed. The United Nations says that a third of the casualties in Lebanon are children, and that a million people have already been displaced from their homes.
Last week, people feared that once most foreigners were evacuated from Lebanon, the Israeli military would step up its attacks. It has: with the support of the United States, Israel is using bunker buster, or "dirty bombs", which contain depleted uranium and will ensure the misery continues for many generations.
Few people buy the argument that this is a legitimate "response" to Hezbollah's minor action against a military target — the capture of two Israeli soldiers just across the border. The Israeli army has been kidnapping and assassinating hundreds Palestinians in the occupied territories, many of them civilians and some as young as 15.
Israel has been illegally occupying the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem and Syria's Golan Heights for 39 years. It occupied southern Lebanon for 22 years, and with US support wants to reoccupy. Over the decades it has murdered thousands upon thousands of people in those occupied lands.
Israel's decision to massacre hundreds of Lebanese civilians over the last couple of weeks — civilians in apartment blocks, airports, streets and cars: pretty much anywhere civilians happen to be walking, sitting and sleeping — is angering millions of ordinary people who can see the David and Goliath nature of this latest outbreak of war in the Middle East.
This atrocity was given the green light by President George Bush's administration on the incredible excuse that Israel was just exercising its "right to defend itself". Lebanon, a modern country, is being obliterated. And Gaza is being sent back to mediaeval times, having had its power and infrastructure obliterated by the Israeli military.
The US government has blocked the UN and some European countries' efforts to promote a ceasefire. The US is instead pushing for a NATO- or UN-led international force of some 10,000-30,000 troops to occupy southern Lebanon.
The war and proposed occupation of Lebanon (the so-called "buffer zone") are criminal atrocities that are, shamefully, fully supported by the Australian government. Once again, PM John Howard has taken the side of the world's greatest terrorist state, the US.
The US and Australian governments' racist hypocrisy is clear. Their actions show that they consider Lebanese and Palestinian lives to be of lesser value than Israeli lives.
This is the same racist ideology that fuels the so-called war on terror. It is the same racist hypocrisy the rulers use to try to win domestic support for the invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Howard government's pernicious and racist "war on terror" laws have, understandably, undermined the confidence of many people, especially Muslims and those from Arabic backgrounds. However, the scale of Israel's latest aggression has prompted the Lebanese and Palestinian communities in Australia to come back onto the streets, in large numbers.
In Sydney on July 22, some 20,000 people mobilised against Israel's aggression, calling for an end to the bombing and re-occupation of Gaza and southern Lebanon. If not for the last-minute change of assembly point, and railway track work, the rally would have been much bigger. In London on the same day, 30,000 people protested.
Across Australia, protests have been and are being called in all capital cities and many regional towns. In many cities, the anniversary protests marking 61 years since the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atrocities will include Lebanese and Palestinian speakers.
While we are yet to see the full re-mobilisation of the anti-war movement in Australia following its retreat after the occupation of Iraq in 2003, the horror of this latest war is bringing people back onto the streets. At the Sydney rally, Australians of Arabic and Muslim backgrounds were clearly delighted with the support from Australians from other background. At very short notice, unions and peace groups mobilised some of the anti-war constituency, but much more needs to be done to bring out the million Australians who protested against the invasion of Iraq.
Three-and-a-half years after that invasion, the invaders stand increasingly discredited. Now is an important moment for peace coalitions and networks to reinvigorate themselves, and reach out to those communities under siege. Letters to MPs, public vigils, motions through unions, teach-ins and other such community events are an important part of this.
Just as important is keeping up the expressions of mass community opposition to the Howard government's support for the Israeli-US aggression. That means organising more, and bigger, city-wide protests. If there was one main lesson from the campaign against the Iraq war, it was that one big protest rally, no matter how huge, is not enough.
The defeat of the US war on Vietnam provides another clue: the international protests didn't let up, though some activists queried the value of keeping the marches going year after year. "What if the Vietnamese became tired of fighting?" was one response.
The Lebanese and Palestinian peoples have a right to live in peace, and to elect their own leaders without outside interference. They want and need our support and solidarity, and we have a moral duty to support them.
We also have the moral high ground. Iraq-style "democracy" is a dismal and bloody failure, and our warmongering government, along with Bush and British PM Tony Blair, must be brought to account for their murderous campaigns.
[Pip Hinman is a member of the Socialist Alliance and an activist in the Sydney Stop the War Coalition.]