AUGUST 2006

Zionist Designs on Lebanon

By Ismail Zayid

Al-Jazeerah, July 27, 2006

Zionist designs on Lebanon are longstanding. At the Versailles Peace Conference, in Paris, in 1919, the World Zionist Organisation submitted its official plan for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. The submitted map included the entire area of Palestine, the Southern part of Lebanon to the Litani River, the Syrian Golan Heights and the East Bank of the Jordan River, to the railway line. This design explains clearly the continuing expansionist Zionist programme which, so far, has accomplished the control of all of Palestine and the Golan Heights.

  These designs on Lebanon were formulated with the intent of creating dissension amongst the religious groups in Lebanon. This was clearly enunciated in the statement by David Ben Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, who wrote in his diaries, on May 21,1948:              " The Achilles heel of the Arab coalition is the Lebanon. Muslim supremacy in this country is artificial and can easily  be overthrown. A Christian State ought to be set up there, with its southern frontier on the River Litani. We would sign a treaty of alliance with this state. Then, when we have broken the strength of the Arab Legion and bombed Amman, we would wipe out Transjordan; after that Syria would fall. And if Egypt still dared to make war on us, we would bomb Port Said, Alexandria and Cairo. we should thus end the war and would have put paid to Egypt, Assyria and Chaldea on behalf of our ancestors." { "The Armed Prophet" By Michael BarZohar.P.139}  

These designs continued to be the operating scheme of the Zionist movement, as reflected in the following statements by Israel's leaders:                              " Perhaps... now is the time to bring about the creation of a Christian state in our neighbourhood. Without our initiative and our vigorous aid this will not be done. It seems to me that this is the central duty, or at least one of the central duties, of our foreign policy.....We must act in all possible ways to bring about radical change in Lebanon......The goal will not be reached without a restriction of Lebanon's borders." {Ben Gurion to Prime Minister Moshe Sharett,  in a letter dated 27 Feb. 1954.}  

In his reply to Ben Gurion's letter, Sharett wrote, March 18, 1954: " The transformation of Lebanon in a Christian state as a result of outside initiative is unfeasible today. Today, because I don't exclude the possibility of accomplishing this aim in the wake of shocks that will sweep the Middle East and bring about changes......In present conditions, I am afraid that any such attempt on our part will be considered as lightheadedness and superficiality, or worse as an adventurous speculation upon the wellbeing and existence of others."  

 Sharett wrote later in his diaries, May 16,1955: " According to Dayan the only thing that is necessary is to find an officer, be he just a major. We should either conquer his heart or buy him with money, to make him agree to declare himself the saviour of the Maronite population . Then, the Israeli army will enter Lebanon, will occupy the necessary territory and will create a Christian regime which will ally itself with Israel. The territory from the litani southward will be totally annexed to Israel."   Sharett wrote again in his diaries, on May 28, 1955: " The Chief of Staff [Dayan]  continues to insist that we should hire a [Lebanese]  officer who will accept to serve as a puppet so that the [Israeli] army may 'respond' to his appeal to 'liberate Lebanon from its Moslem oppressors'".  

These Zionist expansionist designs continued after the Israeli war of aggression in 1967, occupying Sinai, the Golan Heights, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.

Moshe Dayan, Minister of Defense, stated [as quoted in "The Times" of London, on June 25, 1969] : " Our fathers had reached the frontiers which were recognised in the Partition Plan. Our generation reached the frontiers of 1949. Now the Six-Day generation have managed to reach Suez, Jordan and the Golan Heights. This is not the end. After the present ceasefire lines, there will be new ones. They will extend beyond Jordan, perhaps to Lebanon and perhaps to central Syria as well."  

Thus we see clearly the expansionist designs articulated by Israel's leaders, who will be looking for pretexts to effect them. Thus the attack on the Tel Aviv bus, on March 12, 1978, was used to invade Lebanon in 1978 and occupy South Lebanon to the Litani River, and the use of a Lebanese officer, a Major, was then used.

Again the attack by Abu Nidal group, on June 5, 1982, on an Israeli diplomat in London was again used to invade Lebanon in June 1982, in the war called "Peace for Galilee". Israel was claiming that this was to secure peace for the Galillee from Palestinian attacks. Yet in fact the P.L.O had signed a ceasefire agreement eleven months earlier and complied with it, and no attacks on Israel were carried out.

But the expansionist designs on Lebanon needed achievement, and any pretext would serve Israel's designs.   Thus, again, we see the capture of the two Israeli soldiers by Hizbullah on July 12, 2006, is being used to invade Lebanon and demolish its infrastructure, murdering hundreds of innocent civilians so as to control South Lebanon to the Litani River, as designed as far back as 1919. 

Dr. Ismail Zayid lives in Canada.  



ISRAELI AGGRESSION IS MAD (MUTUALLY ASSURED DESTRUCTION)
By Dr. Mohamed Elmasry
Kitchener-Waterloo Record , July 25, 2006]


Military force simply cannot serve as an arbitrator of political conflicts by letting might determine who is right. If nations are to live in peace, they must accept conflicts as being shared problems and move beyond the habit of going to war as the only way to solve them.

The history of the current conflict in the Middle East did not begin on July 12, 2006 when the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers. Rather, it was the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 by force in Palestine that set this region on its tortuous path of
death, destruction and misery.

In 1956, with the help of Britain and France, Israel attacked Egypt and occupied its adjacent lands as well. In 1967, Israel attacked not only Egypt, but Jordan and Syria, also occupying their lands.

Then in 1982 Israel occupied southern Lebanon, staying there for nearly two decades until 2000, when Lebanon's armed resistance (comprising mainly Hezbollah) forced Israel to pull out of all but a small part of Lebanon.

But Israel still kept many Lebanese POWs in detention and left behind numerous landmines. Ever since the withdrawal, the Lebanese government has been pleading for the return of those prisoners and for maps showing where an estimated 140,000 mines still lie buried in southern Lebanon. Contrary to international laws and humanitarian conventions, Israel has flatly rejected every Lebanese request.

In October 2000, Hezbollah captured three Israeli soldiers in order to exchange them for Lebanese POWs. Israel's then PM, Ehud Barak, chose not to respond. With the Palestinian Intifada less than a month old, the rationale was that Israel did not want to open a second front.

In April 2002, at the height of the Israeli army's strategic destruction of Palestinian West Bank cities, Hezbollah killed several soldiers at the border. Ariel Sharon, who in the meantime had become prime minister, indirectly negotiated with Hezbollah, leading to the release of some 400
prisoners; this was still far short of the total number being held.

Fast-forward to July 12, 2006 when Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers at the Lebanese border and killed eight more to pressure Israel into freeing the rest of the POWs, the most famous being Samir Qontar, detained for more than 20 years.

But instead of going even halfway to free the Israeli soldiers through indirect negotiation as Sharon had done, Ehud Olmert immediately deployed Israel's formidable military killing machine to destroy Lebanon. Hezbollah struck back by firing rockets into Haifa and other northern Israeli cities,
forcing many Israelis to take shelter in bunkers.

Early in the current Israeli military operation, Foreign Minister Tsipi Livni was asked how the two Israeli soldiers would be released from Lebanon without negotiation. She answered, "We will bomb the Beirut airport." Asked how this would help, she then answered, "We will bomb the roads leading to the airport."

By now, it has become painfully clear that freeing the soldiers is not an Israeli priority. So the question is: What are Israel's objectives? Are they achievable? And at what cost? Even more important, we now must ask who is setting the agenda -- Israel or Washington?

Israel claims its priority is "eliminating Hezbollah's military power." Ironically, that power was built up as a direct result of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and its continuing aggression ever since.

So for nearly two weeks the world has watched helplessly as the ugly images of Israel's campaign of murder and horror unfold in Lebanon. The toll of Israel's state-sanctioned terrorism against its neighbor now includes hundreds of civilian deaths; thousands of wounded; some 600,000 refugees
displaced; and billions of dollars lost through the targeted destruction of schools, factories, bridges, power stations, communication towers, major buildings, primary roads, and the Beirut airport. Even dairies, churches and mosques were not spared. To date, only some 30 Israelis have been
killed in this one-sided war; about half are soldiers.

To achieve all this human carnage and economic destruction, Israeli fighter planes have flown more than 4,000 sorties, dropping 500-pound laser guided American-made bombs.

The merciless killing of innocent Lebanese civilians (including women, children, the elderly, and the disabled) and the savage destruction of Lebanon's infrastructure are testimony to Israel's criminal malevolence. Moreover, it can openly commit these heinous war crimes because it enjoys the support of Western politicians (including Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper), led by America and the Bush administration.

Unfortunately, Israel's murderous aggression will continue in its current MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) plan, bringing Israel neither peace nor security.

There is only one way to peace and security, and that is through justice.

(Dr. Mohamed Elmasry is national president of Canadian Islamic Congress. He
can be reached at np@canadianislamiccongress.com)