The marches and other public protests that have been organized in many cities in response to the Israeli government's terror campaign against the Lebanese people are exactly what is needed now. Those who oppose the assault on Lebanon need to answer the lies of the big-business media, which brands fighters against oppression as "terrorists," while the real terrorists - the capitalist rulers of Israel - rain death and destruction on hundreds of thousands of our fellow working people.

While Tel Aviv is waging this bloody assault, Washington is not an innocent bystander, much less a peace-seeking mediator. The U.S. government, with William Clinton at the helm, is actively on the side of the Zionist regime. It shares the Israeli government's fervent goal of breaking the resistance of the Lebanese and Palestinian people. The White House's "peace" plan calls on Hezbollah to lay down their arms while Tel Aviv's troops continue to occupy a piece of Lebanon. But the freedom fighters continue to resist.

Washington is not the only imperialist power sticking its snout into the Mideast to protect its class interests. French capitalists - the former colonial power in Lebanon - have sent their foreign minister to root around for influence in the region. The contagious example of the Palestinian fighters, above all, strikes fear and hatred in the hearts of the lords of the counting houses from Paris to London to Washington.

The Israeli war on Lebanon increases the danger of imperialist wars around the world. Any success for Tel Aviv will embolden Washington and other powers to threaten, provoke, and attack other nations on their hit list - such as Cuba, China, North Korea, Yugoslavia, Libya, and Liberia. The recent threat by Clinton administration officials to launch a nuclear bomb on Libya underscores this fact.

Israeli brutality, if not answered with protests, will also encourage every racist and reactionary force at home to carry out assaults on working people. The cop's billy club wielded against Mexican workers in Riverside, California, and the Israeli shells hitting civilians in Lebanon have the same purpose: to terrorize working people and make the world safe for exploitation. That too is the purpose of the "antiterrorism" law just signed by Clinton, which will make it easier for the government to ban or deport political activists from the United States and speed up executions as a weapon of terror against the working class.

No matter how much Clinton and others talk of peace, there will be no peace. Not until the Palestinians get the Israeli boot off their necks and are fully in control of their entire homeland. This, however, is incompatible with the existence of Israel, a Zionist state built on the dispossession of the Palestinians as an imperialist outpost in the region. Peace will come with the dismantling of the colonial-settler regime there and its replacement with a democratic, secular Palestine where Palestinians and Jews can live as equals.

Despite its viciousness, the Israeli regime and its allies are weaker than ever. They remain unable to stamp out the resistance led by Hezbollah. Instead, this resistance has inspired fighters around the globe. This fightback should encourage working people everywhere to organize more street protests and speakouts to demand: Israel out of Lebanon! Stop the bombing!  
 
 
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