AP/Lefteris Pitarakis

Top: residents of Nabatiyeh, southern Lebanon, examine damage to market area from July 19 Israeli bombing. Bottom: Some 10,000 people rally July 18 in Dearborn, Michigan, the heart of Detroit’s Arab-American community, to protest Israeli attack on Lebanon. They chanted, “Stop the bombing! Stop the war!”

The Socialist Workers campaign joins with others protesting the Israeli government’s murderous assaults on Lebanon and Gaza, as well as Washington’s support for this aggression. Tel Aviv must stop its bombing of Lebanon, end its attack on Palestinians in Gaza, and withdraw all its troops—now. It must free the more than 8,000 Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners it is holding.

We also call for an end to the escalating U.S.-led threats against Iran and Syria, and for the immediate pullout of all U.S. and other occupation troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Many working people have felt revulsion at scenes broadcast worldwide of the death and destruction the Israeli military has rained on neighborhoods of Beirut and southern Lebanon. The attackers have killed hundreds, wounded more than 1,000, and driven half a million people from their homes. They have bombed the Beirut airport, the country’s ports, and hundreds of roads and bridges, imposing a sea, air, and land blockade on the population. At the same time, Tel Aviv has unleashed a bloody assault on Palestinians in Gaza, killing nearly 100 people so far, and arresting dozens of members of Hamas, including legislators and government ministers.

The pretext for the assault is Tel Aviv’s demand that the Lebanese group Hezbollah release two Israeli soldiers and that Hamas free another one captured recently. The goal of Israel’s capitalist rulers, however, is to decimate these two organizations. In so doing, they seek to consolidate their control over the occupied Palestinian territories and to assert their ability to intervene in Lebanon at will.

Far from bringing peace, such moves only embolden the imperialist rulers, from Washington to Paris, to escalate their military threats against Syria and Iran. The Israeli state represents the interests of a tiny capitalist ruling class, not of Jewish working people. As long as Israel exists there will be no peace, because that state is founded on the dispossession of the Palestinian people. The only future for all working people in the region is to support the historic struggle of the Palestinian people for national self-determination—for a democratic, secular Palestine.

Working people should also reject proposals for a United Nations “peacekeeping” force in Lebanon, which Israeli officials have indicated they may accept. In fact, there is already a 2,000-strong UN-sponsored force in southern Lebanon. For 28 years its record has been to give cover to Israeli aggression.

Washington’s support for Tel Aviv’s assault is completely bipartisan, promoted by politicians from Sen. Hillary Clinton to President George Bush. The reason is that the U.S. ruling capitalist families have vested interests in the Mideast, not because Israel somehow dictates policy to the White House, as proponents of reactionary conspiracy theories have argued. Israel’s role as a junior imperialist policeman in the region has generally served the interests of finance capital—from Wall Street to London. Under the banner of the “global war on terrorism,” the U.S. rulers seek to defend their class interests in the Mideast and worldwide. Because of the tendency of their profit rates to decline, they are driven to expand their control of markets and natural resources, and to edge out their imperialist competitors such as Paris and Berlin. That is why they are pressing to get all the states in the region to get in line or, as in the case of Iran and Syria, be targeted for attack.

It’s in the interests of working people to demand: Stop the bombing! All Israeli troops out of Lebanon! End the assault on Gaza! Free all the Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners now!
 
 
Related articles:
Israeli military expands its murderous assault on Lebanon
Supporters of socialist campaign join actions protesting imperialist wars in Mideast, make progress in ballot drives
Initial list of Socialist Worker Party candidates in 2006  
 
 
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