“The evil that men do lives after them.” - William Shakespeare

Washington, D.C. - As Israeli terror bombing of civilians continues relentlessly over Gaza and Lebanon, demonstrators took to the streets near the White House, on Saturday, Aug. 12, 2006, to protest. Led by Arab-American organizers, and supported by antiwar groups, like the ANSWER Coalition, they rallied, at noon, in Lafayette Park, which is directly across the way from the official residence of President George W. Bush. The crowd was estimated at about 30,000. The protesters also paraded around the White House after the speakers’ part of the program was completed.

There were 24 riveting speakers at the well planned rally. One of the first was Dr. Esam Omesh, President of the Muslim American Society. He said: “There is no difference between a Muslim life, Christian life or Jewish life...The invasion of Lebanon and the destruction of its infrastructures and the deliberate targeting of civilians through the indiscriminate, disproportionate Israeli war machine is, indeed, criminal. It must be ended now.”

Dr. Omesh continued, “All the prisoners and captives must be released...We demand the release of all the thousands of civilians, thousands of prisoners that are held in the dungeons of Israel. Civilians that were kidnapped by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) against a sovereign nation-against a sovereign people. Let the prisoners go today.”

Background: The Bush-Cheney Gang has given Israel carte blanche to pulverize Gaza and bomb Lebanon back into the Stone Age. The IOF has killed over 1,000 Lebanese, since July 12, 2006, and left more than one million souls homeless. The Palestinian death toll for that same period of time is around 175. (1) Gaza is a humanitarian crisis of the first order, while many of the beleaguered people of Lebanon have been brought to their knees by the merciless onslaught of the IOF’s blitzkrieg. (2) It is an axiomatic principle of the law needing no citation of legal authority that the right of self-defense is not a license to kill indiscriminately. Lethal force can only be used by an individual, if his or her life is in immediate danger, or someone else’s life is in imminent peril. This same principle applies also to a nation state. Using the capture of two of its soldiers in Southern Lebanon by Hezbollah, as a pretext, Israel instituted a policy of mass terror bombing against all of Lebanon and unlawfully invaded that country. It was only after Israel chose this proportionately outrageous kind of military response, that Hezbollah began lopping its rockets into Northern Israel. (3)

Tel Aviv’s inexcusable madness, in Lebanon, would be comparable to the U.S. beginning to bomb Mexico City, Veracruz and Cancun, if two members of its border patrol were captured by cops in Tijuana. No negotiating! Israel is acting as an outlaw, rogue, gangster and terrorist state in Lebanon. It followed this same psychopathic M.O. in Gaza because one of its soldiers was captured there. Meanwhile, it is now clear that the Neocons’ scheme, dating to 1996, to destabilize the Middle East has backfired. Israel, instead of being safer, is now under the gun, and its army, due to the fierce resistance of the Hezbollah fighters, is at risk of suffering a possible stunning defeat. (4) A split in the ultra-Rightist regime of Israel’s Ehud Olmert is also evident. A columnist for Ha'aretz, on Aug. 11, 2006, wrote of the whacky Prime Minister, “You cannot lead an entire nation to war promising victory, produce humiliating defeat and remain in power.”

Getting back to Dr. Omesh. He underscored, “Palestine-the West Bank and Gaza-have been and continue to be under the repugnant and illegal occupation of Israel. The heinous illegal occupation must end today. The massacres and the genocides committed against the Palestinian people must end today...We must recognize in America that our extremely biased and lopsided foreign policy in the Middle East must be rectified...We can not allow an Israeli agenda to control our Congress, to keep us hostage...Military aide to Israel must be ended, now!”...Dr. Omesh also had a strong personal message for President Bush. He said: “Mr. Bush, stop calling Islam, ‘Islamicfascism!’ Stop calling Islam ‘a religion of extremism.’ There is no such things as ‘Islamicfascism,’ just as there is no such things as ‘Christian Nazism’ or ‘Catholic Fascism.’”

Another speaker at the spirited affair was Osama Siblani, a publisher of an Arab-American newspaper, from Detroit, Michigan. He said: “This administration is incompetent.” He added that it had once boasted of “mission accomplish” with respect to Iraqi war, but that statement turned out to really mean, “mission impossible!” Now, he continued, “The administration that brought you the Iraqi fiasco wants to bring you the Lebanese fiasco.” Ramsey Clark, the former U.S. Attorney General, spoke, too. He said that the U.S. and Israel both had committed “war crimes in Lebanon.” He called for the impeachment of President Bush, along with his V.P., Dick Cheney. Brian Becker, the National Coordinator of ANSWER, told the crowd that the U.S. is in cahoots with the Israeli regime, “in waging a brutal and barbaric war in Lebanon.” Mara Verheyden-Hilliard of the Partnership for Civil Justice, while holding her infant child in one of her arms, said, “It is criminal that the U.S. is rushing 5,000 pound bombs and cluster bombs to be used against Lebanon.”

On the media front, the Baltimore Sun’s Op Ed page published five pro-Israeli pieces within an eight day period from Aug. 4-11, 2006, without permitting a contrary opinion. One of the most egregious pro-Zionist tracts was authored by playwright, David Mamet, entitled, “The Catchall Solution: First Blame the Jews.” In it, he went on a hate-filled rant, using the drunken Mel Gibson episode as an excuse, to demonize Europe, the Vatican, Russia, Christianity, Arabs, the Western Press, and even the Gospel of St. John. He accused all of Israel’s critics of anti-Semitism. Meanwhile, the Palestinian and Lebanese victims of Israel’s murderous rampage are being buried daily. (5) Mamet wildly argued, “The Israeli aim is not to invade Lebanon but to force Hezbollah to stop killing the Jews...There is no indictable disparity of force.” What pathetic nonsense this is from an arrogant, knee jerk apologist for Zionist Israel’s massive evildoing. Shame on David Mamet!

Palestinian and Lebanese flags dominated the colorful scene at Lafayette Park, and also along the parade route, which circled the rear of the White House. Some of the signs carried my demonstrators read like this: “The Real Terrorists-[George] Bush & [Ehud] Olmert;” “Stop Funding Israeli Terrorism;” “No Justice, No Peace;” “Oh Ye Who Believe Stand for Justice;” and “Faith Over Fear and Justice for All.” There was also a large poster which read: “Torah Jewry Mourns All Human Suffering-Stop Zionist Aggression.” The Orthodox, Anti-Zionist Rabbis had a large contingent present at the event. They were led by the highly-respected Rabbi, Dovid Yisroel Weiss, a fearless champion of peace and justice for the Holy Land. (6) Any time, the word, “Hezbollah,” was mentioned by a speaker, it created a huge round of applause and loud, sustained cheers from the very vocal crowd. During the parade, some of the protesters also carried symbolic coffins draped in black, representing the innocent victims of Israel’s amoral and ruthless aggression in Gaza and Lebanon.

Finally, at press time, a ceasefire resolution to end the Israeli invasion of Lebanon was adopted by the UN Security Council on late Friday night, Aug. 11, 2006. Using the past as a guide, the only thing you can count on for sure with respect to Zionist Israel is this: It will stop at absolutely nothing to advance its own national interest. Israel also holds the world record when it comes to violating the Charter of the UN, along with the Resolutions of its General Assembly and the Security Council, as well. (7) As the fear of a possible terrorist attack on the U.S. increases, keep in mind, that this country didn’t have any enemies in the Islamic World, until the creation, in 1948, of a militant, land-hungry Israel. (8)

Notes:

1. www.pchrgaza.org/
2. www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml
3. baltimore.indymedia.org/newswire/display/13291/index.php
4. world.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/34037
5. informationclearinghouse.info/article14273.htm
6. Check out: Neturei Karta International, at: www.nkusa.org
7. www.geocities.com/savepalestinenow/unresolutions/studyguide/sgunres1.htm
8. www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp

©2006, William Hughes

William Hughes is the author of “Saying ‘No’ to the War Party” (IUniverse, Inc.). He can be reached at liamhughes-AT-comcast.net.