THE bravery and determination of the Palestinian and Lebanese people in standing fast against the Israeli military murder machine has thrown not just the Zionist regime but also their imperialist sponsors into a crisis.
The Palestinian masses have refused to take action to overthrow the just-elected Hamas government, despite every notable building and industrial installation in the Gaza Strip being bombed and destroyed by the Zionists.
The Lebanese people have reacted to the repeated bombing of Beirut airport, and to the air-raids that have destroyed villages, bridges, main highways and power stations, while killing up to a hundred people and wounding hundreds more, by rallying to Hezbollah.
The Hezbollah leadership and its ranks have reacted with great distinction to the imperialist-imposed crisis, and George Bush’s go-ahead to the Zionists to do their worst.
In fact, Hezbollah has not wasted a moment since the year 2000 when they expelled the Israeli military from Southern Lebanon, in preparing for the day when the Zionists would attempt to make a comeback.
The most graphic example of this preparation is the way that they have turned the Lebanese coast into a no-go area for Israeli warships, after Hezbollah disabled an Israeli warship with a missile.’
In fact, the whole of northern Israel, as far as the capital Tel Aviv, is now within range of Hezbollah rocket fire.
The imperialists and their Israeli protege now have to make a decision, whether to further expand the war by Israel attacking Syria, or to seek a negotiated settlement where an exchange of POWs will be the only guarantee of an end to attacks on northern Israel.
However, the weakness that the US and UK imperialists have shown in Iraq, where they have been defeated by the insurgency and where the puppet regime they have established has degenerated into rival bloodthirsty sectarian gangs, is a powerful argument that this is not the time for them to expand a war that they are already losing.
The state of affairs under the US occupation and the puppet regime in Iraq is unprecedented.
On Saturday, in broad daylight, in the centre of Baghdad, the chief of the Iraqi Olympic establishment and up to 50 officials and athletes were kidnapped, while they were attending a government-sponsored meeting, by gunmen dressed in military fatigues. The gunmen arrived in 15 vehicles of a type associated with the Ministry of the Interior.
Even the Stalinist leader Vladimir Putin was forced to remark that if this was the introduction of democracy it was of a type that was unwelcome in Russia or anywhere else in the world.
If the US-UK forces and their puppets cannot even ensure safety in the centre of the city of Baghdad, right next to their Green Zone fortress, then it is clear, perhaps even to them, that they will not be able to organise a march on Damascus.
British workers support the Palestinian and Lebanese people against US and UK inspired Israeli aggression.
They must take action inside their trade unions to force the union leaders to call a national demonstration to demand that the Israelis stop their assault on Gaza and on the Lebanon, and that the Blair government recognise Hamas as the Palestinian government.
As well, the trade unions must impose a complete trade boycott of Israel and see that it is imposed internationally through the international trade union movement.
This boycott must be imposed until the Israelis stop their attack on the Lebanon, pay compensation for the deaths and destruction that they have caused, and allow the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital and with no settlements, and Palestinian refugees having the right to return.
