THE Israeli military have never been prepared to allow their activities in southern Lebanon to be observed, monitored, and charted by UN observers.
That is why the history of the presence of the UN observers in southern Lebanon, before Israel was run out of the Lebanon in 2000, was punctuated by Israeli artillery and bombing attacks, and a steady loss of life.
Now that the Israelis are back in the south, even tentatively by their fingertips, the shelling and bombing of the UN has resumed.
There is a desperation about these Israeli actions which indicates that their leaders know that they have bitten off more than they can chew. This has been confirmed in the heavy casualties – up to 20 dead plus wounded – received trying to secure two Lebanese villages, just inside the Lebanese border with Israel!
The Israeli military is well past its prime time of mobile warfare, where all sections of a small population were involved in the action which would last at the most a week, or two. This was a strike force for imperialism, funded by the United States.
It made its reputation with its 1967 Six Day War surprise attack on Egypt, when the Egyptian airforce was wiped out on the ground, and the massed Israeli tanks swept all before them in the Sinai peninsula, right up to the banks of the Nile, while at the same time the Syrians were driven off the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem was seized.
Those were the heady days where maps were produced showing Israel reaching from the banks of the Nile in the West to the banks of the Euphrates in the East, along with the settlements on the Sinai peninsula.
Those were heady days for the Zionists, but they had actually over-reached themselves. They were taught this lesson in the Yom Kippur war of 1973.
Then Egypt hit them back with their surprise attack across the Nile, and caught them napping, driving them back across the Sinai peninsula, creating panic in Tel Aviv.
The situation was only partially stabilised by Sharon crossing the Nile further south with just 12 tanks to start with, but threatening to move in the direction of Cairo.
However Israel was forced to quit the Sinai and demolish all of the settlements in order to sign a peace treaty with Egypt. This was followed by a treaty with Jordan and an attempt to get the Palestinians to accept a two state solution, by allowing the PLO to return after the signing of the Oslo accords.
It was decided that the future of Israel rested on securing the recognition of the Arab states, and that this was to be done by getting the Palestinians to accept a twisted version of the two state solution, a South African Bantustan relationship with Israel.
This Bantustan was to be made up of a number of areas, Gaza and the Palestinian towns of the West Bank, while Israel would make Jerusalem into its capital, annexe the settlements on the West Bank and incorporate the Jordan Valley.
Arafat would not accept this, and some Palestinians consider that he was poisoned because of this. The Palestinian masses would not accept this either, and proved it by electing Hamas as their government in 2006, to the fury of Bush, Blair and Olmert. They declared the Hamas government to be terrorist and gave the Israeli military a free hand to return to Gaza.
The content of Bush and Blair’s ‘New Middle East’ policy is the mass murder of Palestinians for their crime of refusing to accept slavery under Israel, and the continuing murder of hundreds and hundreds of Lebanese and the destruction of the country’s infrastructure till the Lebanese leaders agree to try to crush Hezbollah for the crime of daring to support the Palestinians against Israel.
The US, the UK and Israel will be defeated. Israel will not get out of the Lebanon easily, and is heading for a major defeat. The Arab masses from Morocco to the Gulf are angry, and such a defeat will encourage them to march on Jerusalem.
The US, UK will pay a heavy price for their decision to allow Israel to slaughter the Palestinian and Lebanese masses. Workers in Britain must bring down the Blair government to give full support to the Palestinian and Lebanese masses.
