THE Lebanese government yesterday rejected the UN draft resolution on the Lebanon.
The Speaker of the Lebanese Chamber of Deputies, Nabih Birri, said that it would not accept Israeli troops remaining in the Lebanon, and that for an agreement to be made, all Israeli troops must cross the border and return to Israel.
The Lebanese government is also insisting that the occupation of the Shabaa Farms area by Israel must be ended by this resolution, and the area be put under UN control, until it is decided whether Syria or the Lebanon are to have sovereignty.
Birri also insisted that every southern Lebanese has the right to return to his or her village or town, all of which have been comprehensively smashed by Israeli forces in the last two weeks.
Ghazi Aridi, the Lebanese information minister, added: ‘None of us will give up anything to do with national sovereignty, rights, dignity,’ affirming the government was committed ‘to Lebanon’s territory, Lebanon’s liberation, and the withdrawal of the occupation from Lebanese land’.
Yesterday the Israeli armed forces suffered very severe losses with 10 soldiers killed by a Katyusha rocket and up to a dozen very seriously injured.
It is now clear that their security zone inside the Lebanon exists only in their minds. For once, the Zionists have failed to establish the necessary facts on the ground.
Now their guardians on the UN Security Council, the US and the UK, have got a vital tactical decision to make.
They will either have to amend the resolution so at least all Israeli troops leave the Lebanon, or they will have to continue with a war that Israel is already losing, and if it is continued will necessarily expand in the direction of Syria.
Two or three of the biggest raids in the last couple of days have been very close to the Syrian border.
Yesterday, the Foreign Minister of Syria spelt out that his country was now ready for a regional war if this is what the US, the UK and Israel are striving for.
At the same time, the Iranian government has stated that it intends to carry on with its nuclear development programme, for a peaceful energy supply, regardless of any sanctions or any other measures that the US-UK axis may take against it.
Yesterday, the British workers marched over 100,000 strong in defence of the Lebanese people, in support of Hezbollah’s defence of the Lebanon, and in opposition to the Anglo-US attack on that country.
For the first time a number of trade union leaders were prominent in the demonstration and the rally.
There is work to be done. These union leaders must be forced to take action to stop the war by bringing the Blair government down.
Israel is still being supplied by the US via Britain with 500 pound guided bombs, that have killed hundreds of children and hundreds of Lebanese and Syrian workers. Israel is still being supplied with British war materials.
At the same time, British troops in the Middle East and Afghanistan are getting into position to attack Iran.
Concrete action must be taken by the trade unions to support the Lebanese people, and stop this war.
Millions of workers in the unions must demand that their leaders call a general strike to stop the war by bringing down the Blair government and ending the Anglo-US war alliance.
The Blair government must be brought down and a workers’ government brought in that will give every support to the people of the Lebanon, and to the Hezbollah resistance, and also recognise Hamas as the government of the Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.
This is the way to advance the struggle to stop the war in the Lebanon, come to the aid of Palestine, and unite the workers of the West and the Middle East in the struggle for socialism.
