In the current Israel-Lebanon conflict (in which my relatives' home in Carmiel has been destroyed, and visiting Lebanese Canadians have been incinerated in South Lebanon), the propaganda war is key. Here are some quick points to remember in the propaganda war:

1. Israel says that the Lebanese government is in violation of UN resolutions that require the Lebanese government to exercise state sovereignty in southern Lebanon, and disarm the militias.

We ask:

Since when does Israel comply with UN resolutions?

Since when does Israel respect state sovereignty?

2. Hizbullah is denounced as a "terrorist" organization by the army that it defeated.

We ask:

Since its founding in 1982, how many non-combatant Israeli civilians has Hizbullah killed?

In that same period, how many non-combatant Lebanese civilians have the Israeli forces killed?

3. Hizbullah is accused of having raided into sovereign Israeli territory and attacked and killed and captured Israeli soldiers on border patrol.

We ask:

Since its founding, how many Israeli soldiers has Hizbullah killed inside Israel?

How many Israeli soldiers has Hizbullah killed inside Lebanon?

How many Lebanese, captured by Israel inside Lebanon, is Israel holding?

4. Hizbullah has weapons that go beyond the traditional guerrilla arsenal, obviously supplied to it by Syria or Iran or both. At the same time, the Lebanese state has no air defences to speak of, and its armed forces play no role in defending the people of Lebanon.

We ask:

Why shouldn't a guerrilla organization, operating in southern Lebanon, have weapons, including longer-range rockets? Is Lebanon not threatened by its southern "neighbour"?

Aren't the Israeli forces fully armed, in fact, better armed?

5. The idea that, alongside Israel there should be a "demilitarized Palestinian state" (Geneva Agreement) or a Lebanon armed only with rifles, is an idea that goes hand-in-hand with domination and subjugation. In any war, each side seeks to disarm, dominate and subjugate the other, and each side seeks the weapons that are appropriate for that purpose.

We ask:

So, what is Israel's complaint?

Which states are the suppliers of Israel's arsenal? Who supplies what?

Israeli Chief of Staff Dan Halutz said that Israel is "changing the rules of the game" in Lebanon, and warned that "nothing is safe in Lebanon, as simple as that". But, everyone knows that what goes around comes around. That is why people are fleeing Haifa southward or taking cover in fortified rooms. The lives of Israeli non-combatant civilians are of no concern to Halutz. Nor are the lives of Israeli soldiers captured in battle. All are victims of Israeli militarism.

The familiar dance of death, orchestrated by the Israeli militarists and ethnic cleansers, will continue, with ebbs and flows, with ceasefires and "peace processes" and open conflagrations, with unimaginable misery, death and destruction, UNTIL the people of Palestine, Arabs and Jews, rise up to "change the rules of the game", to overthrow the Zionist pyromaniacs and poisoners of wells, and to rebuild the country on a new basis, on a basis that respects democracy and human rights and good-neighbourly relations.

All anti-war efforts in Israel, and all solidarity efforts abroad, should be directed to this goal.

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