Juan Cole provides a little background on how Israel's aggressions and murders are at the root of the mess we are in now.

Towers of Beirut

Readers have asked me to what Bin Laden was referring when he said he first conceived the idea of attacking US skyscrapers when the Israelis destroyed the "towers" of Beirut. Beirut had been among the more advanced cities in the Arab world. I saw it in 1968 and 1974 before the civil war when it was called the Geneva of the Middle East. Although there was fighting in Beirut 1975-1981 by local militias, in fact by the early 1980s the situation had calmed down substantially and the economy was roaring back. Then Ariel Sharon took it into his head to invade Lebanon in 1982. Sharon always has plots within plots. He wanted to install a far-rightwing government of his liking in Beirut and reshape the Eastern Mediterranean. And he wanted to murder the Palestinian leadership in Beirut, just bomb them all or otherwise rub them out. Although the Palestine Liberation Organization was an annoyance to Israel, it had been substantially defeated by the Syrians in the late 1970s and was extremely weak in 1982. In a way, Sharon's attack was made possible by the Camp David Accords, in which Egypt made a separate peace. Sharon took advantage of the neutralization of Egypt to launch an aggressive war on Lebanon. Egyptians were boiling mad as a result.

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On unilateral withdrawal

Things have gotten fairly busy for me here in Beirut. One project I've been pursuing a little is on the whole concept of "unilateral" withdrawals, such as Sharon currently espouses for Gaza. The Israelis undertook an earlier such withdrawal, back in May 2000, from the occupied zone they'd held inside South Lebanon since 1978. And that withdrawal brought a good measure of stability to the border between the two states. But Gaza is different from South Lebanon in at least two key respects. So why is Sharon so intent on making the withdrawal from Gaza unilateral, I wonder?? Especially since keeping it unilateral will without a doubt mean it's a very ragged withdrawal under fire.

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Executing Another Child in Rafah
The Killing of Iman al-Hams

Iman al-Hams was a 13-year old refugee schoolgirl who was executed -- after being wounded -- by an Israeli platoon commander on the sad sands of Rafah. According to testimonies given by soldiers in the same company to the mass Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, a soldier in the watchtower identified Iman and cautioned his commander shouting, "Don't shoot. It's a little girl". The company commander, the soldiers testified, "approached her, shot two bullets into her [head], walked back towards the force, turned back to her, switched his weapon to automatic and emptied his entire magazine into her." (1) Eyewitnesses corroborated the soldiers, account, saying that Iman was shot almost 70 meters away from the Israeli military position. After a bullet hit her leg, Iman, who was wearing her school uniform, fell. Then, they said, the officer went over to her, saw that she was bleeding from her wounds, but still shot her twice in the head to "confirm the killing", an Israeli euphemism for the practice of executing a wounded Palestinian. A cursory army investigation later cleared him of any "unethical conduct", as is customary, and suspended him only because of "poor relations with subordinates".(2) In a flash, Israel proved to the world -- yet again -- that it is not only intransigent in its patent and consistent violation of international law, but also incapable of adhering to the most fundamental principles of moral behavior. [...] Whether at the checkpoints, in their classrooms, in their living rooms or in the streets, Palestinian children have long lost any immunity they might have enjoyed under an occupation that used to be particularly sensitive to its image in the western public opinion. Alas, that was before 9/11. Since then, however, with the effective Israelization of US foreign policy, especially in the Middle East, Israelis felt they had a "windfall, as Netanyahu called the 9/11 crimes in his first public reaction. Indeed, Israel has steadily moved close to a combination of the French colonial model in Algeria and the apartheid model in South Africa, while enjoying unwavering protection from the new empire and a hypocritical, subservient attitude from most European governments which continue to treat Israel as a preferred partner and as a western outpost in the near east. Thanks to this shameful collusion, Palestinian children are no longer spared Israel's worst crimes, committed with revolting impunity. When a nation tolerates, even encourages -- through failing to properly investigate killings or punish perpetrators -- the deliberate, cold-blooded murder of a defenseless child under the pretence of security, it does not only lose any claim to morality it may have ever had, but also kills any remaining argument for its worthiness to continue existing as a racist, colonial state that is essentially above the law. It is the responsibility of humanity at large, and the west in particular, to impose sanctions and boycotts on Israel similar to those struck against South Africa in the past in order to bring about its compliance with the precepts of international law and the ever-evolving universal moral principles. Iman in Arabic means belief. It is hard to guess why Iman al-Hams, parents called her that name, but it may have been out of belief in their own ability to persevere, to live and develop despite occupation, exile and destitution. This belief lies buried with Iman in Rafah. With occupation, there is no room for true peace, for progress, for decent living or for any sense of safety. Palestinian children deserve life, freedom, dignity and hope. At the very least, they deserve not to be executed by the region's "only democracy".

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