Statement in Solidarity with the Peoples of Lebanon and Palestine

Tariq Ali, John Berger, Noam Chomsky, Eduardo Galeano, Ken Loach, Arundhati Roy & Howard Zinn

August 8, 2006

The US-backed Israeli assault on Lebanon has left the country numb, smoldering and angry. The massacre in Qana and the loss of life is not simply “disproportionate.” It is, according to existing international laws, a war crime.

The deliberate and systematic destruction of Lebanon's social infrastructure by the Israeli air force was also a war crime, designed to reduce that country to the status of an Israeli-US protectorate.

The attempt has backfired, as people all over the world watch aghast. In Lebanon itself, 87 percent of the population now support Hezbollah's resistance, including 80 percent of Christian and Druze and 89 percent of Sunni Muslims, while 8 percent believe the US supports Lebanon.

But these actions will not be tried by any court set up by the “international community” since the United States and its allies that commit or are complicit in these appalling crimes will not permit it.

It has now become clear that the assault on Lebanon to wipe out Hezbollah had been prepared long before. Israel's crimes had been given a green light by the United States and its ever-loyal British ally, despite the overwhelming opposition to Blair in his own country.

The short peace that Lebanon enjoyed has come to an end, and a paralyzed country is forced to remember a past it had hoped to forget. The state terror inflicted on Lebanon is being repeated in the Gaza ghetto, while the “international community” stands by and watches in silence. Meanwhile the rest of Palestine is annexed and dismantled with the direct participation of the United States and the tacit approval of its allies.

We offer our solidarity and support to the victims of this brutality and to those who mount a resistance against it. For our part, we will use all the means at our disposal to expose the complicity of our governments in these crimes. There will be no peace in the Middle East while the occupations of Palestine and Iraq and the bombings of Lebanon continue.

Initial signatories:

Tariq Ali - John Berger - Noam Chomsky - Eduardo Galeano - Ken Loach - Arundhati Roy - Howard Zinn

Further signatures:

Mona Abaza - Faleh Abdul-Jabbar - Matthew Abraham - Bashir Abu-Manneh - Gilbert Achcar - Radwa Achour - Etel Adnan - Fabio Alberti - Gadi Algazi (Tel Aviv) - Anthony Arnove - Naseer Aruri - Aziz el-Azmeh - Nadia Baghdadi - Chris Bambery - Mourid al-Barghouti - Tamim al-Barghouti - David Barsamian - Helga Baumgarten - Joel Beinin - Walden Bello - Tony Benn - Hamida Bensadia - Daniel Bensaïd - Marco Bersani - Olivier Besancenot - Azmi Bishara (Haifa) - Luciana Bohne - Saïd Bouamama - Timothy Andres Brennan - Michaelle Browers - Suzanne de Brunhoff - Mauro Bulgarelli - François Burgat - Andrew Burgin - Judith Butler - Alex Callinicos - Paola Canarutto - Salvatore Cannavò - Vivek Chibber - Alberto Clarizia - Alexander Cockburn - Geraldina Colotti - Dan Connell - Jeremy Corbyn - Giorgio Cremaschi - Mahmoud Darwish - Liz Davies - Richard Falk - Mireille Fanon-Mendès France - Stefano Galieni - Elisabeth Gauthier - Irene Gendzier - Lindsey German - Fausto Gianelli - Rachel Giora (Tel Aviv) - Charles Glass - Nacira Guénif Souilamas - Serge Guichard - Habdellali Hajjat - Yassin al-Haj Saleh - Eric Hazan - Sherif Hetata - Ahmad Hissou - François Houtard - Sonallah Ibrahim - Salam Ismael - Emilie Jacir - Marcel-Francis Kahn - Assaf Kfoury - Michel Khleifi - Elias Khouri - Alain Krivine - Yitzhak Laor (Tel Aviv) - Francesco Locantore - Jennifer Loewenstein - Orly Lubin (Tel Aviv) - Moshe Machover - Piero Maestri - Kamil Mahdi - Yamin Makri - Luigi Malabarba - Henri Maler - Harriet Malinowitz - Nur Masalha - Gus Massiah - Anat Matar (Tel Aviv) - Norbert Mattes - Luisa Morgantini - Antonio Moscato - Luciano Muhlbauer - Fatimah Muhsin - Craig Murray - Karma Nabulsi - Cinzia Nachira - Ahmed Okasha - Ilan Pappe (Haifa) - Luigia Pasi - Walter Peruzzi - Paola Piacenza - John Pilger - Harold Pinter - Omar al-Qattan - John Rees - Tanya Reinhart (Tel Aviv) - Hilary Rose - Steven Rose - Eric Rouleau - Werner Ruf - Nawal el Saadawi - Dalia Sachs (Haifa) - Hannah Safran (Haifa) - Mariam C. Said - Catherine Samary - Maria Antonietta Saracino - Patrick Seale - Ronen Shamir (Tel Aviv) - Sandra Shattuck - Ahmed Shawki - Eyal Sivan - Ahdaf Soueif - William Thelin - Enzo Traverso - Lea Tsemel (Jerusalem) - Franco Turigliatto - Dominique Vidal - Gore Vidal - Pasquale Vilardo - Michel Warschawski (Jerusalem) - Salma Yaqoob - Stephen Zunes