Calendar over Israeli Aggression in Lebanon
Even before the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, the European Jewish community had begun, as early as the turn of the century, its campaign to create a Jewish National Home. Indeed, Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, declared in his Memoirs that "the Palestine we want is the Palestine of Solomon and David", which for a brief period in the pre-Christian era stretched from the Sinai in the southwest, to the Euphrates in the northeast. (From Memoirs, page 342.)
Israel's latest aggression into southern Lebanon is but one in a string of such territorial incursions the objective of which is the take-over of the region, along with its natural resources and strategic waterways, by the State of Israel. What follows is the history of Jewish, and later Israeli designs on Lebanon's southern territory.
1917 - Chaim Weizmann, later to become Israel's first President, said: "We did not know that France had designs on the Levant [Lebanon and Syria] and thought we could include the whole of that area in the Jewish National Home", which the Balfour Declaration limited to Mandated Palestine. (From Frontiers of a Nation, page 78.)
1918 - Ben Zvi, later to become Israel's second President, and David Ben Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister, in an article appearing in London's Palestine magazine, set the borders of the Jewish State as:
Mount Lebanon, to the north (about fifteen or twenty kilometers south of Beirut);
The Syrian desert, to the east;
The Sinai Peninsula, to the south; and
The Mediterranean Sea, to the west.1919 - The importance of the northern border is underscored by a joint declaration issued by Lord Balfour, Lord Percy, and Louis Brandeis, then a Justice of the US Supreme Court, stating, among other things, that "Palestine must be economically viable, therefore it must control the water sources in the north (Lebanon and Syria)." (From the British Government Documents for 1919, Volume IV, page 1276.)
1943 - After twenty-three years under the French Mandate, Lebanon's independence was recognized by the French and British.
1948 - The State of Israel was created, and promptly gained the political legitimization to carry out its territorial aspirations. Though Israeli forces did occupy southern Lebanon, and the Litani River, they were forced to withdraw under international pressure.
1954 - Israel threatens to use force against Lebanon to prevent it from using its own water from the Litani River to develop its southern region. These threats were made to President Eisenhower's envoy, Eric Johnson, during a meeting on water issues.
Moshe Sharett, who for a brief period in the early 1950's shared the Prime-Ministership with Ben Gurion, was forced out of office because he refused to go along with the latter's "diabolic plans" for the creation of an inter-Lebanese conflict which would guarantee the partition of the country, and from which Israel can only gain. In his diaries, he gives detailed descriptions of these plans.
1955 - At a secret cabinet meeting, Sharett quotes Moshe Dayan as saying that the "only thing necessary is to find an officer, even just a major. We should either win his heart, or buy him with money, to make him agree to declare himself the savior of the maronite population. Then the Israeli army will enter Lebanon, occupy the necessary territory, and will create a Christian regime which will ally itself with Israel. The territory from the Litani southward will be totally annexed to Israel, and everything will be all right." Dayan also admitted that "much anxiety had to be generated... the lives of Jewish victims also had to be sacrificed to create provocations justifying subsequent reprisals..."
For the next ten years, Israel's concerns would center around Egypt and the perceived threat of Nasser's calls for Pan-Arab unity. It was not until after the Six Day War of June 1967 that Israel resumed its plans for Lebanon.
1968 - Israeli commandos blew up 13 airliners at Beirut new international airport and destroyed several hangars. This was yet another attempt at destroying Lebanon´s commercial and economic infrastructure.
1978 - Israel launched a full-scale invasion of Lebanon, calling it "Operation Litani", supposedly in response to Palestinian guerrilla activity. About 1,500 people were killed, mostly Lebanese and Palestinian civilians.
As a result of this invasion, and just as Ben Gurion's "diabolic" plan had called for in the mid-1950's, Major Saad Haddad declared a Maronite State in southern Lebanon in 1979, and became Israel's puppet in the region, leading the South Lebanon Army, an army of mercenaries responsible for rampant murder and torture of innocent civilians. Israel now had the access she had coveted for sixty years (since 1918), the irrigation waters of the Litani. Major Haddad's SLA became an extension of the Israel Defense Forces. In response to this invasion, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 425 calling on Israel's immediate withdrawal from Lebanese territory. Israel continues to ignore and defy this international body's directives. It continues its illegal occupation of Lebanese territory under the guise of a "security zone."
1981 - Israel bombarded Lebanon, again... Israeli air raids on Beirut kill hundreds of of civilians.
1982 - Ariel Sharon's "Operation Peace for Galilee", the fifth Arab-Israeli war. All kinds of American-made and internationally banned bombs were tried against the civilian population. Phosphoric, cluster, vacuum, and nail bombs slaughtered thousands of peaceful civilians hiding in bomb shelters. Israeli airplanes threw booby-trapped toys for the children to pick up and perish.
Israeli "war" minister Sharon ordered a massacre of thousands of innocent Palestinian refugees in Beirut Sabra and Shatila camps. In total about 20,000 people were killed during the "Operation Peace for Galilee", mainly Palestinian and Lebanese civilians.
The Hizbollah, a group of southern Lebanese Muslims, came into existence as a result of this latest Israeli campaign, and in response to Israel's illegal occupation of their territory, as a liberating force.
In May 1985 and under the influence of the resistance and Hizbollah´s attacks, the Israeli occupiers withdrew from Tyre but kept a 9-mile "buffer zone" to prevent resistance attacks.
With escalated resistance, Israel created the jail of agony in the town of Khiam where all types of torturing techniques have been applied against prisoners defying all human and international norms of dealing with POWs. The International Red Cross and other humanitarian organizations have rarely been allowed to inspect or visit the prisoners.
1992 - Israeli helicopter gunships rocketed the car of Hizbollah leader Sheikh Abbas Musawi, killing him, his wife and son. Rocket attacks into northern Israel followed, then Israeli forces stormed two villages north of the occupation zone.
1993 - Israel unleashed "Operation Accountability," of week-long air, artillery and naval blitz in which 150 people, mostly Lebanese civilians, died, 400 were wounded and 400,000 fled their homes.
1996 In April 11, Israel unleashed "Operation Grapes of Wrath" in which more than 170 people, mostly women and children were killed, including 102 refugees shelled at Qana U.N. base in the south.
Half a million were forced out of their homes as the wide scale barbaric aggression targeted ambulances, children, women, homes, and even cattle and chicken. Property damages were estimated by up to a billion dollars. Moreover, humanitarian aid was blocked from entering the ports.
The Israeli terrorism continues daily using banned weapons, killing children, women and elderly, randomly detaining innocent people, blockading fishing sea ports thus cutting the only source of living for hundreds of families, and kidnapping religious figures and resistance symbols.
Lebanon's only crime is its people's determination to live in liberty, untethered by any external force, free to pursue their national dreams, unhindered by the Zionist state´s territorial aspirations... Lebanon's only crime is its desire to reclaim its right to its territory as an independent sovereign nation. Would anyone settle for any less than the internationally recognized basic rights to freedom and self-determination?
Radio Islam urges all freedom-loving people to support the lebanese people, suffering severly under the heavy boot of Zionism.
Please send a donation to help the needy in Lebanon:
In the USA:
Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development
P.O. Box 832390
Richardson, Texas 75083
Tel (214) 699-9868
Fax (214) 699-0198
In Canada:
Jerusalem Fund for Human Services
P.O. Box 1628 Stn. "B"
Mississauga, Ontario L4Y 4G3
Tel (905) 897-8772
Fax (905) 897-7820
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