Israel's aims in its war on Lebanon are now self-evident, as are its preferred methods for waging it. As Israeli cabinet minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said, it will take Israel a little longer "to complete the job, and by that I mean that the area in which we want [an] international force to deploy is cleansed of Hezbollah".
But more than eliminating Hezbollah, Israel's military agenda is to ethnically cleanse south Lebanon. While this relentless scorched-earth policy has been extended well to the north of the country, now taking in the southern suburbs of Beirut, it was the massacre at Qana on July 30 that horrified the world. Fifty-two people, including 30 children, were killed while sheltering in a basement.
The Israeli government is not concerned about these deaths, nor the mounting civilian death toll. Worldwide outrage over Qana was treated with disdain. The bombing continued unabated despite talk of a cease-fire.
Protected, even egged on, by the Bush administration, Israel has been granted a free hand to kill whomsoever it chooses in Lebanon while the rest of the world is asked to accept that Israel is acting in "self-defence".
Here, the Howard government and the leadership of the ALP are backing Washington's self-serving line.
Qana wasn't an aberration or a mistake in marksmanship. Such carnage is a habit. This was the second time in a decade that the village had been attacked by the Israel Defense Forces. In April 1996, 106 civilians were slaughtered in similar circumstances when the UN compound in Qana was shelled.
Today the same perpetrators return to Lebanon to impose a final solution on the country. Referring to past slaughters as "band-aid solutions", Israel says that this time the bombing will bring a "long-standing resolution" to the conflict.
But an international force or ceasefire established at the behest of Israel will not be a solution. Israel's desire to ethnically cleanse south Lebanon is yet another attempt to extend the borders of this terrorist state as it has done since its inception in 1948. In all that time, there has been no solution on offer save Israel's quest to dispossess the original inhabitants of Palestine.
While the war on Lebanon continues on its northern border, Israel is dismantling by force the nascent Palestinian state apparatus in Gaza. Just as in Lebanon, the infrastructure of the country is being destroyed, and its democratically elected representatives kidnapped and imprisoned. In the lead up to this present war, Palestine has been strangled by a concerted campaign, orchestrated by Israel and abetted by the United States, to starve it of funds and imprison its people behind a massive wall.
On both war fronts, relief supplies, medicines and food - even when ferried by the Red Cross or the United Nations - are being denied to those who need it.
Israel's war crimes are clear for all to see.
The Socialist Alliance stands in solidarity with the Lebanese and Palestinian people's right to national sovereignty and self-determination, and to this end we support their right to defend themselves against the Israeli state's aggression.
The Socialist Alliance is also committed to building the anti-war protests being organised by newly emerging coalitions between Muslim and Arabic-speaking communities, anti-war coalitions, trade unions and others across Australia. We urge everyone to work for and attend these protests because this is the only way we can exert maximum pressure on the Howard government to act in the best interests of all people, and pressure Israel to stop the slaughter.
[Statement from the Socialist Alliance national executive, August 4.]