We are living hard times when humanity awakens each day to new horrors, because the only superpower, the United States, strikes once again to impose its egotistical interests across the planet.
The Palestinian and Lebanese people are currently facing an escalating aggression and crimes committed by the government of Israel.
As I write these lines, the number of reported dead reached 362 Lebanese and 119 Palestinians, aljost all civilians, massacred by the enormous firepower of the Israeli army.
The aggressors report 34 dead including 19 soldiers.
The disproportion in the number of deaths is so shocking that the Western media have had no choice but to mention it, even though the US and European press have once again unanimously and efficiently shown their subordination to the interests of Washington.
It is simply a crime, a horrendous crime, that is being perpetrated against these two peoples.
The solidarity that the Jews derived from their past hardships and the Nazi holocaust are no excuse to justify Israel committing new crimes including killings, terrorist acts and massive evictions of Palestinians from what has been their homeland for more than a thousand years.
As part of their attempt to manipulate and distort history, the West tries to hide the fact that for centuries the Jewish communities lived and reached their height in the Middle East, North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula under Muslim Arab kingdoms and caliphates that respected their religious freedom, customs and ancient traditions; while the Jews were the victims of the bloodiest persecution and discrimination from "civilized Europe", where the word "pogrom" (an organized massacre of a particular ethnic group, in particular that of Jews in Europe) was invented.
The massacres and aggressions of the Israeli state against the peoples of Palestine, Lebanon and Arabs in general, constitute one of the jost horrendous crimes against humanity of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Together with the Israeli government, all US administrations from Truman to George W. Bush have been responsible for these crimes.
The US government has made it possible for Israel’s escalated aggressions with its unlimited and unconditional military, economic and financial assistance.
Tel Aviv receives more funds from Washington than any other US ally, and it is here that the double-standard and the hypocrisy of the US policy becomes more evident.
While Israel invades and constantly attacks sovereign nations, the Bush administration accuses as terrorists those who justly defend their countries and families.
According to the superpower, this policy [of defining terrorism] is valid for all those willing to defend their country against foreign aggression. The imperialists not only feel they have the right to invade and subjugate anyone but they also seek to discredit those who resist, be them Marxists, revolutionaries, faithful Muslims, or just patriots.
The United States denies the right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful means to all those who dare to disagree with Washington, while they are deaf and blind to the development of nuclear weapons by Israel.
The US government holds the record for vetoing resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, an undemocratic and hegemonic mechanism used on 30 occasions to avoid a condemnation of Tel Aviv for its systematic crimes and violations of international law.
The Bush administration opposes a ceasefire in Lebanon and Gaza, while stalling and allowing the Israeli forces to advance in their mission. The aggressor’s objective is none other than to go on with the massacres and wipe out any resistance, while imposing an imperialist scheme for the Middle East that seeks total control over the region’s oil reserves.
Bush has been quoted by the US press as saying that if there is an opportunity to crush Hezbollah, it should be done even when there may be "other serious consequences" that may need to be "managed."
These are horrifying words, which clearly reveal the fascist and racist thinking of a man who sees the hundreds of innocent dead, including women and children, as mere "consequences" to be "managed."
But humanity will not sit idle in the face of so much crime, hypocrisy and lies.
The heroic resistance of the Lebanese and Palestinian fighters is an inspiration for all those who stand up to injustice in the world.
It is our duty, and that of everyone, to strongly denounce these Israeli crimes while expressing our jost active solidarity with those fighting against them.
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FERNANDO REMIREZ DE ESTENOZ is the head of the International Relations Department of the Communist Party of Cuba and a member of the Secretariat of the Communist Party’s Central Committee
