The Distance from Guernica to Lebanon

beatriz

An important article reminding us of the atrocities committed in Guernica. A controversial and largely silenced part of Spanish history.

Architects for Peace has expressed its outrage at the bombardment of Lebanon and Palestine. To read this statement click here

Published on Monday, July 17, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
The Distance from Guernica to Lebanon
by Ramzi Kysia

As I write this, I can hear Israeli warplanes flying overhead, breaking the sound barrier and rattling all of our windows. In the distance there are explosions. I don't know where the bombs are dropping, but it's not close to me. I can't hear the screaming of the survivors from where I sit.

Hezbollah and Hamas may possess the ability to kill dozens of Israeli civilians and terrorize countless others, but they are not an existential threat to Israel. As events on the ground have unmistakably demonstrated over this past month, today it is Israel that is a clear and present danger to the further existence of the Lebanese and Palestinian peoples. A danger, if not to their very lives - then certainly to the continuation of their nations.

This is the third, catastrophic attack I've lived through. I was in New York City on September 11. I was in Baghdad during "Shock and Awe." It's not something you ever get used to. That so much hatred can live in the world, so much indifference to human suffering-- living under that hatred and indifference is almost as hard as living under the bombs.

As I write this, over two hundred Lebanese have been killed. Almost all of them were civilians.

I think of Guernica.

On April 26, 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, the German Air Force, siding with fascist dictator Francisco Franco, began a bombing campaign against the city of Guernica. Some 1,600 people were killed, and the city was reduced to rubble. Guernica is remembered as the first time air power was used against a civilian population with the intent of causing complete destruction.

When it happened, Guernica shocked the world. Today, we do not shock so easily. Lebanon is being sacrificed without so much as a casual protest.

Israel has bombed power plants, roads, and bridges all across Lebanon. Israel has bombed gas stations and fuel depots, grain silos, lighthouses, the seaports in Beirut, Tripoli, Jounieh and Tyre. Beirut's airport is in flames. Beirut's Shi'a suburbs have been almost completely demolished. Firefighters are pleading for help, because they do not have enough water to put out the blazes. (1)

I think of Guernica.

Israel has ordered all of the people living in Southern Lebanon to flee their homes and villages. Avi Dichter, Israel's Minister of Internal Security, told us that "tens of thousands of Lebanese who will flee towards the north will create the right pressure on Hezbollah." (2)

Two nights ago, eighteen people in the South were burned alive when Israel bombed their fleeing convoy with incendiary shells. Eleven of the dead were children under the age of twelve. Mahmoud Ghannam, the father of two of the killed children, broke down when he saw their bodies. He struck himself in the head repeatedly and cried, "my God, my God. I can't make out the faces of my children. They are burnt black... Which ones are my children?" (3)

A copy of Pablo Picasso's famous painting of the annihilation of Guernica was hung outside the chambers of the UN Security Council, as a reminder of why the United Nations was created, and of what the Security Council is supposed to prevent. In 2003, the United States ordered the eleven foot painting covered, so as not to even subtly embarrass American diplomats pressing for a war against Iraq. (4)

We are supposed to forget what modern warfare means.

Living in Lebanon today, I cannot forget. I remember Guernica.

Today, Lebanon is being forced toward total ruin. If Israel's intent is just to destroy Hezbollah, then why are they bombing Christian and Sunni neighborhoods and towns? Why did Israel wait until July 15 to bomb Hezbollah's headquarters in Beirut, making sure to first bomb power plants, bridges and roads throughout the entire country? Israel's clear intent is to trash this entire country, smash everything that makes Lebanon a modern nation, and demolish all of the work the Lebanese have done over the last fifteen years to rebuild their country.

As Lebanon is ravaged, U.S. President George Bush loudly and proudly asserts Israel's right to "self-defense." (5)

As Lebanon is ravaged, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rica announces that Israel should continue bombing to "reduce the threat" from Hezbollah. (6)

Do Arabs possess the right to defend themselves from Israel?

As Lebanon is laid to waste, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has secured himself newfound adulation within Israel. Everyone apparently loves a killer. (7)

As Lebanon is destroyed, Olmert has announced that he will refuse to meet with a UN delegation attempting to secure a cease-fire (8 ), George Bush has publicly refused to call for a cease-fire (9), and the United States is blocking other nations on the Security Council from calling for a cease-fire (10).

On "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," Condoleezza Rice not only defended Israel's actions in Lebanon and U.S. policy in Iraq, but said "[Mid-East] hostilities were not very well contained, as we found out on Sept. 11, and so the notion that somehow policies that finally confront extremism are actually causing extremism, I find grotesque."

Grotesque. As if Lebanon or Iraq--or even Hamas or Hezbollah--had anything whatsoever to do with September 11.

I remember what is grotesque. I remember Guernica.

When Westerners speak of "smashing the infrastructure of terror," it is understand that they mean all of the Arab peoples themselves. Arabs are "the infrastructure of terror."

Speaking against a cease-fire, Rice added, "We have to go at the root cause. . It's fine to have a cessation of violence. .But unless we go to the fundamentals here, we're going to continue to have these spikes of violence in the Middle East as we have had for the past 30 years." (11)

According to the Washington Post, going to these fundamentals means that Israel and the United States are going to prevent any cease-fire and continue bombing Lebanon for "several weeks" in order to establish their version of peace in the region. (12)

Indeed. I remember Guernica. I understand the peace of the jackboot and whip.

Dare any American or Israeli ever again ask, "Why do they hate us?"

The clear conviction being spoken by all of the politicians in Israel and America is that their absolute security is absolutely dependent on the complete insecurity of Arabs everywhere. And the clear lesson being taught to generations of children growing up in the rubble of what once was the shining jewel of the Middle East is simply this: their security can only be dependent on the future insecurity of America and Israel.

Former U.S. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich also took the opportunity to strongly defend this point of view. In an interview on Saturday, Gingrich said that Israel and America must be forceful because, "we need to have the militancy that says 'We're not going to lose a city.'"

So, apparently, Lebanon is going to lose several.

Gingrich belittled the idea of negotiations or a possible ceasefire by saying, "this idea that we have this one-sided war where the other team gets to plan how to kill us and we get to talk, is nuts." (13)

A hundred years ago President Teddy Roosevelt famously told Americans to "talk softly and carry a big stick." Today the spiritual, if not political, heirs to Generalissimo Franco are riding high in Tel Aviv and Washington D.C., and they've gone one better than Roosevelt.

Today, they don't talk at all.

Ramzi Kysia is an Arab-American essayist and peace activist. He spent a year in Iraq with Voices in the Wilderness, the Chicago-based predecessor to Voices for Creative Nonviolence. He is currently living in Lebanon, and working on a book about his experiences.

Sources

1. "Israelis intensify bombardment of Lebanon's civilian infrastructure," Daily Star (17 July 2006)
2. "Lebanese villagers ordered out," AFP (17 July 2006)
3. "Jets 'incinerate' fleeing family," AFP (16 July 2006)
4. "The Lessons of Guernica," Toronto Star (9 February 2003)
5. "Mideast flare-up follows Bush to Russia," AP (14 July 2006)
6. "Rice Says Israel May Need to Prolong Offensive," New York Times (16 July 2006)
7. "War Gives Israeli Leader Political Capital," New York Times (16 July 2006)
8. "Lebanon bows on border demand," The Australian (17 July 2006)
9. "Bush won't pressure Israel for cease-fire," AP (14 July 2006)
10. "Lebanon: U.S. blocking call for cease-fire," AP (15 July 2006)
11. "Rice Defends Israel, Calls Criticisms of Bush Policy 'Grotesque'," ABC News Online (16 July 2006)
12. "Strikes Are Called Part of Broad Strategy," Washington Post (16 July 2006)
13. "Let's face it, it's WWIII, Gingrich says," Seattle Times (16 July 2006)


Find this article: Common Dreams News Center, http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0717-23.htm

Anonymous

From: Another day of devestation and destruction
Dr. Zeina Zaatari, Live from Lebanon, 17 July 2006
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5081.shtml

In the South, they targeted all the towns on the road between Saida and Beirut, by bombing further any roads and bridges that had so far been untouched. At Rmeileh bridge they bombed and killed over 14 people that were in a small bus trying to evacuate to safer areas. They also rebombed the Jieh power plant and today the plant was on fire; you can see the smoke from miles away, we can smell the smoke and breathe the burning. Early in the morning, they bombed the Ghazieh bridge and killed two people that were in car trying to leave the city. Ghazieh is a town near Saida. All these are new bridges that were built to connect the towns with the new highway.

The water tank of Said was also destroyed and two members of the army were killed at that post.

In the border towns, the Israelis continue to commit one massacre after another by killing people in their homes, or asking them to evacuate and then killing them as they try to flee to another town on roads and bridges that are half destroyed. A fire truck today was also destroyed. The border towns are sending rescue signals via the local television station reporters, who are jumping over all sorts of barriers to report to us what is happening. People are terrified for their lives and for the lives of their loved ones. The bombs come from tanks on the border as well as airplane raids and gunboats. It comes from all directions.....

Anonymous

While the World Watches Lebanon, the Israeli Army Tightens the Noose in Palestine
July 19th, 2006 | Posted in Press Releases, Nablus Region, Ramallah Region, Gaza Region - International Solidarity movement: http://www.palsolidarity.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Starting around 5am this morning and lasting until the evening, the Israeli army surrounded the Mukatah (local government building) in Nablus with close to 100 military vehicles. They killed three people inside who are a part of the preventative security force of the PA, that the Israelis claim were wanted persons. They detained the bodies of the fallen in Nablus after abducting them from an ambulance. The bodies have not yet been identified because their faces were so mutilated by gunfire. This comes on the same day that the Israelis stormed a government building in Ramallah, arresting five people. They also stormed the office of the Palestinian Wafa News Agency in a pre-dawn raid. ....

source: http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/07/19/nablus-raid-mukatah/

Anonymous

Humanitarian crisis worsens in Lebanon
Aid agency CARE says the humanitarian situation in Lebanon is becoming increasingly desperate as Israel and Hezbollah continue to trade fire.

Hospitals in Lebanon have begun closing, every major road in the country has been damaged and more than 70 bridges have been destroyed....

Long-term problems

She says Lebanon's civilians need an immediate cease-fire.

"We need the conflict to end so that civilians are not dying," she said.

"Then people need water, they need sanitation, they need water to drink so they're not getting diarrhoeal diseases.

"They need to be able to wash, go to the toilet safely, they need food.

"They need shelter and a safe place to live … and they need health care and medical supplies."

But Ms Chisholm says it will still be difficult to distribute aid once the fighting stops.

"The damage to infrastructure is going to continue to cause us problems because we need to use roads, we need to use bridges and we need to be secure," she said.

"A related issue is that we also know there are a lot of unexploded ordinances, which is basically bombs that have dropped but not exploded.

"They're going to create a huge danger to humanitarian workers but also to children and to families trying to return to conflict-affected areas."


http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200608/s1708500.htm