On the April 18 Dastardly Massacre of Refugees in Lebanon
Sharpening Contradictions
The conclusion delivered by U.N. investigator General Frank van
Kappen that the massacre of Lebanese refugees in Qana on April 18
was a deliberate act of terrorism by the state of Israel, has
created sharp contradictions amongst those involved in the peace
process in the Middle East, and amongst the imperialist countries
themselves. U.S. imperialism and its functionaries had no comment
except to say that if the U.N. findings are made public it will
damage the Middle East peace process.
The U.S. is pushing an imperialist peace and it claims no one
is in position to do it except itself. U.S. state functionaries
have openly declared that the state of Israel will only listen to
them. This means that U.S. imperialism is openly admitting its
guilt in the execution of terrorism by the state of Israel. The
hypocrisy and double standards of U.S. imperialism are such that it
is not labelling Israeli state terrorism as "crimes against
humanity" and that the guilty must be punished. On the contrary, it
expects everyone to forget all the crimes as if they never
happened.
French imperialism has a stake in the region being an
ex-colonial power there. The Russian and German imperialists also
have interests there and so do the Italians, British and others. Up
to now, U.S. imperialism was in the most favorable situation with
virtual control of Middle East oil since the Gulf war. Other
imperialist powers are very uneasy with this. They are pushing
their own interests in the region. The bottom line is that
imperialist peace necessarily leads to imperialist war as the peace
is imposed against the interests of the people and settles none of
the outstanding problems. The April 18 massacre has brought all the
inter-imperialist contradictions, and the contradiction between
imperialism and the oppressed peoples to the fore. At the same
time, it has shown that the revolutionary movement in the region as
a whole - in Israel, Palestine and other arab countries - is
extremely weak and has not been able to take advantage of the
situation.
Shawgi Tell
University at Buffalo
Graduate School of Education
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
