War, or murder, rather, has once again rendered it an urgent necessity for the humanist and freedom loving people of the world to rally around the banner of a third camp - the camp of freedom, equality, and humanity. The two poles of terrorism have shed the blood of innocent people and destroyed their lives in Iraq, Afghanistan, New York, Beslan, Madrid and London… and today in Lebanon and Palestine.
The current savage attacks of the Israeli government on the people of Lebanon, carried out with the overt support of the United States and Britain, and accompanied by the consensual silence of many Western governments, has left hundreds of people dead, thousands injured, and hundreds of thousands displaced and/or homeless. On the other side of the conflict stands Hezbollah, or political Islam at large, which, directly backed by the Islamic regime in Iran, envisages the annihilation of the State of Israel through expanding its terrorizing of the innocent citizens of Israel.
The Israeli government has officially declared that it is implementing the goals of the USA in the region. However, what we are in fact confronted with is a state that has never stopped, even for one single day, suppressing the most basic rights of the Palestinian people, and whose leaders must be brought to justice as war criminals, now posturing as the standard bearers of fighting terrorism! Today, the Israeli government is, indeed carrying out the exact same policies as the US is following in Iraq. And tomorrow it will be the Iranian people’s turn. So far the outcome of such policies has not only been the mass killing and total destruction of the lives of innocent people, but also the growth of Hamas and Hezbollah, and that of political Islam at large, the expansion of insecurity for the people of the region, increasing loss of rights for women, and increasing loss of civil rights for people in Palestine and Lebanon. Moreover, such circumstances have increasingly overshadowed the just demand for the establishment of an independent, secular Palestinian State on an equal footing with all other internationally recognized states. And, finally, such circumstances have paved the way for Hezbollah to let out increasingly louder howls in the streets of the West, to raise the posters of such murderers as Khomeini, Moqtada al-Sadr, and Hasan Nasrollah, and even to verbally assault “unveiled” women at rallies and demonstrations in the heart of Europe.
Civilized humanity must stand up and free the world from the claws of these two murderous camps of terror. The banner of the Third Camp must be raised and fly at full mast everywhere. The world is in urgent need of such a camp and its humane, radical policies against the other two. The Third Camp is the camp of hundreds of millions of people with a thirst for freedom and justice all over the globe who have no common interests with either of the other two camps of reaction and terror.
Join us, and take this initiative across the world.
We, the undersigned, demand the following:
immediate cessation of war against the innocent people in Lebanon, Palestine, and Israel;
conviction of the Israeli government as a war criminal;
establishment and international recognition of an independent, equal Palestinian State;
payment of compensation to the people of Lebanon and Palestine;
condemnation of the governments of United States, Britain, and other state supporters of the State of Israel in the current war against innocent people;
condemnation of the terrorist policies of Hezbollah, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and political Islam in its entirety.
We call on all progressive organizations, personalities, and individuals defending freedom and equality, human rights, secularism, women’s rights, and so on, to support the above-mentioned demands, and to join The Third Camp in order to oppose the other two, and to help bring about freedom and welfare for the people throughout the world.
Asqar Karimi
To support, go to www.thirdcamp.com.
Maryam Namazie
5 comments:
Respectfully,
when I read something like this post, I am disappointed to see those on the left continuing with their insistence of a moral equivalence between Jihadists and democrats. I submit to you that it does no good to "condemn" or to "demand" anything from tyrants. It goes without saying that war is a terrible thing. But I think surrender to fanatics who would impose a Taliban-like regime upon humanity is worse than war.
Right, Chuck.
I'd be more impressed if these people were calling for Hezbollah to abide by the Geneva Conventions.
Most people think of it for prisoners of war, but the Fourth Geneva Convention allows for protective areas for civilian populations. Hezbollah, and all their supporters, must be condemned for mingling with civilian infrastructure.
I'm going to reprint this at my blog.
To the others who commented, Israel has more blood on its hands than Hezbollah. That doesn't mean it's an alternative.
No, when a party at war disregards the laws of war, and fights from civilian areas, then the blood of those innocent civilians is on the hands of those who decided to operate that way. (See the 4th Geneva Conventions; part II.)
Israel would have been required to alert the civilians before taking action, and it appears they went out of their way to do so.
It is a travesty that those outside the conflict who had been spending the last few years pompously raising the Geneva Conventions now suddenly decides to shut up about it when Lebanese (as well as Israeli) children are being killed. This sham will be remembered.
Israel has shown that it can be at peace with its Arab neighbours - if there is no threat. It has peaceful relations with Egypt and Jordan.
If the Palestinians stuck to the political process and didn't have extremist paramilitaries threatening Israeli citizens, Israel would not need a wall and draconian security measures to protect itself.
The root of all the current problem are Islamists groups whose ideology can not possibly accept a two state solution.
Without Islamist terrorism, there would be no need for walls and checkpoints.
Without Islamist terrorist groups, Gaza would have been the foundation for the establishment of a Palestinian state - rather than a vivid argument against it.
It's time for anyone (Jew, Arab or otherwise) to focus on removing the extremists that are so filled with hate of Israel that they keep their own people in hell rather than accept the Jewish State's existence.
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