Funky Zarathustra

Lebanese blogger Sarah just linked to FoOL and covers the events in Lebanon. Current post excerpt:

I came across several excerpts of Nasrallah's speech in English which were taken out of context. I've attempted a balanced translation below, followed by some notes.

The speech
His speech began by congratulating the Lebanese for what he said was a historic and heroic victory, "without exaggeration". He also saluted the "martyrs" of the party, the army, journalists, civilians...He then described the magnitude of the destruction as the worst Lebanon has witnessed in all its brushes with the Israeli army. He attributed this to an Israeli weakness. Nasrallah also remembered to thank all the sects, parties and families who housed the refugees and supported them. He also promised to pay compensation to the owners of 15000 homes lost completely.

[...]

Nasrallah, I find it hard to acknowledge, also raises a good point regarding the Sheb'a farms and the detainees. It is disappointing a better deal was not brokered which would have left HA with no excuse to remain armed.

But, I disagree with the [assertion] that HA can defend us from Israeli threat. It did not allow their forces a victory but they also did not win--they simply didn't lose. Lebanon lost.

[...]

Funky Zarathustra: Nasrallah's speech lost in translation (hero or villain?)

A Nitche and a "Lost in Translation" reference all on one blog! I guess you could say it is the uberblog. Kudos.

http://funkyzarathustra.blogspot.com/

Map of Israeli Aggression in Lebanon

Nearly every city and village and Lebanon has been bombed in the last few weeks. Over 900 dead. Who are the terrorists again?

Updates on the Aggression Against Lebanon

What is to be Done?

Israel's disgusting and massively disproportionate assault on all its neighbors must be universally condemed. From the Peak Oil site:

[...]
Lebanon is mired in a terrifying labyrinth of death and destruction. Beirut's airport is bombed. Israel has imposed a sea blockade. Other than privileged Westerners who are being evacuated by air or sea, people have overnight become refugees. They are plunged into an exodus of hundreds of thousands crammed on rickety rural trucks, overcrowded buses, Red Crescent convoys and even Mercedes with Saudi license plates on a mad dash through Lebanese back roads to Syria.

Israel's lethal bombing is ubiquitous - raining hell over family homes in the Bekaa Valley, over the Liban Lait milk factory on the road to Baalbek, over a Greek Orthodox church, over civilian trucks carrying rice and sugar near the Christian village of Zaleh, over a civil-defense building in Tyre, over a paper mill, over a packaging firm, over a pharmaceutical plant, over the Lake Qaraoun dam, over bridges, water reservoirs, electric plants, gas stations, ambulances, even over Beirut's main Christian neighborhood.

Peak Oil: Lebanon Left for Dead
Information Clearing House: Uncensored photos from Lebanon

To quote V Lenin, "What is to be done?" The CWI's Kevin Simpson has released an extensive analysis on this topic with the following conclusions:

[...]
Undoubtedly the prospect of further conflict and war fills workers and young people around the world and particularly in the Middle East with dread because of the terrible suffering it could mean. However, capitalist wars and conflict will see further working class struggles against privatisation and attacks on workers living standards which have already taken place in countries like Iran, Egypt and Israel. Such movements will come to the fore again but with a different consciousness – one that is imbued with a desire for an end to bloodshed and a new society where the mass of the population control the huge wealth that exists in the region.

This perspective is based on historical experience. At the height of the internecine Lebanese Civil War in 1988, Lebanese workers across the sectarian divide took strike action against the collapse in the value of the minimum wage as a result of the galloping inflation caused by the conflict. Along the "green line", which divided Christian and Muslim Beirut, joint demonstrations took place on this issue. During the same period between half and one million Israelis demonstrated in Tel Aviv against the IDF invasion in Lebanon.

However, socialists and activists cannot simply sit back and wait for these developments in the future. A movement for revolutionary socialist change needs to be built, as a matter of urgency, across the region.

• No to the mass terror of the Israeli regime against the Lebanese people. End the bombing of Lebanon. Build mass international opposition to ‘collective punishment’ of the Lebanese people
• For the right of the Lebanese working class and poor peasantry to defend themselves against Israeli state aggression. No to indiscriminate bombing and shelling of civilian areas. For the setting up of cross-community, armed defence committees under the democratic control of the Lebanese masses. No to the concept of collective punishment of innocent civilians
• Release all political prisoners and captives. All imperialist forces out of the region
• For a mass movement of Arab and Palestinian workers, poor peasants and young people to overthrow the capitalist system which breeds war, poverty, mass unemployment and neo-liberal attacks in the Middle East. For a socialist confederation of Arab states based on a democratically planned economy, under workers’ control and management
• For a mass movement of Israeli Jewish workers to overthrow the Israeli capitalist regime which means endless wars and attacks on living standards. For a socialist Palestine and socialist Israel as part of a socialist confederation of the Middle East in which workers and poor peasants and not corrupt leaders will decide how society is run and where the national, religious and ethnic rights of all minorities will be guaranteed

Socialist Alternative: Israeli regime’s air invasion of Lebanon