From Thomas Paine’s Corner
By Dr. Habib Siddiqui

It should be quite obvious by now that Israel’s latest invasion of Gaza and Lebanon had very little to do with rescuing her fallen soldiers. As I write, Israel has killed some 750 unarmed Lebanese civilians – mostly women and children, destroyed mosques, bridges, roads, houses, schools, hospitals and much of the infra-structure of southern half of Lebanon. As in 1996, she has massacred scores of civilians in Qana this past weekend (July 30, 2006).

Israel has bombed Red Cross center and ambulances, and a UN observation post killing 4 observers. She has displaced a million people inside the country, some of whom are forced to take shelters in even prisons. Infants have been forcibly separated from their parents, and the elderly from their care-taking children. Relief supplies are difficult to get to the internally displaced refugees. Nothing is immune from Israel’s bombing campaign.

If a small fraction of these crimes were to be committed by any invading state, in contravention to international laws, Bush and Blair and their European allies in the NATO would be screaming aloud demanding cease-fire, failing which they would threaten the invading nation with all kinds of actions – UN sanctions, embargo and war. But when it comes to crimes of Israel, they are her greatest cheer-leaders. They want to see more Muslim blood, more destruction, literally hell on earth and not cease-fire, because to them Muslim lives and properties are cheap and expendable.

As Michael Schure, an ex-CIA analyst and the foremost expert on al-Qaeda, has said, Bush and Blair through their naked support of such monumental crimes against Muslims have repeatedly given credence to everything that their adversaries have been saying about the West. No bones about it. Truly, it is not OBL and al-Zawahiri who are radicalizing Muslims throughout the world, but these two world leaders. With world leaders like these, who needs OBL to bring the Armageddon on earth?

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