To:  Australian Prime Minister John Howard and Members of Australian Parliament

We, the undersigned Citizens and Residents of Australia and the World, stand together to condemn the atrocities being committed by the Israeli military against the peoples of Lebanon, and call on Prime Minister John Howard and his Government to stand together with us and call for an immediate cease fire by BOTH sides of this conflict.


The brutal bombing and invasion of Lebanon is an act of Israeli state terrorism, Israel’s indiscriminate bombing if civilian targets in Lebanon is a serious violation of Human Rights, and constitutes another terrifying example of the heightened reliance on military force by both Israel and the United States in their ongoing struggle for hegemony in the Middle East.


Hundreds of civilians have been killed in Lebanon including many children, and scores are missing. The number of refugees is estimated at more than half a million and rising. The attacks on Lebanon’s infrastructure – power stations, factories, bridges, and ports – will take decades to rebuild. The people of Lebanon are already weary from reconstructing their country after years of civil war and the last ruinous Israeli invasion in 1982. Israel has proven that it has no concern for the lives of the innocent by its attack on UN outposts, Red Cross convoys and fleeing civilians.


There is no military solution to the current crisis. War and occupation threaten all life in the region and around the world—and will never bring security to anyone. We call for an immediate cease-fire against Lebanon.


Given the vacuum of political leadership from the governments of the world in the face of U.S. and Israeli intransigence, we feel it is incumbent on ordinary citizens to organize and support peaceful means for bringing economic and political pressure on Israel to end its assault on Lebanon and also on the Palestinian territories. It is urgent that individuals and non-governmental groups apply such means until Israel fully complies with international law and respects the fundamental human rights of all people.


While we unequivocally condemn the killing of civilians in Israel, it must be recognized that Israel's destructive and expansionist policies are primarily to blame for the perpetual "Middle East crisis.” To call Israeli atrocities in Gaza and Lebanon simply a “disproportionate response” helps justify Israeli war crimes by making Israel the victim and obscuring both the short and long-term sources of this catastrophic violence.


We call on Mr Howard to demand an immediate end to the assault on civilians and the destruction of Lebanon, as we realize that by his silence in this matter he makes each and every Australian complicit in the deaths of innocents and the destruction of a country.



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