Stop the Raids of Silence!

[Quick translation of previous post]

From early morning, Israeli warplanes strike and shell the Gaza Strip. This is the same strategy as in the July 2006 war: siege, official Arab support of the siege, then liquidation amid the silence of the various regimes.

The daily aggression on Gaza, and all of Palestine, is not only an Israeli action. It is a war launched by the Zionist state, allied with the repressive Arab regimes. Tzipi Livni, the Israeli Foreign Minister, declared last Wednesday that "Israel will change the reality of the Gaza Strip," and then, on Thursday and "from Cairo", she announced that "the situation will change." Now, after less than 48 hours of Livni's visit to Cairo, we see Israeli raids slaughtering Gaza. The official Egyptian position remains the same, demanding that "the parties exercise restraint" and openly saying, "we told Hamas to halt their rockets and we said to Israel to stop its reactions."

But what about the siege? The occupation? The displacement? The massacres? The refugees? Is this all "reaction"?

This is no longer complicity or collusion, but the open alliance and support of the Arab regimes with the aggressor. Whoever looks at Palestine today and calls for restraint, will be putting a stamp of approval on silence about the massacre carried out by these regimes multilaterally.

Arab regimes and governments of "national unity" stand together as witness to a massacre that they themselves planned with their own hands and through their political positions. Whoever claims today that "this is not our problem" will be behaving like those who refused to stop the aggression during the 2006 war. Question of Solidarity and Resistance are not only a national reality, they are in essence an uprising against oppression, occupation, and aggression.

The suffering of the people of Gaza today is the one we faced in July 2006: the same enemy, the same aircrafts, the same Arab and international positions. Like our response in Lebanon in 2006, resistance to the Israeli aggression, we must respond today, through resistance, solidarity movements, and popular resistance in Lebanon, the Arab region, and the world. Victory in the July war was made possible by those who carried guns, and also by those who took to the streets and defied their governments' policies, breaking the silence and repression, in solidarity with the resistance in Lebanon. We cannot stop the blockade and aggression, unless we break the official silence. This will only happen in the streets, in defiance of this organized act of treason.

From this rally in downtown Beirut (opposite the ESCWA building), we call for an open sit-in to follow the developments and to stimulate the Lebanese and Arab street to move and demonstrate.

We call on everyone to a rally tomorrow (28/12/2008) opposite the Egyptian embassy in Beirut (near the Order of Engineers) at 2 in the afternoon.

In support of the resistance in Gaza - together against the oppression and silences of Arab regimes

December 27, 2008
Open sit-in, opposite ESCWA, Beirut
Lebanese and Palestinian Leftist Youth Groups