Weapons bound for Israel said to pass through California

Willful Blindness

By Marjorie Cohn
submitted to portside July 24 by the author
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0725-20.htm

On Friday morning, as I traveled north on Interstate 5,
I passed two tractor-trailers heading south toward the
32nd Street Naval Station in downtown San Diego. Each
vehicle carried about 10 unmarked bombs; each bomb was
approximately 15 feet long. Two military helicopters
hovered low above each tractor-trailer, providing
overhead escort.

I wondered where these bombs were headed. They must
have been in a big hurry because they usually ship
their bombs more covertly.

Israel had just put out an S.O.S. to the United States
government to rush over several more bombs. "The
decision to quickly ship the weapons to Israel was made
with relatively little debate within the Bush
administration," according to the New York Times.
Although always well-equipped with sophisticated US-
made weapons, Israel was evidently running out of
munitions to drop on the Lebanese people.

Washington loses no opportunity to scold Iran and Syria
for providing weapons to Hezbollah.

Yet during the Bush administration, from 2001 to 2005,
Israel received $10.5 billion in Foreign Military
Financing - the Pentagon's biggest military aid program
- and $6.3 billion in US arms deliveries. Israel is the
largest recipient of US foreign military assistance.

It is a violation of the US Arms Export Control Act to
provide weapons to foreign countries that are not used
for defensive purposes or to maintain internal
security. During the last major Israeli incursion into
Lebanon, in 1981, the Reagan administration cut off US
military aid and arms deliveries for 10 weeks while it
investigated whether Israel was using weapons for
"defensive purposes."

Last week, both houses of Congress, mindful of the
importance of retaining Jewish votes and campaign
contributions, passed resolutions stating that Israel
is acting in self-defense. The vote in the Senate was
unanimous; the House vote was 410 to 8.

Walking in lockstep with Bush, neither resolution calls
for a ceasefire. The Senate resolution praises Israel
for its "restraint" and the House resolution "welcomes
Israel's continued efforts to prevent civilian
casualties."

US-provided Israeli bombs have killed nearly 400
Lebanese, the overwhelming majority innocent civilians.
The bombing has displaced half a million people and
caused an estimated $1 billion in damage.

After Israeli orders that people in southern Lebanon
evacuate their homes, several vehicles filled with
evacuating Lebanese civilians were bombed by the
Israeli military.

An Israeli helicopter fired a missile at a white
minibus carrying 19 people fleeing Tairi. Three people
were killed and several wounded.

A green Mercedes with a family fleeing Mansuri was
struck by an Israeli missile. Three lay dead, others
severely injured. Eight-year-old Mahmoud Srour's face
was burned beyond recognition.

As Zein al-Abdin Zabit evacuated with his wife and four
sons, his white Nissan was hit by an Israeli missile.
"It's nothing more than revenge, revenge on civilians,"
Zabit said as he lay in bed with broken ribs.

Human Rights Watch confirmed yesterday that Israel is
using artillery-delivered cluster munitions in
populated areas of Lebanon. "Cluster munitions are
unacceptably inaccurate and unreliable weapons when
used around civilians," said Kenneth Roth, executive
director of Human Rights Watch. "They should never be
used in populated areas."

The use of cluster munitions in populated areas in Iraq
caused more civilian casualties than any other factor
in the US-led coalition's major military operations in
March and April 2003, killing and wounding more than
1,000 Iraqi civilians, HRW reported.

HRW photographed US-produced/US-supplied cluster bombs
among the arsenal of Israel Defense Forces artillery
teams stationed on the Israeli-Lebanese border during a
July 23 research visit.

Independent journalist Dahr Jamail reported that the
Lebanese Ministry of Interior has confirmed the
Israelis have used the incendiary white phosphorous
gas. This is a chemical weapon, much like napalm, that
can burn right down to the bone. The US military used
white phosphorous in Fallujah, Iraq.

Article 35 of Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions
prohibits the use of weapons "of a nature to cause
superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering." Cluster
bombs and white phosphorous fall into this category.

Bilal Masri, assistant director of the Beirut
Government University Hospital, told Jamail, "The
Israelis are using new kinds of bombs, and these bombs
can penetrate bomb shelters," Masri added. "They are
bombing the refugees in the bomb shelters!"

Masri also said that 55 percent of the casualties are
children under 15 years of age.

It is a violation of the laws of war to target
civilians. "A fundamental rule of international
humanitarian law is the obligation to distinguish
between civilians and civilian property on one hand and
military targets on the other," Nada Doumani, Middle
East spokesperson for the International Committee of
the Red Cross told Aljazeera.net. "Under no
circumstances, can civilians and public and private
property be deliberately attacked. All parties in the
conflict have to abide by these rules."

Doumani quoted ICRC Director of Operations Pierre
Krahenbuhl, who said: "The high number of civilian
casualties and the extent of damage to essential public
infrastructure raise serious questions regarding
respect for the principle of proportionality in the
conduct of hostilities."

Nearly every report from the corporate media seeks to
find symmetry in this war. When an outlet covers the
massive devastation in Lebanon and increasing numbers
of Lebanese civilians killed by Israeli bombs, it is
careful to juxtapose reports of Hezbollah rockets fired
into Israel.

Jan Egeland, the United Nations emergency relief chief,
however, called the "disproportionate response" by
Israel to Hezbollah's actions "a violation of
international humanitarian law." Egeland, who
characterized the devastated areas of Lebanon as
"horrific," said Israel is denying access to relief
operations.

At least 384 people have been killed in Lebanon,
including 20 soldiers and 11 Hezbollah fighters.
Israel's death toll is at least 40, with 17 people
killed by Hezbollah rockets and 23 soldiers killed in
the fighting.

On Monday, a high-ranking Israeli Air Force officer
told reporters that Israeli Defense Forces Chief of
Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz had ordered the military to
destroy 10 buildings in Beirut in retaliation for every
Katyusha rocket strike on Haifa by Hezbollah.

Last week, several Jewish organizations and Christian
Zionists lobbied the White House to support Israel.

Bush complied, giving Israel at least another week to
continue slaughtering the Lebanese people.

While Bush stood by and watched the humanitarian
catastrophe Israel is wreaking in Lebanon, Condoleezza
Rice traveled there and met with Fuad Siniora, the
Lebanese prime minister.

Rice's visit was an "important show of support for the
Lebanese public and the Siniora government," a US
official said Monday. The official told reporters
traveling with Rice, "The fact we are going to go right
into Beirut after all that has happened is a pretty
dramatic signal to Lebanon and their government."

It would be much more dramatic for Bush-Rice to call a
halt to the carnage. When Helen Thomas asked White
House spokesman Tony Snow why the President opposed a
ceasefire, he rudely thanked her for her "Hezbollah
view."

Bush could stop Israel in its tracks with a snap of his
fingers. But why would he? Israel is doing Bush's
bidding - redrawing the map of the Middle East to
facilitate US domination. Bush began that task with
Iraq; Israel is following suit with Palestine and
Lebanon.

Indeed, Bush is hoping Israel's next stop will be Iran
or Syria. A July 21 list of talking points from the
White House Office of the Press Secretary referred to a
Los Angeles Times op-ed by Max Boot titled, "It's Time
to Let The Israelis Take Off the Gloves."

The White House release contained this quote from
Boot's piece: "Our best response is exactly what Bush
has done so far - reject premature calls for a cease-
fire and let Israel finish the job."

That quote was preceded by this language: "Iran may be
too far away for much Israeli retaliation beyond a
single strike on its nuclear weapons complex. (Now
wouldn't be a bad time.) But Syria is weak and next
door. To secure its borders, Israel needs to hit the
Assad regime. Hard. If it does, it will be doing
Washington's dirty work."

We turn a blind eye at our peril.

[Marjorie Cohn, professor at Thomas Jefferson School of
Law, is president-elect of the National Lawyers Guild,
and the US representative to the executive committee of
the American Association of Jurists.]