UK Muslims condemn massacre, Muslim nations to meet
Lebanon-Israel-UK, Politics, 8/1/2006

British Muslims have accused the UK and US governments of being responsible for allowing the recent Israeli massacre of some 60 civilians, mostly women and children, in Qana, southern Lebanon.

Israel in 1996 attacked the UN headquarters in the same village massacred over 107 women and children.

A group of aid agencies, supported by the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), handed in a 35,000-strong petition to the UK Prime Minister's Office Tuesday, demanding that Tony Blair calls for an immediate ceasefire in Israel's bombardment of Lebanon.

Smaller similar gravestone placards bearing the names the signatories were also handed in, reports said. The aid agencies, led by Oxfam, Save the Children, Christian Aid, Islamic Relief and Care International. "These are all the main charities and aid agencies which work in Lebanon and there is a humanitarian crisis. They cannot help the people while the fighting continues," Bell said quoted by the Guardian daily.

He said there was also 'huge dissatisfaction' among backbench MPs from the ruling Labor Party about Blair's failure to demand an end to its three-weeks of incessant bombings of Lebanese civilian targets. The demand was supported by the John Williams, chief spokesman to former foreign secretary Jack Straw, who called on the British prime minister to abandon his current policy on Lebanon and head an EU-led peace conference on the crisis. Williams, who resigned from his post just after Margaret Beckett replaced Straw, said that foreign policy was being made in Blair's office and left the new foreign secretary little more than a 'frustrated bystander'. Blair must bluntly tell US President George W Bush and Israeli leader Ehud Olmert that their 'strategy has failed', he said on the Guardian newspaper's website.

Indian Parliament yesterday strongly condemned the large-scale and indiscriminate bombing by Zionist Regime on Lebanon, in which 37 children among 54 civilians killed yesterday. Strongly condemning large-scale and indiscriminate Israeli bombing of Lebanon, the Lok Sabha today called for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire to prevent further destruction in Lebanon. A resolution unanimously passed by the House said "Lok Sabha conveys its deepest condolences, sympathy and support of the people of India to the people of Lebanon in this difficult time."

Meantime, "The continuing refusal of the United States and the United Kingdom to insist on an immediate ceasefire has diminished us in the court of world public opinion and has made us complicit in these atrocities," the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said. "We simply cannot understand why our Prime Minister appears to be so deaf to the calls from the British public, including members of his own party and cabinet, to speak out against the repeated Israeli violations of international law and the Geneva conventions," it said. The Israeli massacre of more than 54 civilians, including at least 34 children at Qana on Sunday morning is the latest in a long line of war crimes committed by Israel against the peoples of the region. "These poor people killed had already been terrorized into fleeing their homes by the Israeli war machine and thought tragically that they had secured some temporary respite in Qana from Israel's US-supplied weaponry," said MCB secretary general Abdul Bari. "It is a deep source of shame that our country still allows US weapons to reach Israel through our own airports while hypocritically calling for more blankets and food to be sent to Lebanon," he said. Despite the latest massacre, both British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George W Bush refused to call for an immediate ceasefire since Israel started its blitzkreig attacks on Lebanese civilian population over two weeks ago. But the MCB warned that it believed Israel's slaughter of civilians in Lebanon and the occupied Palestinian territories will not break the resolve of their respective peoples. "This cowardly policy has been tried for decades by successive Israeli governments and has only produced highly motivated resistance movements," Bari said. "Many more will now be recruited into their ranks across the region and beyond due to Israel's criminal behaviour," he said while repeating the MCB's call for Blair to demand an immediate ceasefire by Israel. The umbrella Muslim organization understood the "immense anger among British Muslims at the actions of the outlaw Israeli regime" but said it was urging the country's 1.8 million community to act in a dignified manner and not be provoked. "We hope that Britons from all backgrounds will contact their MP to let them know about their immense concern regarding the Israeli rape of Lebanon and insist that they call on our government to act with respect for international law and end its craven support for the failed policies of the United States and Israel," it said. Peace campaigners, led by the Stop The War Coalition, have called another national demonstration to protest against Israel's atrocities this Saturday. An emergency assembly is also being held in the British parliament on Tuesday to plan 'direct action' against Israeli invasions of Lebanon and Palestine. Organizers said that it was clear "there is an overwhelming desire to do more than peacefully protest at the massacres" while governments and populations of the world sit by and watch." "We now know that peaceful demonstrations alone are not sufficient to halt the war machine," they warned, saying that their failures had been played out before in preventing the Iraq war. The British media was also criticized for trying to "fool us into their 'neutral' coverage, when claiming their reports had to be balanced.

Syria's UN envoy Bashar al-Jaafari said at the UN extraordinary meeting on Sunday that Isarel's crimes in Qana are instances of Israeli Holocaust. Al-Jaafari, whose remarks were broadcast live from Qatari al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya TV networks, said the bombs used in Israeli strikes on Qana were all US-made.

He said the US and Israeli allegations against Syria and Hizbollah were also attempts to justify their brutal crimes in Lebanon and that the crisis should be blamed on the US and Israel. The UN meeting followed Israelis' Qana bombing, which left hundreds of civilians killed or injured early Sunday morning.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad called his Lebanese counterpart Emile Lahoud to express sympathy with him over the incident. Syrian state TV quoted Aal-ssad as describing the Qana massacre as "catastrophic" and example of Israe's savagery and its organized state terrorism before the eyes of the world nations.

Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki today said that Qana massacre is an instance of crime against humanity. Speaking at a press briefing, Mottaki called for judicial investigation into Qana tragedy and prosecution and trial of the culprits. Mottaki said that Iran supports Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora who officially held Israel accountable for invasion of Lebanon. The top Iranian diplomat said all the Arab and Muslim organizations shoulder a heavy duty in that respect. Muslim heads of state announced in a summit in Mecca that an attack on a Muslim state will be meant as an attack on all Muslim nations, recalled Mottaki, adding Tehran supports consensus among all Lebanese parties to put an end to Israeli aggression and establish a ceasefire. The world nations have over the past 20 days held demonstrations, seminars and meetings, expressing a clear judgment on Israeli aggressions and condemning it, said the minister. Mottaki said he is visiting Lebanon for two days to show sympathy with the Lebanese government and nation as well as with the Islamic Resistance Movement.

Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu on Tuesday condemned Israeli air raids on Lebanon and the Gaza Strip as 'state terrorism'. The OIC chief urged Muslim countries to take strong action to oblige Israel to stop war crimes against humanity in the Middle East. "Those offensives, which have claimed hundreds of civilian lives, destroyed the infrastructure of Lebanon and Palestine and violated all principles of international law are accounted for as war crimes," Ihsanoglu said. "What is being done has reached the level of state terror. This is an obvious crime against humanity and a war crime," the OIC secretary general said.

Ihansoglu also deplored what he called 'the entire world's silence' over the killing of dozens of children in an Israeli strike on the Lebanese village of Qana on Sunday and the UN Security Council's failure to issue an explicit condemnation of the raid and call for a ceasefire.

The OIC emergency meeting will be held in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday.

Previous Stories:
  Bush, Blair conference on Lebanon, regional issues   (7/29/2006)
  Bush, Blair conference on Lebanon, regional issues   (7/29/2006)
  Rice back shuttling in Lebanon - Israel conflict   (7/29/2006)
  Annan calls for 'concrete, practical steps' to resolve crisis in Middle East   (7/29/2006)
  Israel retreats from Lebanese border after battle   (7/29/2006)
  Blair repeating blunder of supporting Israel's attack on Egypt: MPs   (7/29/2006)
  Israel escalating dangerous situation, warns Straw   (7/29/2006)
  The Lebanese celebrate Qana anniversary   (4/19/2005)
  UN to force Israel to pay compensation for Qana   (6/11/1999)
  U.S. ambassador moved by Qana massacre site   (12/9/1997)
  To Qana with Love   (8/23/1997)

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