Joint protest against US-backed Israeli attack on Lebanon

Nearly a thousand people, cutting across various political parties and mass organisations, participated in a joint protest action near the Israeli Embassy in New Delhi on July 31, a day after the inhuman massacre of over 60 people, including over 30 children, as a result of Israeli bombing of their homes in Lebanon.

Holding aloft a long 15 ft black banner that bore the call ‘Down with the US backed Israeli aggression on Lebanon and the Palestinian people’ the demonstrators began their march from the India Gate circle. Militantly and with one voice, they condemned the barbaric US-backed aggression launched by Israel against the Lebanese and Palestinian people.

A huge contingent of women and youth, including school children, took part in the demonstration. They carried vivid placards denouncing the barbarity of the Israeli attacks on innocent men, women and children, calling for an immediate end to the bombing of Lebanese and Palestinian civilian targets and for the restoration of the homeland and rights of the Palestinian people.

Other banners and placards carried slogans such as ‘Down with the US-backed Israeli attack on the Lebanese and Palestinian people!’, ‘Indian state cut off military ties with Israel!’, ‘Down with Indo US strategic alliance!’, ‘Biggest terrorist state in the world - US!’ etc. Militant slogans such as ‘We must stop this monstrous crime against humanity!’, ‘Israeli aggression is an attack on all humanity!’, ‘We stand with the Palestinian and Arab people in their just struggle!’, ‘Israel will be punished for its crimes!’, ‘Israel will have to pay for its crimes!’, ‘Down with Israeli terrorism against the Palestinian and Arab peoples!’ reverberated through the streets, as they made their way towards the Israeli Embassy, where the march culminated in a spirited rally.

The rally was jointly organised by the Communist Ghadar Party of India, Lok Raj Sangathan, Jamaat-e-Islami Hind and other organisations. Leaders of the CGPI, LRS, Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, Students Islamic Organisation, Muslim Personal Law Board, Indian National League, Muslim Majlis Lucknow and other organisations addressed the gathering.

Speaker after speaker condemned the Israeli onslaught as a crime of the gravest proportions, not just against the Lebanese and Palestinian people, but an affront to humanity itself. They denounced the Israeli aggressors and their US imperialist backers and demanded that Israel immediately halt its aggression. They clarified that the Israeli aggression is not just a reaction, or even an ‘over reaction’, to the capture of two of its soldiers. In fact, it is part of a carefully worked out move to further the US imperialist strategy in this region, i.e. US imperialism’s aim of establishing its dictate in the energy-rich and strategic region of West Asia, and in crushing the opposition of the heroic Palestinian, Iraqi, Iranian and other peoples to this.

Declaring the wholehearted support of the Indian people for our suffering brothers and sisters in Lebanon and Palestine, and solidarity with the millions of people all over the world who are coming out on to the streets opposing this attack, the speaker from the Communist Ghadar Party of India called upon the people of India and of all countries to rally together against these kinds of terrorist states, and bring to a halt their marauding activities before more countries and more peoples become their victims. Echoing the sentiments of all democratic and freedom loving Indians, she demanded that the UPA government come out forcefully against the Israeli aggression and U.S support to it. It should break off all its military ties with the Israeli state, she said. The speaker demanded that the United Nations use all means at its disposal to bring about an immediate halt to the Israeli aggression and that Israel must be suitably punished and made to pay full reparations for the destruction that it has caused.

A fifteen member delegation led by Comrade Prakash Rao and including Mujtaba Farooq, Jasvir Singh, Dr. Afrindi, Wing Commander RS Chattwal, Dr. Illyasi, Sucharita, Mohhamed Sulaiman, Dr Fatima Shahnaz, Madhu Prasad, and Bijju Nayak met the National Information officer of the United Nations and submitted a memorandum to the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan demanding immediate cease fire and punishment for Israel.