The war to come

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All signs point to an immanent wide-scale armed confrontation between Arab and Islamic resistance forces and the US-Israeli-Western axis and its allies in the region. As you read these words, Gaza is being subjected to an onslaught that even top Israeli officials promised would be a "holocaust". Israel no longer even pretends to discriminate between resistant fighters and innocent civilians. Palestinians are being targeted as Palestinians in a campaign that satisfies the definition of genocide under international law.

All manifestations of life are being systematically destroyed in Gaza against a backdrop of unbridled US-Israeli ferocity and the silence of Arab regimes as well as of the UN and its so-called human rights agencies. Already starved for nearly a year, Palestinians are being killed for no other reason than their audacity in demanding their freedom and the end to the Israeli occupation. In 2006, they picked a government freely, but not one in the pocket of the US or Israel, and are being slaughtered also for that.

Right on cue, the Bush administration has but one concern, which is to justify the cold-blooded Israeli onslaught on the Palestinians and to obfuscate the death and destruction that Israel is soaked in. Mohamed Al-Barie, who was killed in the bombardment, was only an infant. What answers do Washington and Tel Aviv have for his devastated mother who asked from the dark nightmare of her present horror, "Why did they have to kill you, Mohamed? Have you ever fired a rocket? Have you offended anyone with your innocent laughter?"

The aim of this military offensive is to again impose a "new reality" on the region, eliminating Arab-Islamic resistance forces, indeed all social and intellectual resistance to foreign aggression and domination. This operation begins with the Israeli invasion and reoccupation of Gaza. Once that area is cleared of resistance, it will be handed over to the peacekeeping forces of covert Arab allies with Israel, after which it may -- or may not -- be handed over to the Palestinian Authority, itself now so compromised that none can believe in it.

It is clear that the US and Israel arranged the Annapolis peace meeting to serve as a reconnaissance operation ahead of a new hunting season targeting Arab and Islamic resistance. This time, US-Israeli ambitions go beyond the parochial. The aim is to alter the geopolitical map of the region in a manner that will secure US-Israeli control over all its capacities and resources. Gaza is phase one. Before long, a second phase will begin in Lebanon, helped by the escalation of domestic tensions to boiling point. Will Syria intervene? It is no coincidence that the SS Cole has arrived within striking distance in Lebanese waters. All that remains is for the 14 March camp to appeal for international intervention.

The US and Israeli administrations are no longer waiting for Arab and Islamic resistance forces to respond to their provocations, the last of which was the assassination of Hizbullah military commander Imad Mughniyah in Syria. Rushing ahead of November's presidential elections, the neo-cons in Washington and their rightist allies in Tel Aviv see a window of opportunity for re-establishing Tel Aviv's shattered military prestige and striking hard to turn the tide of a regional social rejection of the very notion of US regional interests. Still defeated in Iraq, the US and Israel want to kill as many Arabs as viable elsewhere.

Now is the time when suspected regional alliances will become clear. How will Iran respond when Hizbullah is attacked? What will the quislings in the Green Zone in Baghdad tell Iraq as their twin and conspiring benefactors -- Iran and United States -- fight it out in Lebanon, if in fact they do? And what will those Arab regimes concerned not to step on the toes of Israel do if the people of the entire region rise in defence of Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq together?

Washington needs to turn around its unbroken record of failures. It appears still, however, unable to understand that justice cannot be dictated by force, but is a moral feeling only steeled by atrocities and ruthless attacks on the people. Many in the region on both sides now recall the words of one of the founders of this protracted human catastrophe of injustice -- the so-called father of Israel, David Ben Gurion. He said that the end of Israel would come after it had lost in a military confrontation. That already happened, in 2006. Being unable to establish their will by force, both Washington and Tel Aviv are far weaker than they appear. So war is coming soon. The only question that remains is where it will be sparked off, Gaza or Lebanon?

In their actions in Gaza, Lebanon and Iraq, Israel and the US announce their project. Who in this region can support it?