We the undersigned declare:
1) Our conscious support for the Lebanese national resistance as it wages
a war in defense of our sovereignty and independence, a war to release
Lebanese imprisoned in Israel, a war to safeguard the dignity of the Lebanese
and Arab people.
2) Our unambiguous refutation of the logic that accuses HizbAllah of
having provided the "pretext" for the Israeli invasion. Israel did not invade
Lebanon, destroy its infrastructure, displace and murder its populace because
of the heroic operation carried out by HizbAllah. Israel has never needed a
pretext to breach the sovereignty of Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, or other
nations. Rather, the recent Israeli aggression is the latest in a long series
extending back to the founding of the Zionist state and motivated by both
historical ambitions vis-à-vis Lebanese territory and waters and by a racist
supremacist ideology that denigrates the indigenous population, their culture,
and their very existence. The most recent aggression is, more specifically,
the realization of a long-standing, openly professed desire of Israel to
avenge for its humiliation at being driven out of most of Lebanon by the
resistance operations that began in September 1982 and had their fruition in
May 2000. Israel’s very avowal of intent to implement by its own powers UN
Resolution 1559 is itself proof that its invasion of Lebanon today surpasses
any mere response to the above-mentioned operation and serves an American
policy that aims at annihilating all viable opposition in the world at large,
and at direct control of the Arab world and its resources in particular. How
strange that Israel should wish to be the policeman in charge of executing UN
Resolution 1559 when it has not yet executed any of the previously issued UN
resolutions addressing its own actions, with the exception of the partial
implementation of Resolution 425, which resulted essentially because of
strikes inflicted by the armed Lebanese Resistance.
3) Our staunch condemnation of official American support for, and
contribution to, the Israeli aggression. The war crimes Israel is currently
committing, as well as those it committed in the past and will commit in the
probable future, would not have occurred or occur yet without America’s
political and military support for Israel, that which is unmitigated by its
allegedly unswerving espousal of Lebanese freedom, sovereignty, and
independence.
4) Our utter rejection of the Lebanese government’s decision to "not
adopt" the Lebanese Resistance operation, thereby stripping the Resistance of
political credibility before the adversarial international powers, when it
behooved that government to deem the said operation as consistent with its
Ministerial Proclamation in support of the liberation of the Lebanese
prisoners in Israel, of Shebaa Farms, and of Kfar Shuba.
We the undersigned, in declaring our intentions, also therefore, call upon:
1) The Lebanese government, which we want to see leading a sovereign,
democratic state for all Lebanese, to realize its full responsibilities,
especially in terms of embracing the Lebanese Resistance in diverse ways, and
particularly after the clarification of Israel’s plan to destroy the
infrastructure, institutions, and political entity of Lebanon.
2) Arab intellectuals to stand beside the Lebanese Resistance, to expose
the Zionist racist, supremacist impetus, and to document Israel’s crimes
against Arabs since its founding. Likewise, we ask our Arab colleagues to
confront the continual calls for capitulation (wrapped in the cloak of
"realism"), and to expose both the American bias towards Israel and the
complicity of the majority of "rational" Arab governments against the Lebanese
Resistance. We, also, ask that you take a stand against all kinds of
normalization with Israel, by closing down the Israeli embassies and
government offices located in Arab countries, and by boycotting products of
Israeli and pro-Israeli companies, whatever their nationality.
3) Lebanese intellectuals, in particular, not to be swayed by the (il)
logic that accuses HizbAllah of having destroyed the Lebanese economy, but
instead to hold Israel fully responsible for its age-old policy of destruction
and war crimes. The principle of the Lebanese Resistance is to be a deterrent
force against Israel’s ability to pursue that policy with impunity.
4) Free-thinking intellectuals the world over, and advocates of justice
and peace, to publicize the history of Israeli aggression and to pressure the
American and European governments to halt their military and material
maintenance of the Zionist killing machine. Similarly, we call upon our peers
in the world to announce a boycott of Israeli products, and of Israeli
academic and scientific institutions that do not condemn the Israeli
aggression against Lebanon. Furthermore, we invite intellectuals the world
over to visit Lebanon in order to stand by the side of their Lebanese
colleagues and to view first hand the results of Israeli war crimes against
civilians, schools, infrastructure, humane institutions (foremost among them
the Lebanese Red Cross), and media (which, in addition to sustaining hits on
its press convoys and aerial transmitters, most recently lost to Israeli fire
the reporters Layal Najib and Sulayman Shidyak). The solidarity of world
intellectuals with the Lebanese people, press, and culture-workers, in such
direct terms, would constitute an international declaration of the refusal to
permit Israel to treat Lebanon as a mere "military target" for its airplanes,
warships, tanks, and "smart" bombs.
Resistance is an intellectual act par excellence. That is because the goal of
intellectual activity, like resistance, is to defend the values of justice and
equality of all people. For this reason we, the undersigned, consider,
regardless of our varying intellectual inclinations, cultural and critical
activity an integral part of Lebanese national resistance, indeed of
resistance to injustice anywhere in the world.
Initial Signatories:
Samah Idriss (PhD, Al-Adab Magazine),
Joseph Samaha (Al-Akhbar Newspaper),
Talal Salman (Al-Safir Newspaper),
Muhammad ‘Ali Shamseddin (Poet),
Mai Masri(Film director),
Kirsten Scheid (Asst. Prof in Anthropology, AUB),
Omar Nashabeh (PhD in criminology),
Rania Masri (Asst. Prof, Fac. of Science,University of Balamand),
Jean Cham’oun (Film director),
Wasef ‘Awadah (Journalist),
Amin Qammuriyyeh (Journalist),
Sa’dallah Mazra’ani (Journalist & Media Commentator),
Hilmi Mousa (Political Analyst),
Adonis Al-'Akra (Phd, philosophy, Lebanese Univ.),
Ibrahim Al-Amin (Journalist),
Graziella Kallab(Psychotherapist),
Laila Al-Khatib (Phd, Literary Criticism),
Zaynab Yaghi (Journalist),
Jihad Touma (Phd, AUB),
Husayn Ayyoub (Journalist),
Najib Nasrallah (Journalist),
‘Imad Marmal (Journalist),
Nasri Al-Sayigh (Writer),
Pierre Abi Sa’b (Journalist),
Fatima Sharafeddine (Children’s Author),
Khalil Zahreddin (Geologist & Cultural Activist),
Hanady Salman (Journalist),
Camille Dagher (Writer),
Walid Sharara (Journalist),
Khalil Harb (Journalist),
Hala Bajjani (Al-Akhbar Newspaper),
Hanna Al-Hajj (Phd, Sociology),
Nabil Haytham (Journalist),
Hashim Qasem (Journalist),
Sa’d Mehio (Journalist),
Adel ‘Ammous(Publisher),
George Haddad (Writer),
Ranwa Yehya (Coordinator of an Arab Youth program),
Adnan Al-Sahili (Economist & Journalist),
Mousa Al-Hindi (Cultural Activist),
Imad Haydar (Journalist),
Ahmad Dallal (Prof. of Islamic Studies, Georgetown Univ.),
As’ad Abu Khalil (Prof. of Political Sciences, Univ. of California at Stanislaus),
Rabi’a Salman (Journalist & Teacher),
Nada Al-Qara (Cultural Activist & Health Worker),
Firas Al-Amin (Writer), Sulayman Bakhti (Literary Critic),
Tareq Ghaddar (Prof. AUB),
Pascal Lahhoud (Phd),
Jumana B’albaki (Journalist),
Khalid Saghiyyeh (Asst. Prof., AUB),
Sa’da ‘Allaw (Journalist),
Sahar Mandour (Journalist),
Nader Sabbagh (Journalist),
Juhayna Khalidiyyah (Journalist),
Madonna Sam’an (Journalist),
Ghada Ali Kalash (Writer & Journalist),
Mundhir Sulayman (Phd, Political Analyst),
Husayn Nasrallah (Journalist, Al-Kifah Al-'Arabi Newspaper),
Gabi Abou ‘Atmeh (Journalist),
Salwa Ba’lbaki (Journalist),
Fatin Qubaysi (Journalist),
Rana Nawfal (Publisher),
Maysa ‘Awwad (Journalist),
Ali Salman (Journalist),
Wafiq Qansoh (Journalist),
Omar Al-Ayyubi (Writer & Translator),
Sharif Al-Rifa’i (Architect),
Saqr Abu Fakhr (Journal of Palestine Studies),
Jacques Al-Aswad (Art Critic & Lexicographer),
Michel Riyachi (Cultural Activist),
Zeinab Sharafeddine (Journalist),
Dr. Nicolas Abou Mourad (Doctorat en Théologie, Prof. à l'Université de Balamand),
Ahmad Bazzoun (Journalist),
Ghassan Nasser (Architect & Cultural Activist)...
In addition letters of support from workers in the public cultural sphere
outside Lebanon were received from
Dr. Nasr Hamed Abu Zayd & Dr. Ibtihal Younis (Egypt),
Nasser Rabbat (Agha Khan Professor of Architecture, MIT),
Khodor ‘Awarika (Novelist & Political Essayist),
Ziad Mona (Writer & Publisher, Syria)...
Beirut, July 25, 2006
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