Daily Star (Beirut): How can the children of the holocaust...

Israel's attack in Qana on Sunday not only shredded the bodies of at least 54 civilians, mostly children - it also tore open the wounds of the recent past. The atrocity immediately conjured images of another massacre committed in the same village a little over 10 years ago, on April 18, 1996, when during "Operation Grapes of Wrath" the Israelis slaughtered 106 civilians who had taken refuge at a United Nations compound. Although that massacre, which is commemorated in Lebanon every year, went unpunished, the Lebanese have long vowed that they will never forget it.

Now that fresh images of the broken bodies of the women and children of Qana are being shown on our television screens, the idea of forgetting has become all the more unthinkable. These images have stirred the anger and outrage of even the most moderate Lebanese, proving that Israeli brutality - not Hizbullah - has become Israel's own worst enemy. Israel's unabashed butchery in Qana has only demonstrated to many of those who were on the fence that there is indeed a legitimate need for resistance.

(...)

The tragedies in Qana suggest to the Lebanese that the Israelis, who are waging a campaign of ethnic cleansing in South Lebanon, have forgotten their own suffering during the Holocaust. The Israelis and their allies have callously ignored a besieged people's pleas for mercy. Instead, the children of the Holocaust, whom one would expect to show empathy for the plight of weak and helpless innocents, are now meting out the same racist rage that was demonstrated in Treblinka, Auschwitz and Dachau. How can Israeli mothers and fathers sleep at night knowing that their government is conducting massacres in Lebanon? Do they believe that by virtue of our religion or nationality that we innocent Lebanese are expendable? Have they now embraced the very logic that sought to eliminate their people?

We urge the Israelis to abandon the logic of death and destruction that they have been showering on the people around them. We urge them to instead embrace the pursuit of meaningful negotiations and the rapid implementation of all UN resolutions. What is needed is a sense of humanity and an intelligent resolution of this conflict, not America's laser-guided "smart" weapons, or other tools of extermination.