In other words, regardless of all the flimsy assurances offered by the corporate media, waist-deep in the process of sanitizing (or ignoring) Israel’s war crimes in Lebanon, the Zionist state will once again occupy southern Lebanon. It has nothing to do with "breathing space" and everything to do with kleptomania, a prominent feature of the Israeli state since its inception.

If not for this theft of land and continual border provocations and attacking Lebanese villages, Hezbollah would not be engaged in resistance against the Israeli military. Here in America, the corporate media portrays Hezbollah as a terrorist group consumed with hatred for Jews, dedicated to pushing them into the sea. Indeed, the members of Hezbollah hate Israel, a completely natural reaction considering Israel has invaded Lebanon on several occasions and treated the Shi’a Lebanese as untermenschen, no different than Hitler’s shock troops treated Slavs and Russians, that is to say with murderous contempt.

In the interest of historical accuracy, the corporate media would make mention of the Grapes of Wrath Understandings and the April Understanding, informal yet written agreements between Israel and Hezbollah, signed on April 26, 1996. "At 6 p.m. April 26, 1996, simultaneous announcement was made in Beirut, Damascus, Tel Aviv, Paris, and Washington on reaching this understanding. This understanding called for not targeting civilian areas in Lebanon by Israel, not making civilian areas for military acts and ensuring the right to self-defense, a matter which stresses the right of the Lebanese resistance to resist the occupation. It also set up a monitoring committee from the countries concerned (Syria, Lebanon, Israel, the US and France) and opened the door to filing complaints to this committee and organizing a consultation group to help meet the needs for reconstructing Lebanon," explains Arabic News.

In each and every one of its meetings, the committee recalled for the provisions of the understanding and criticized Israel’s targeting of Lebanese civilians through implanting explosives or expanding the scale of artillery bombardment to cover the towns and its residential areas or results of the raids carried out by the Israeli warplanes against the Lebanese towns and villages….

In the morning of the 4th anniversary of the April Understanding (April 26) Israeli warplanes raided the areas of the western Bekaa and east Lebanon and dropped air-to-surface missiles carrying cluster bombs which are designed maximize human casualties, while the Israeli artillery bombarded more than 30 villages and towns on the areas adjoining the occupied part of south Lebanon and its western Bekaa.

However, despite all these Israeli aggressions, Lebanon stayed steadfast and the Lebanese resistance has succeeded in undermining the invincibility of the Israeli army and inflicted heavy human casualties and material losses. Following 22 years of Israeli occupation of parts of the south and the western Bekaa, the Lebanese resistance has managed to force Israel history to announce its plans for withdrawal from the occupied Lebanese territories. Lebanon has announced that it will not be responsible for ensuring Israel’s security and that Israel’s withdrawal does not mean the end of problems resulting from its occupation of south Lebanon.

Lebanon also held Israel responsible for any incident that might take place following its withdrawal as long as the pending problems have not settled as a result of Israel’s obstruction of the settlement process, as Lebanon is with the assumption that reaching a settlement would solve all problems resulting from the Arab- Israeli conflict and that the settlement should be just, comprehensive and reached according to international legitimacy resolutions, the land-for-peace formula and withdrawal from the Golan to the June 4, 1967 border line.

Israel had no intention of honoring the April agreement, as it has no intention of trading "land for peace," that is to say giving back stolen Arab land (the Syrian Heights and Shebaa Farms) and put an end to its incessant attacks on Lebanese civilians. Lebanon has complained to the United Nations repeatedly about Israel’s "continued violations of the Lebanese airspace and the Lebanese sovereignty," violations routinely ignored by the corporate media now working overtime to make Israel out to be the perennial victim.

In addition to repeatedly violating Lebanon’s sovereignty, Israel refused to provide assistance removing over 400,000 land mines it has planted on the Lebanese side of the border. In May, 2002, the speaker of the Lebanese parliament, Nabih Berri, "stressed the UN will help the people of south Lebanon to reclaim their lands and convert them into arable areas, noting that some 200 land mines are dismantled every day." According to the People’s Daily Online, citing a Lebanese Demining Office report, Israeli "mines [are] dotted around houses, farmland, roadsides and abandoned Israeli positions are threatening local people as well as reconstruction and development there."

As it now appears, Israel is back in the business of occupying southern Lebanon, if we are to believe Command Maj.-Gen. Udi Adam, and considering the historical record there is no reason not to believe occupation anew is not in the cards, even though we keep hearing the contrary from the slavering, pro-Israel corporate media. Israel has a long and sordid history of stealing Arab land and mistreating and slaughtering Arab civilians. In 1998, prior to the last Israeli withdrawal, due to the resistance of Hezbollah, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights submitted the following:

Gravely concerned at the persistent practices of the Israeli occupation forces in southern Lebanon and western Bekaa, which constitute a violation of the principles of international law regarding the protection of human rights, in particular the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as a grave violation of the relevant provisions of international humanitarian law as contained in the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949, and the Fourth Hague Convention of 1907….

Censuring the repeated Israeli aggressions in southern Lebanon and western Bekaa, which cause a large number of deaths and injuries among civilians, displace thousands of families and destroy dwellings and properties….

Gravely concerned at the persistent detention by Israel of many Lebanese citizens in the detention centers of Khiyam and Marjayoun, and at the death of some of these detainees as a result of ill treatment and torture….

Lebanese detainees in Israeli prisons without trial and to hold them as hostages and as a bargaining card, which constitutes a flagrant violation of the principles of human rights….

Deplores the continued Israeli violations of human rights in the occupied zone in southern Lebanon and western Bekaa, demonstrated in particular by the abduction and ongoing arbitrary detention of Lebanese citizens, the destruction of their dwellings, the confiscation of their property, their expulsion from their land, the bombardment of peaceful villages and civilian areas, and other practices violating the most fundamental principles of human rights….

Lebanon should expect more of the same now that the IOF has declared its intention to once again occupy its country.

However, this time around, in addition to ignoring the historical record, the pro-Israel corporate media has launched a full court press effort to portray all Lebanese—indeed, Arabs and Muslims in general—as terrorists, thus justifying the wholesale murder of thousands of Lebanese (it is nothing short of absurd to believe the latest Greater Israel campaign has claimed a mere 400 or so civilians, a third or more children).

In the days ahead, more Zionists will be tapped by the complicit corporate media to makes excuses for the ongoing mass murder, thus once again brainwashing the American public.