In fact, Israel has messed with Lebanon for decades. "Without the elixir of history, it is impossible to fully digest the story of Israel’s ongoing interest in Lebanon and the reasons why Israeli governments have repeatedly both interfered with this country’s internal politics and provoked 'incidents’ at its border since the 1940’s," writes Edward R. Miller. "The intimate details of Israel’s manipulations in Lebanon are detailed in the diary of Moshe Sharett, who shared the Prime Ministership of Israel with Ben Gurion only to be forced out of the cabinet because Sharett would not tolerate what he considered Ben-Gurion’s immoral and clandestine methods." As the late Livia Rokach, daughter of Israel Rokach, Minister of the Interior in the government of Moshe Sharett, notes in Israel’s Sacred Terrorism: A Study Based on Moshe Sharett’s Personal Diary and Other Documents, "Sharett’s diary provides the entire documentation of how in 1954 Ben Gurion developed the diabolic plans to 'Christianize’ Lebanon, i.e., to invent and create from scratch the inter-Lebanese conflict, and of how a detailed blueprint for the partition and subordination of that country was elaborated by Israel more than fifteen years before the Palestinian presence became a political factor."

As far back as 1918, Zionist leaders meeting in Europe with a committee of the British Palestinian Mandate discussed stealing Lebanese territory up to the Litani River, emphasizing the "vital importance of controlling all water resources up to their sources." From the early 1950s onward, Israel threatened to invade Lebanon and take control of the Litani, denying the Lebanese use of the river, and in 1982, when Israel invaded Lebanon (Operation Peace for Galilee, or maybe Operation Steal Water), the entire length of the river came under Israeli control.

"In May 1955 Sharett in his dairy described Israel’s plans to destabilize Lebanon’s government, a diabolic enterprise that eventually produced the 1978 Lebanese War," writes Miller. Ben Gurion’s defense minister, Moshe Dayan, suggested finding a malleable Lebanese military officer and "either win his heart or buy time with money, to make him agree to declare himself the savior of the Marionite [Christian] population. Then the Israel army will enter Lebanon, will occupy the necessary territory, and will create a Christian regime which will ally itself with Israel. The territory from the Litani southward will be totally annexed to Israel and everything will be alright," Dayan is quoted as declaring in Sharett’s diary. Years later, in 1979, Major Sa’d Haddad declared a Maronite State in Lebanon and civil war became inevitable.

In essence, the current rape of Lebanon is a repeat of Israel’s Operation Grapes of Wrath in 1996. "With President Clinton safely in Japan, Israel, obviously with a green light from the U.S. administration, felt free to carry out 'Grapes of Wrath,’ her fifth major terrorist attack on her old killing fields in southern Lebanon. Using as an excuse a few Katyusha rockets aimed at her military (who have been illegally occupying and threatening the southern Lebanese people since 1978), Israel’s army on the anniversary of the Holocaust, bent on murder and mayhem, is presently destroying millions of dollars in property, killing civilians and creating chaos as she stampedes populations as far north as Beirut. On the morning of the 18th, Israeli shells plunged directly into a UN refugee camp south of Tye where thousands fleeing Israeli fire sought shelter and food. The latest figures reported over 60 deaths and hundreds wounded. Most victims were women and children. This is Israel’s fifth major terrorist assault on her northern neighbor."

This last bit is a reference to the shelling of civilians in Qana, Lebanon, a village located southeast of Tyre. Israel bombarded a Fijian UNIFIL compound in the village with M-109A2 155 mm guns, killing 106 civilians. According to Amnesty International, "the IDF intentionally attacked the UN compound, although the motives for doing so remain unclear. The IDF have failed to substantiate their claim that the attack was a mistake. Even if they were to do so they would still bear responsibility for killing so many civilians by taking the risk to launch an attack so close to the UN compound."

Of course, the reasons do not "remain unclear," as Israel has consistently attacked Arab civilians and has a long and sordid history of massacres and atrocities, from Dair Yasin, the Semiramis Hotel, at Baldat al-Shaikh, in Yehiday, Khisas, Qazaza, Beit Daras, at the Dawayma mosque, in Houla in southern Lebanon, at Qibya, at Kafr Qasem, Khan Yunis, al-Sammou, Aitharoun, Kawnin, Hanin, Bint Jbeil, Abbasieh, Adloun, Saida, Fakhani, Beirut, at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, at Jibsheet, Sohmor, Seer al-Garbiah, Maaraka, Zrariah, Homeen al-Tahta, Jibaa, Yohmor, Tiri, al-Naher al-Bared, Ain al-Hillwee, up to Qana and beyond, terminating in the latest outrage.

Naturally, the sordid and criminal record of wanton murder of civilians—tens of thousands of them—is never mentioned by the pro-Israel corporate media in this country. Instead, we endure hours of televised babble about Qassam rockets (a technology invented by Russia in the late 1930s) inaccurately falling on Safed and Nahariya in northern Israel. Meanwhile, we hear little of the residential buildings in southern Beirut blasted with the latest state-of-the-art murder technology (courtesy of you and me, complicit U.S. taxpayers). "The overnight death toll brought to 61 the number of people killed since Wednesday when Israel began retaliating for the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah guerrillas in a raid across the southern Lebanese border. One of the fatalities was a Hezbollah guerrilla, according to the militant group," reports the Hindu. In short, in order to bag one Hezbollah "guerrilla" (an absurd appellation), the Israelis kill a few dozen civilians.

In the wake of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Tom Segev of Ha’aretz toured the killing ground. John Rose writes:

[Segev] saw "refugees wandering amidst swarms of flies, dressed in rags, their faces expressing terror and their eyes bewilderment … the women wailing and the children sobbing". Here and there people were walking "as in a nightmare". "A terrible smell filled the air"—of decomposing bodies, he learned … "This is what the cities of Germany looked like at the end of the Second World War." He saw "mounds of ruins", tens of thousands of people at the shore where they remained for days, women driven away by soldiers when they attempted to flee….

[Chris Giannou, a Canadian surgeon working in Lebanon] reported that "he was witness to four prisoners who were beaten to death." That he witnessed "the total devastation of residential areas and the blind, savage, indiscriminate destruction of refugee camps by simultaneous shelling and carpet bombing from aircraft, gunboats, tanks and artillery," leaving only "large blackened craters filled with rubble and debris, broken concrete slabs and twisted iron bars and corpses"; "hospitals being shelled", one shell killing 40-50 people … He saw "the entire male staff" of the hospital being taken into custody, leaving patients unattended, and "savage and indiscriminate beatings" of prisoners with fists, sticks, ropes with nuts and bolts tied to them. He saw a Palestinian doctor hung by his hands from a tree and beaten and an Iraqi surgeon "beaten by several guards viciously, and left to lie in the sun with his face buried in the sand" – all in the presence of an Israeli Colonel who did nothing about it. He watched prisoners "being rehearsed by an Israeli officer to shout 'Long Live Begin’"….

As the battering of Beirut reached new heights of savagery, the popularity of Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin soared to record heights. A mid- August poll showed that 80 per cent of Israelis supported the invasion of Lebanon (it was supported by the Labour opposition in the Israeli parliament) and 64 per cent approved the decision to go beyond the 25-mile zone – at which the early propaganda had said the Israelis would stop.

Meanwhile, more than 20 years removed, the corporate media spin of Israeli mass murder in Lebanon, undoubtedly supported by the Israeli people, continues unabated. Early this morning, I switched on the brainwashing tube, only to catch Andrea Mitchell calling in to Don Imus’ MSNBC show. As to be expected, Mitchell whitewashed Israel’s murder campaign, and Imus, chewing gum with a cowboy hat pulled low over his brow, muttered: "We’d do the same."

In fact, Don, we are doing the same, only worse in Iraq. 100,000 and more Iraqis have paid the ultimate price for our delusions engineered by a gaggle of pro-Likudite neocons.

My question is: how the hell does the average American sleep at night?