Talking Points for the UN Security Council draft resolution
August 9th, 2006Dear US Campaign members
As you plan actions this week to demand an emergency ceasefire
there are likely to be many questions about the draft resolution at the UN
Security Council. As it stands today, the draft will bring neither justice nor
peace. Indeed, it will prove impossible to implement. We need to keep calling
for an immediate, unconditional ceasefire. The talking points below can be used
to explain why:
1. The resolution requires Hezballah to "cease all
attacks" while
2. The resolution does not call for Israeli withdrawal from
Lebanese territory. It ignores the 7-point program presented by the Lebanese
government, which is backed by a national consensus, including Hezballah. That
would include an immediate ceasefire,
3. The resolution reinforces the claim that the "root
cause" of the violence was the capture by Hezballah of Israeli soldiers on
12 July 2006. In fact, there have been
countless violations of the blue line established on the Lebanese-Israeli
border after
4. The language equates deaths and destruction of civilian
infrastructure "on both sides." It ignores the disproportionate
civilian deaths and destruction of infrastructure caused by Israeli bombings.
Well over 90% of all civilian deaths, combined with nearly a million Lebanese
displaced are all a result of Israeli attacks. Whole neighborhoods, roads, the airport and ports, bridges, power
plants, milk factories, and grain silos have all been decimated. Deliberate
attacks on civilians and civilian targets on this scale are crimes against
humanity. See Human Rights Watch recent
50 page report: "Fatal Strikes:
5. The resolution calls for the unconditional release of the two
Israeli soldiers, only "encouraging" the release of the Lebanese
prisoners in Israeli jails.
6. The resolution provides for international forces only on the
Lebanese side of the border, whereas Israel has invaded Lebanon repeatedly in
the past, most notably in 1978 and 1982, and has continued to violate its
territory and airspace, with some estimates placing Israeli over-flights at as
many as 11,000 since 2000.
7. Finally, the resolution makes no mention of the real root
causes of the Arab-Israeli conflict: the continued occupation by Israel of the
Palestinian West Bank and East Jerusalem and its siege of Gaza, the continued
Israeli occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights, and the denial of the right of
Palestinian refugees to return and compensation, rights upheld by international
law.