Israeli attack shows aggressive intentions by MC12 & MC44 In February, Israel went on a bombing rampage in Lebanon, supposedly in retaliation for a Hezbollah attack that killed seven Israeli soldiers occupying southern Lebanon. Israel appears to be setting up the terms of their planned withdrawal from Lebanon in July of this year, ending a 22-year occupation currently enforced by 1,500 soldiers.(1) Raising the stakes, these latest Israeli attacks included civilian targets, which in the past Israel has usually reserved for instances of Hezbollah attacks within Israel, not the occupied military zone of Southern Lebanon. This time, Israel bombed three Lebanese power stations, "knock[ing] out half the country's electricity"(1) and wounding 20 Lebanese civilians.(2) The London Independent reported that "The bombings came just before one in the morning local time when jets fired missiles at a power station at Jamhour -- on the outskirts of Beirut and only a mile from the presidential palace -- Baalbek and near Zghorta east of Tripoli, the third largest city in Lebanon. Within seconds, the facilities -- most of them switching stations controlling the national grid -- were in flames and Beirut lost its entire power supply within a quarter of an hour."(3) The latest attacks come at a time when Israel, under the "Labor" Party leadership of Ehud Barak, is supposedly moving into an era of peace with Lebanon and Syria, including returning the Golan Heights, strategic land that Israel seized from Syria in 1967. It is typical for Israel to attempt to improve its strategic position on the ground prior to entering negotiations. Israel's militarist government is chiefly an agent of U.$. imperialism in the Middle East, preserving a pro-U.$. balance of power and protecting U.$. domination of the resources and peoples of the region. It is worth noting that one of the power plants Israel destroyed had been bombed twice before by Israel, and was just recently rebuilt by the French, a perennial Amerikan competitor for influence in the region.(3) Helping to keep Lebanon weak and unstable has served Israeli and U.$. interests and made possible the long occupation of the Southern portion of the country. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the war against Iraq, Amerikan influence, including Israeli power, is relatively unchecked in the Middle East, as Arab-country governments are increasingly falling into the U.$. orbit. Syria and the Palestinian neocolonial leadership (PLO) are relative late-comers, while Egypt was an early leader into pro-U.$. capitulation. The proponents of "peace" as it is now evolving are in reality championing the unchallenged U.$. domination of the Middle East, substituting the routine violence of poverty, exploitation, and neo-colonial state repression for the spectacular violence of Arab-Israeli wars. The "peace" planned under this rubric will do nothing to advance the cause of national liberation for the oppressed people of the Arab nations. Notes: 1. Washington Post,. 26 February 2000. 2. New York Times, 20 February 2000. 3. The (London) Independent, 8 February 2000.