Statement
by Workers in the Public Cultural Sphere in
We the undersigned declare:
1) Our
conscious support for the Lebanese national resistance as it wages a war in
defense of our sovereignty and independence, a war to release Lebanese
imprisoned in
2) Our
unambiguous refutation of the logic that accuses HizbAllah
of having provided the “pretext” for the Israeli invasion.
3) Our
staunch condemnation of official American support for, and contribution to, the
Israeli aggression. The war crimes Israel is currently committing, as well as
those it committed in the past and will commit in the probable future, would
not have occurred or occur yet without America’s political and military support
for Israel, that which is unmitigated by its allegedly unswerving espousal of
Lebanese freedom, sovereignty, and independence.
4) Our
utter rejection of the Lebanese government’s decision to “not adopt” the
Lebanese Resistance operation, thereby stripping the Resistance of political
credibility before the adversarial international powers, when it behooved that
government to deem the said operation as consistent with its Ministerial
Proclamation in support of the liberation of the Lebanese prisoners in Israel, of
Shebaa Farms, and of Kfar Shuba.
We the undersigned, in declaring our intentions, also therefore,
call upon:
1) The
Lebanese government, which we want to see leading a sovereign, democratic state
for all Lebanese, to realize its full responsibilities, especially in terms of
embracing the Lebanese Resistance in diverse ways, and particularly after the
clarification of Israel’s plan to destroy the infrastructure, institutions, and
political entity of Lebanon.
2) Arab
intellectuals to stand beside the Lebanese Resistance, to expose the Zionist
racist, supremacist impetus, and to document Israel’s crimes against Arabs
since its founding. Likewise, we ask our Arab colleagues to confront the
continual calls for capitulation (wrapped in the cloak of “realism”), and to
expose both the American bias towards
3)
Lebanese intellectuals, in particular, not to be swayed by the (il) logic that accuses HizbAllah
of having destroyed the Lebanese economy, but instead to hold Israel fully
responsible for its age-old policy of destruction and war crimes. The principle
of the Lebanese Resistance is to be a deterrent force against
4)
Free-thinking intellectuals the world over, and advocates of justice and peace,
to publicize the history of Israeli aggression and to pressure the American and
European governments to halt their military and material maintenance of the
Zionist killing machine. Similarly, we call upon our peers in the world to
announce a boycott of Israeli products, and of Israeli academic and scientific institutions
that do not condemn the Israeli aggression against
Resistance
is an intellectual act par excellence. That is because the goal of intellectual
activity, like resistance, is to defend the values of justice and equality of
all people. For this reason we, the undersigned, consider, regardless of our
varying intellectual inclinations, cultural and critical activity an integral
part of Lebanese national resistance, indeed of resistance to injustice
anywhere in the world.
Initial Signatories
Samah Idriss (PhD, Al-Adab Magazine), Joseph Samaha (Al-Akhbar Newspaper),
Talal Salman (Al-Safir Newspaper), Muhammad ‘Ali Shamseddin
(Poet), Mai Masri (Film director), Kirsten
Scheid (Ass. Prof in Anthropology, AUB), Omar Nashabeh (PhD in criminology), Rania
Masri (Ass. Prof, Fac.
of Science, University of Balamand), Jean Cham’oun (Film director), Wasef
‘Awadah (Journalist), Amin
Qammuriyyeh (Journalist), Sa’dallah
Mazra’ani (Journalist & Media Commentator), Hilmi Mousa (Political
Analyst), Adonis Al-'Akra (Phd,
philosophy, Lebanese Univ.), Ibrahim Al-Amin (Journalist), Graziella
Kallab (Psychotherapist), Laila
Al-Khatib (Phd,
Literary Criticism), Zaynab Yaghi (Journalist), Jihad Touma
(Phd, AUB), Husayn
Ayyoub (Journalist), Najib
Nasrallah (Journalist), ‘Imad
Marmal (Journalist), Nasri
Al-Sayigh (Writer), Pierre Abi
Sa’b (Journalist), Fatima Sharafeddine
(Children’s Author), Khalil Zahreddin (Geologist & Cultural Activist), Hanady Salman (Journalist),
Camille Dagher (Writer), Walid
Sharara (Journalist), Khalil
Harb (Journalist), Hala
Bajjani (Al-Akhbar
Newspaper), Hanna Al-Hajj (Phd, Sociology), Nabil Haytham (Journalist),
Hashim Qasem (Journalist),
Sa’d Mehio (Journalist),
Adel ‘Ammous (Publisher),