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Manama (dpa) - Any plans for a new Middle East that come "on the corpses of Arab children" will be resisted, according to a petition signed by 125 Bahraini journalists and sent to US President George W Bush.
The petition comes as 36 Arab rights organizations from across the region filed a letter with the United Nations Human Rights Council that is scheduled to meet on Friday in Geneva.
The Bahraini journalists' petition accused the US administration of collaborating and keeping silent about Israeli attacks that systematically targeted Lebanese civilians.
"No words of condemnation are enough to describe what is taking place in Lebanon from a barbaric systematic killing of civilians by the Israeli military that is being publicly supported by your administration," the petition said.
The support which came in the early days of the attack by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice amounted to permission for the Israelis to carry out the killings in Lebanon, it continued.
The petition said that the Israeli Army was committing these atrocities with American arms.
The massacre in Qana "has shaken all alive consciences, and has been a replication of what the Israeli army did in 1996 when it deliberately targeted a UN centre which was used as a refuge by women, children and elderly."
"Do you want to build the future Middle East you are promising on the corpses of Arab children?" the petition said.
The 36 Arab rights groups filed a petition with the UN Human Rights Council to discuss Israeli violations in Lebanon, according to Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights president Mohammed al-Maskati.
"The petition will be distributed to members of council when they meet," al-Maskati said.
The petition accused the Israeli military of targeting Lebanese and Palestinian civilians, civic infrastructure and vital functions such as hospitals, electricity stations and water supplies.
The petition also accused the Israeli military of severing vital supplies like medicine and food through the disablement of ports, airports, roads and bridges.
All these acts are "war crimes" for which Israeli state leaders should be prosecuted before an international tribunal, the petition said.
Copyright 2006 dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH
