Thoughts about the Sabra and Shatilla Massacre

[NewsGuy]

Recently, there has been a renewed interest in revisiting the Arab slaughter at the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla. Some seek to indict Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on charges of war crimes because of his indirect involvement in the issue.

If you're reading this and are not familiar with the facts, here's a very brief backgrounder:

By 1982, Israel could no longer sustain the Arab terrorism launched against Israel from Lebanon. At the time, Palestinian terrorists groups, including Arafat's Al Fatah faction and several others used Lebanon as a launch pad for terrorism against Israeli civilians. This was done with Iranian and Syrian support and influence, much like today.

At the time, it was the tail-end of the Lebanese civil war, in which the Lebanese Christians were also fed up with Muslim terrorism and mass murder against the Christians.

To protect itself, Israel led by then-defense minister Ariel Sharon, invaded Lebanon to create a buffer zone between Israeli civilians and Arab terrorists.

Ultimately, Sharon was successful in driving out the PLO from Lebanon, but was unsuccessful in protecting Israel against terrorist attacks from across the Lebanese border. Like all "partial" wars, where one side is prevented by political pressures from finishing the enemy once and for all, many see Israel's Lebanese campaign as a failure.

At one point, Israel took over a some Lebanese territory which contained the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla. As soon as the Christian Arabs found out that this occurred, they stormed into those refugee camps and took revenge against their Muslim countrymen and killed a few hundred Muslims.

When Israel found out this happened, Israel prevented further killings.

However, who does the world blame when Arabs kill each other in a civil war? Israel, of course. And Ariel Sharon took the brunt of the blame for the Arab Christian massacre of the Arab Muslims. At the time, he resigned his position and has never quite regained his full leadership status until the recent elections.

I’m not sure whether it was Sharon’s responsibility to protect the Muslims against their fellow Arabs, but I am sure that it was Arafat and his Palestinian terror groups whose actions led their Arab Christian neighbors to take revenge.

And, while the world talks about Sharon’s supposed accountability, I find it particularly interesting that no accountability is ever assigned for War crimes to any Arab dictator whatsoever. Not Ghaddafi, not the late Assad, not the Iranian Ayatollah terrorist, and not even Saddam Hussein were ever prosecuted for their crimes against humanity. Only Sharon is being called for prosecution for the Arab slaughter of one another, under the guise of committing war crimes.

You draw your own conclusions.

Well, that was a remarkably self serving account of the history as regards the slaughter of " a few hundred Muslims ". What the hell, eh, just a few hundred?

Sharon and the IDF knew what was going on, and did nothing to stop it, and that is a considerably more serious matter than what you present.

More importantly, always, but always, but always, the CONTEXT of the conflict is handily edited out of commentaries like the one you have just posted. No reference here to " why " the acts of terror directed against the Israelis. It's as if, one day, the entire Arab world just woke up and said, let's get Israel...

Speak about these matters honestly, for Christ's sake ( or Buddha's, or who ever's ), and you may find there is honestly in the responses you receive. Understand what fair minded people everywhere understand: the Palestinian people experience the illegal occupation and systematic oppression of their lands and people as acts of terrorism, and they will fight Israel as long as it takes to get out from under the boot.

If Israel responds with denial and stubborn insistence on some chosen people crap, then it's a bit silly to cry when the bombs continue to be detonated...

[NewsGuy]

Originally posted by Jean le Ne
Sharon and the IDF knew what was going on, and did nothing to stop it, and that is a considerably more serious matter than what you present.

More importantly, always, but always, but always, the CONTEXT of the conflict is handily edited out of commentaries like the one you have just posted. No reference here to " why " the acts of terror directed against the Israelis. It's as if, one day, the entire Arab world just woke up and said, let's get Israel...

First of all, Sharon and the IDF could not predict the Arab massacre of each other and did not know about it until several hundred Arabs were killed by their Arab "brothers."

So far as the context is concerned, you're right. I did not elaborate on it very much.

Let me fill in then:

Even before the creation of the State of Israel, the Arabs have always hated and mistreated Jews (as well as any other religion than Islam. This is true in the middle east and is true throughout the world even till today.)

With the creation ofthe State of Israel, the Arabs immediately decided to invade Israel and to murder all its Jewish inhabitants. They also ordered the native Arabs to vacate Israel and their own land, so that they will not be in the way of the invading Arab armies.

And so many of the Arab refugee camps were created, including the Sabra and Shatilla camps, which are poverty stricken, and lacking even the most basic modern services, even though their muslim brothers are rolling in legendary petro-dollar wealth.

Living in poverty and in general ignorance, the self-created refugees were also incited by extremist islamic groups to acts of violence. Instead of blaming their misery and homelessness on their Arab brothers, they always focused on blaming Israel.

It sure seems that Arabs never face the true sources of their own misery, which is typically their own corrupt and non-caring dictatorships. Never mind that the petro-dollars are always deposited into the personal bank accounts of the dictators and their families and allies, while the general population cannot afford to provide food and shelter to their families.

Instead, there is always some enemy that is blamed, like Israel and the Jews. This is exemplified by placing the blame for Arabs massacering one another on Israel. And so, none of the Arabs who actually ordered the massacre or personally participated in the massacre are brought up on charges of crimes against humanity. Only Israel, and Ariel Sharon are blamed and to be tried by the hypocritical Belgium court, financed by the incredibly stupid Belgian tax payer.

You also mentioned how the Palestinians perceive themnselves as an occupied nation who must murder Jews to escape this supposed occupation. But you conveniently fail to mention that time and again, the Israelis have given Israeli land to Arabs countries in exchange for a peace which they never got. Egypt got the Sinai, Jordan got parts of the Jordan valley, yet there is no peace with those Arabs.

Israel also offered the Palestinians their own State with Jerusalem as their shared capital (which I think was a big mistake for Barak to offer), yet the Palestinians turned it down, instead preferring to go on murdering Jews and putting their own children in harm's way. Not to mention that the Palestinians have been given control over about 70% of the lands they claim, including Qalqilia, Bethlehem, Jericho, Gaza, and others, and this too is has not stopped the Arab terror against Israel.

So, I don't buy your claims that the Paletinians just want to get out from under some occupation. Unfortunately, the Palestinian track record shows that they will stop at nothing short of an ethnic cleansing of Jews from the land of Israel, and I think that Christian Arabs are next. Certainly, Arafat has publicly said so with regard to his intentions for the Jews, many times.

An investigation by Israel's government determined that Sharon did not give the orders for the killing of the refugees. They did however blame Sharon for not anticipating the reaction to the killing of the Christian President of Lebanon.

The real question is "Should have the Israelis known what could have happened?" and did "Sharon know about it?". There are no really good answers only 20/20 hindsight.

First of all, thank you NEWS GUY and ROBERT FURST, for your replies. We are, of course, in the merry-go-round. But for the sake of maintaining and exchange of ideas, let's meet in the middle;

Context? Context is in the mind of the one who is examining the reality in front of them, I suppose. That's maybe one way to say it. So, I accept that you are sincere in what you present as the relevant context we are discussing. But let me say this: when you talk about giving land to the Palestinians, you really go straight to the heart of the matter, don't you? You speak of that land as if you know, for sure, that it is rightfully Israeli land. And I suggest if there is EVER going to be even a peaceful co-existence of two states, that idea is going to need re-examination.

There has been movement, all around the planet, as long as we have had recorded history. This region ( Israel/Palestine ) is certainly not the ONLY land that has ever been contested, conquered, retaken, reconquered etc.

What is the standard for rightful ownerhip of the land? Religion? And then how do you determine, with any fairness, whose God ought to prevail? What is another standard? Blood spilled? If blood spilled, even over the last months, is to be a standard, or currency used to claim a right to the land, then the Palestinians have earned some more land, have they not? All I ask is that we think, and that we be ready to challenge our own orthodoxy ( all of us ), in terms of political belief etc. There is no other path to peace...

[NewsGuy]

Hello,

I'd like to answer you in some detail, but find myself pressed for time.

For now, I'll just say that I have been enjoying your opinions. Nice to have your POV.

THE ACTS OF TERRORISM(AS YOU SAY) CONDUCTED BY THE PALESTINIANS ARE VERY SIMILAR TO THOSE OF THE FRENCH PEOPLE AGAINST THE NAZIs DURING THEIR OCCUPATION TO THE FRENCH TERRITORY, SO YOU'RE SAYING THAT THE FRENCH REVOLUTIONISTS ARE TERRORISTS?

Originally posted by caribakam
THE ACTS OF TERRORISM(AS YOU SAY) CONDUCTED BY THE PALESTINIANS ARE VERY SIMILAR TO THOSE OF THE FRENCH PEOPLE AGAINST THE NAZIs DURING THEIR OCCUPATION TO THE FRENCH TERRITORY, SO YOU'RE SAYING THAT THE FRENCH REVOLUTIONISTS ARE TERRORISTS?

No. The acts of the Arab terrorists are more like those of the Nazis. Like the Nazis, the Arab and Muslims in general have tried to systematically kill all those of a different faith.

[takeo]

The question about why there still isn't peace, why the Palestinians turned down the latest offer of barak and why the Palestinians are fighting Israel have been mentioned and discussed already with you in the other forum.
Just let me remind you that Arab antipathy against Jews and Israel started when Israel started to colonise land belonging to an Arab people, the Palestinians. Untill the 19th century antisemitism in the Arab and islamic world was very low compared to Europe and Russia and the Christian world. In Islamic Spain Jews had a very high position and were banned, converted or burned when the Christians took power.
Nobody likes to see his land being colonised by another people, and resistance to this is only natural, it happened everytime in history (when the yankees took America, indians were described as "the bad guys" because they resisted, but in fact the bad guys were the Europeans taking the land of the Indians).
about the refugees: "And so many of the Arab refugee camps were created, including the Sabra and Shatilla camps, which are poverty stricken, and lacking even the most basic modern services, even though their muslim brothers are rolling in legendary petro-dollar wealth. "

Here you "forgot" to mention one little detail, that Israel REFUSED to take this people back, even if it was forced to to so by international laws of war and human rights. why should other countries take those refugees if they were not allowed back at the land where they were born? It would have completed etnic cleansing. We all know that those refugee camps are a hotbed of terrorism, and this is only natural.
So let's now return to the original question of the poster: is Sharon responsible for the war-crimes at Sabra and Shatila refugee camps?
First let me mention that in your description of the facts, again you seem to have forgotten some little details.
yes, it wasn't Sharon personally or Israeli soldiers who massacred the civilians, it were Falangist militiamen (not representative for the christian community in Libanon, which some of them fighted the Israeli as well and it were christians who invited the Syrians to fight against the Palestinians). yes, Israel is not the only responsible for the civil war and war-crimes in Libanon (but it created the refugee problem and its intrusion into Libanon made things worse, also its occupation untill end of 90's prolonged the war in Libanon, as Libanese made a peace brokered by Syria in the end of 80's).
But you forgat to mention that it was Sharon who was responsible for everything happening in the city he had under controll (and at that time, Israeli had full controll over this parts of beirout). According to the Geneva-convention, the military leader in controll is responsible for all war-crimes happening on the territory he controlls. But there is more. sharon knew that the falangists were a bunch of extremists who had massacred palestinians in the past, but still he ASKED them to go into the camps, in fact that means that the falangists were ordered by the military power they cooperated with to do a task the Israeli army didn't want to do themselves. the offical task was to see if no terrorists were hidden in that camp. but Sharon knew sending in falangists in a palestinian refugee-camp could have easily provoced a massacre, even if he didn't literally "ordered" a massacre, one can not deny that his responsability in this is overwhelming.
But there is more. Some refugees could escape and some western journalists reported the massacres to a local israeli officer who was disgusted and immidiately informed sharon about it. And what happened? exactly nothing, only 24 hours later Sharon ordered the Falangists to retreat. they immidiately followed hos order, which means that Sharon could have stopped the massacre at any time. But he didn't, even after he knew for sure (i'm sure Sharon is not stupid and knew what kind of people the falangists were, so he should have known this from the beginning, and probably he did) that there was a massacre, he did do nothing. To me and to international justice and laws that is more than enough reason to be convicted for war-crimes.
i agree that other leaders as well are responsible for war-crimes, including the old Assad, Saddam Houssein, etc. But that doesn't mean that Sharon ISN'T a war-criminal.

[NewsGuy]

Takeo: "Just let me remind you that Arab antipathy against Jews and Israel started when Israel started to colonise land belonging to an Arab people, the Palestinians."

Nope.

Arab hatred of Jews was always an historical fact. Jews and other non-Muslims were always second-class citizens in Arab countries, as it is until today. Although not subject to ongoing public executions, pogroms and inquisitions like in Europe, the Jews were certainly never living on an equal footing with Muslims.

True, some people like to point to a very brief respot in active persecution of Jews in a scarce number of Arab countries and during a very small number of years. This was due to the Jewish community needing to pay exorbitant "taxes" (i.e., blood-money) to the currupt Arab dictators, who then also used the Jews as money-lenders at no interest.

Like the modern-day organized crime, after paying for "protection," the Jews were allowed to live in relative quiet in a very small number of cases. But this was very rare.

The Arabs were never good neighbors neither to their Jewish subjects nor to their Christian subjects. Just ask any Jew who lived in an Arab country...


As for colonization, I have noticed that this word is not used so much in the U.S., but it is part of the very highly-financed Arab campaign of disinformation and incitement in Europe against in Israel. This is utter nonesense when used in the context of Israel, but it strikes a chord in Europe who has never lived down their collectiove guilt about the brutal colonization that the Europeans did in many third-world countires, including some Arab ones.

It is a trigger-word designed to incite Europeans to hate Israel and Jews in general. It is a blood-libel and is devoid of any fact, used much like the massive anti-semitic literature that fills Arab countries and their European oil-client countries.

But I think it is an important enough subject to handle in its own thread, so I will move this discussion to a new one to give it the attention it deserves.

[NewsGuy]

Takeo: "Here you "forgot" to mention one little detail, that Israel REFUSED to take this people back, even if it was forced to to so by international laws of war and human rights. why should other countries take those refugees if they were not allowed back at the land where they were born?"

Well, what you "forgot" is that Israel in fact has a population of 1.5 million Arab citizens living in the heart of Israel today.

Israeli cities like Haifa, Jaffa, Akko, Beer Sheva, and Jerusalem are just a few places where the Arabs thrive, given a much higher standard of living, democratic political representation in the Knesset, municipal services and much more, all courtesy of the Israeli tax-payer.

The reason that other Arab countries should take in their Palestinian Arab brothers is that these Palestinians fled to those Arab countries, and not taking them in is nothing more than Arab apartheid against Palestinians. And beyond Arab apartheaid, I wonder why the oil-rich Arab states won't even give their poverty-stricken Palestinian brothers and sisters even a little money to afford food ans clothing for their children?

As you know, but choose to ignore, rather than spending their petro-dollars on helping their own Arab people, they spend their money on racist, anti-Western and anti-semitic disinformation campaigns and funding Islamic terrorism.

The truth is that despite all the high-priced loud incitement campaigns in Europe, the Arabs don't care at all about their fellow Palestinian Arabs. All the noise they make is just to give their own citizens something to divert their attention away from the real cause of the Arabs' misery, which is their own corrupt and brutal dictatorships.

While the dictators live in legendary wealth, the ordinary Arabs live in filthy streets awash in sewage, with no public education, no future for their barefoot and poverty-stricken children, no retirement plans nor care for the elderly who are expected to just rot away.

So, the best place to send the Arab popular frustration and anger is at Israel and Ariel Sharon in particular. This is why the Arab-against-Arab massacres are still being blamed on Israel, rather than focusing their considerable resources on social advancement for the Arab population.

This in a nutshell is the reality of Sabra and Shatilla and other Palestinian refugee camps.

NewsGuy,


It is highly obvious that you yourself are not seeking a 'peace process' when you constantly remark that 'the Arab Muslims faith encourages them to kill any other faith' and the like of such comments.

Such ignorance on your behalf is quite shocking, and to say such is absolutely absurd.

Being an Iraqi muslim, with Iraqi Christian friends who share the same view on Israel I find it absolutely horrendus that you are twisting the facts to lower public opinion on the Palestinean population.

How can it be in their faith to kill any other 'faith' if 60% of Palestineans themselves are Christians?

If you would like to discuss matters without the pathetic slander it would be beneficial. However the process in how you are conducing the discussion at the moment is quite shocking.

If you would like a more accurate view on the massacres of Shatilla follow <a href="http://www.hebron.com/massacres/sabra/acct-israeli-defense-army-lebanon.html">this link</a>.

You break your own logic by saying 'The town was in control of the Israelis' and then saying 'the massacre was conducted by Christian Arabs without the knowledge of the Israelis.

You tell me, If it was in control of the Isrealis would they not notice the entering of hundreds of Christian Arabs and the slaughter of 3000 people?

Farewell

Salam & Shalom

[takeo]

So this is a representative of those savage anti-semites, and even from the heart of the evil: Bagdad. Well, to me he sounds more reasonable and less extremist than you. (but not 60% of pals are christian, maybe 20%, i think you confuse with Libanon).

Arab regimes indeed are very corrupted and inequal, completely agree with that (besides Iraq isn't the worst, pro-US regimes saoudi Arabia, etc. for example are much worse). This however is not an excuse for the israeli refusal to stop the return of people who lived for centuries in your country.
about the Palestinian minority in Israel, see the other treath, but it is only a tiny percentage of the original population who remained to live there.

*LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL LLLLLLLL*

hass who's your ISP provider????

[takeo]

hey
it's possible, last month i discussed with someone from Bagdad, they have internet-café's now in Bagdad.