A holocaust survivor speaks of Israel as being like Nazi Germany
This Video is to show the Jewish Community around the world among others who are outraged that there religion Judaism has been hijacked by Zionists who happen to be secular. The Zionists are using the sympathy of the Jews from events in World War 2 to justify there Brutal Occupation of Palestine and the Ethnic Cleansing of Arabs from the region. The Recent Assault on Gaza Has united people around the world with a common enemy which is zionism and this will help bring Justice to the Oppressed, We Recognise Jews Who stand with the palestinians and a message sent from all quarters of the world to the Palestinians You Are Not Alone.
From the River To The Sea Palestine Will Be Free. Inshallah
More than 3,000 European Jews, including prominent intellectuals, have signed a petition speaking out against Israeli settlement policies and warning that systematic support for the Israeli government is dangerous.
Jewish Men march to the Israeli embassy in Washington DC to protest the existence of the Israeli state and the mid-east conflict.
Rabbi Yirmiyahu Cohen, interviewed by Graham Witherspoon of the Gilchrist Experience, explains why the Jews were exiled and why the establishment of the Zionist state is contrary to the teachings of the Bible and the Jewish Faith..
Masses of Anti Zionist Orthodox Jews, march on the streets of Jerusalem, in protest against the State of Israel, on the Israeli Independence Day, April 29, 2009, followed by burning Israeli flags.
At a protest against the State of Israel, on May 18, 2009 during the visit of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to the White House, Rabbi Boruch Fisch is explaining the Jewish religious opposition the philosophy of Zionism and the State of Israel.
The continuous Israeli aggression on Gaza has left hundreds dead and thousands injured. As a result, people protested from Israel and Yemen to London and New York City.
It is important to note that there are many Jews that are not Zionist and in fact against Zionism.
Zionism was condemned by the United Nations with a resolution that said ‘Zionism is Racism’ and that is true Wallahi. Unfortunately, that resolution was taken back after intense pressure from the United States. (United States government was pressured by AIPAC and Israel)
On March 10, 2009 Anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews in the United States, Canada and England burned the flag of the so-called state of ‘Israel” to protest the actions and existence of the Zionist state which is totally contrary to traditional Jewish teaching and beliefs. This event has been taking place annually during the Jewish Holiday period of “Purim”.
on June 17, 2010, Anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews protested outside the offices of Friends Of the Israel Antiquities Authority in New York City, to condemn its ongoing shameful desecration of Jewish law by destroying ancient burial graves of holy sages dating back as far as 2000 years ago
“America,” he said, “will lose the war. And Italy will win it”
“America is the strongest and most prosperous nation on earth,” Nately informed him with lofty fervor and dignity. “And the American fighting man is second to none.”
“Exactly,” agreed the old man pleasantly, with a hint of taunting amusement. “Italy, on the other hand, is one of the least prosperous nations on earth. And the Italian fighting man is probably second to all. And that’s exactly why my country is doing so well in this war while your country is doing so poorly.”
Nately guffawed with surprise, then blushed apologetically for his impoliteness. “I’m sorry I laughed at you,” he said sincerely, and he continued in a tone of respectful condescension. “But Italy was occupied by the Germans and is now being occupied by us. You don’t call that doing very well, do you?”
“But of course I do,” exclaimed the old man cheerfully. “The Germans are being driven out, and we are still here. In a few years you will be gone, too, and we will still be here. You see, Italy is really a very poor and weak country, and that’s what makes us so strong. Italian soldiers are not dying any more. But American and German soldiers are. I call that doing extremely well. Yes, I am quite certain that Italy will survive this war and still be in existence long after your own country has been destroyed.”
Nately could scarcely believe his ears. He had never heard such shocking blasphemies before, and he wondered with instinctive logic why G-men did not appear to lock the traitorous old man up. “America is not going to be destroyed ” he shouted passionately.
“Never?” prodded the old man softly. “Well…” Nately faltered.
The old man laughed indulgently, holding in check a deeper, more explosive delight. His goading remained gentle. “Rome was destroyed, Greece was destroyed, Persia was destroyed, Spain was destroyed. All great countries are destroyed. Why not yours? How much longer do you really think your own country will last? Forever? Keep in mind that the earth itself is destined to be destroyed by the sun in twenty-five million years or so.”
Nately squirmed uncomfortably. “Well, forever is a long time, I guess.”
“A million years?” persisted the jeering old man with keen, sadistic zest. “A half million? The frog is almost five hundred million years old. Could you really say with much certainty that America, with all its strength and prosperity, with its fighting man that is second to none, and with its standard of living that is the highest in the world, will last as long as… the frog?”
“Well, frankly, I don’t know how long America is going to last,” he proceeded dauntlessly. “I suppose we can’t last forever if the world itself is going to be destroyed some day. But I do know that we’re going to survive and triumph for a long, long time.”
“For how long?” mocked the profane old man with a gleam of malicious elation. “Not even as long as the frog ?”
“Much longer than you or me,” Nately blurted out lamely.
“Oh, is that all? That won’t be very much longer then, considering that you’re so gullible and brave and that I am already such an old, old man.”
“How old are you ?” Nately asked, growing intrigued and charmed with the old man in spite of himself.
“A hundred and seven.” The old man chuckled heartily at Nately’s look of chagrin. “I see you don’t believe that either.”
“I don’t believe anything you tell me,” Nately replied, with a bashful mitigating smile. “The only thing I do believe is that America is going to win the war.”
“You put so much stock in winning wars,” the grubby iniquitous old man scoffed. “The real trick lies in losing wars, in knowing which wars can be lost, Italy has been losing wars for centuries, and just see how splendidly we’ve done nonetheless. France wins wars and is in a continual state of crisis. Germany loses and prospers. Look at our own recent history. Italy won a war in Ethiopia and promptly stumbled into serious trouble. Victory gave us such insane delusions of grandeur that we helped start a world war we hadn’t a chance of winning. But now that we are losing again, everything has taken a turn for the better, and we will certainly come out on top again if we succeed in being defeated.”
Nately gaped at him in undisguised befuddlement. “Now I really don’t understand what you’re saying. You talk like a madman.”
“But I live like a sane one. I was a fascist when Mussolini was on top, and I am an anti-fascist now that he has been deposed. I was fanatically pro-German when the Germans were here to protect us against the Americans, and now that the Americans are here to protect us against the Germans I am fanatically pro-American. I can assure you, my outraged young friend”- the old man’s knowing, disdainful eyes shone even more effervescently as Nately’s stuttering dismay increased-“that you and your country will have a no more loyal partisan in Italy than me-but only as long as you remain in Italy. ”
“But,” lately cried out in disbelief, “you’re a turncoat! A time-server! A shameful, unscrupulous opportunist!”
“I am a hundred and seven years old,” the old man reminded him suavely.
“Don’t you have any principles?”
“Of course not.”
“No morality?”
“Oh, I am a very moral man,” the villainous old man assured him with satiric seriousness, stroking the bare hip of a buxom black-haired girl with pretty dimples who had stretched herself out seductively on the other arm of his chair. He grinned at Nately sarcastically as he sat between both naked girls in smug and threadbare splendor, with a sovereign hand on each.
“I can’t believe it,” Nately remarked grudgingly, trying stubbornly not to watch him in relationship to the girls. “I simply can’t believe it.”
“But it’s all perfectly true. When the Germans marched into the city, I danced in the streets like a youthful ballerina and shouted, ‘Heil Hitler!’ until my lungs were hoarse. I even waved a small Nazi flag that I had snatched away from a beautiful little girl while her mother was looking the other way. When the Germans left the city, I rushed out to welcome the Americans with a bottle of excellent brandy and a basket of flowers. The brandy was for myself, of course, and the flowers were to sprinkle upon our liberators. There was a very stiff and stuffy old major riding in the first car, and I bit him squarely in the eye with a red rose. A marvelous shot! You should have seen him wince.”
Nately gasped and was on his feet with amazement, the blood draining from his cheeks. “Major – de Coverley!” he cried.
“Do you know him?” inquired the old man with delight.
“What a charming coincidence !”
Nately was too astounded even to hear him. “So you’re the one who wounded Major – de Coverley!” he exclaimed in horrified indignation. “How could you do such a thing?”
The fiendish old man was unperturbed. “How could I resist, yon mean. You should have seen the arrogant old bore, sitting there so sternly in that car like the Almighty Himself, with his big, rigid head and his foolish, solemn face. What a tempting target he made! I got him in the eye with an American Beauty rose. I thought that was most appropriate. Don’t you?”
“That was a terrible thing to do!” Nately shouted at him reproachfully. “A vicious and criminal thing! Major – de Coverley is our squadron executive officer!”
“Is he?” teased the unregenerate old man, pinching his pointy jaw gravely in a parody of repentance. “In that case, you must give me credit for being impartial. When the Germans rode in, I almost stabbed a robust young Oberleutnant to death with a sprig of edelweiss.”
Nately was appalled and bewildered by the abominable old man’s inability to perceive the enormity of his offense. “Don’t you realize what you’ve done?” he scolded vehemently. “Major – de Coverley is a noble and wonderful person, and everyone admires him. ”
“He’s a silly old fool who really has no right acting like a silly young fool. Where is he today? Dead?”
Nately answered softly with somber awe. “Nobody knows. He seems to have disappeared.”
“You see? Imagine a man his age risking what little life he has left for something so absurd as a country.”
Nately was instantly up in arms again. “There is nothing so absurd about risking your life for your country!” he declared.
“Isn’t there?” asked the old man. “What is a country? A country is a piece of land surrounded on all sides by boundaries, usually unnatural. Englishmen are dying for England, Americans are dying for America, Germans are dying for Germany, Russians are dying for Russia. There are now fifty or sixty countries fighting in this war. Surely so many countries can’t all be worth dying for.”
“Anything worth living for,” said Nately, “is worth dying for.”
“And anything worth dying for,” answered the sacrilegious old man, “is certainly worth living for. You know, you’re such a pure and naive young man that I almost feel sorry for you. How old are you? Twenty-five? Twenty-six?”
“Nineteen,” said Nately. “I’ll be twenty in January.”
“If you live.” The old man shook his head, wearing, for a moment, the same touchy, meditating frown of the fretful and disapproving old woman. “They are going to kill you if you don’t watch out, and I can see now that you are not going to watch out. Why don’t you use some sense and try to be more like me? You might live to be a hundred and seven, too.”
“Because it’s better to die on one’s feet than live on one’s knees,” Nately retorted with triumphant and lofty conviction.
“I guess you’ve heard that saying before.”
“Yes, I certainly have,” mused the treacherous old man, smiling again. “But I’m afraid you have it backward. It is better to live on one’s feet than die on one’s knees. That is the way the saying goes.”
“Are you sure?” Nately asked with sober confusion. “It seems to make more sense my way.”
“No, it makes more sense my way. Ask your friends.”
Palestinian women resist evacuation by Israeli soldiers before the demolition of two Palestinian houses near the West Bank city of Nablus on 7 November 2012. Hundreds of Palestinians are to be evacuated in the Jordan Valley for an Israeli military training on Sunday. (Photo: AFP – Jaafar Ashtiyeh)
Al Akhbar English Friday, November 9, 2012
Hundreds of Palestinians are being evacuated from the northern Jordan Valley to make way for an Israeli military training exercise, local officials told Ma’an news agency.
According to several village council heads in the Jordan Valley, an estimated 1,500 Palestinians will be displaced by the exercise, which begins on Sunday.
Al-Malih and al-Madareb council chief Aref Daraghmeh said some families would be permitted to return after the two-day exercise, while others were told to leave their homes permanently.
He said several Israeli departments were working together to pressure Palestinians to leave the Jordan Valley in order to build Jewish settlements and military bases.
Al-Malih resident Abu Mohammad told Ma’an that despite having lived in the village for decades, he would be leaving out of fear for his safety. His house had been hit by Israeli artillery before, he said.
Researcher for the Applied Research Institute – Jerusalem Juliet Bannoura said the latest evacuation was part of a campaign that started in 1967 to remove Palestinians from the Jordan Valley, most of which Israel designated a closed military zone.
“This is a trick in order to execute a silent and final evacuation,” Bannoura told Ma’an.
“Now Israel is completing building of the separation wall in the west, they want to work on the eastern side as well,” she said.
A Ma’an reporter witnessed an influx of forces and military equipment into the region.
Settlement monitoring official Ahmad Assad suspected the scale and length of the training indicated it was related to joint Israeli-US operations.
Israeli and US soldiers were began a series of massive military drills called Austere Challenge 12 in October, in the largest-ever joint military collaboration between the two allies. The drills, involving some 3,500 personnel from the US European Command and 1,000 Israeli troops, were expected to last three weeks.
The Israeli military did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says Israel has designated around 18 percent of the West Bank as closed military zones, an area roughly equal in size to Area A, the 17.7 percent of the West Bank under Palestinian Authority control.
Around 5,000 Palestinians live in Israeli military firing zones in the West Bank, UNOCHA says. Since 2010, Israel has demolished the homes of 820 Palestinians located in firing zones.
(Ma’an, Al-Akhbar)
Still live in fairytaleland about Israel? Time to wake up: The Map of the “Greater Israel” even is hammered on the currency:
All facts at Storify continuously updated. Read what Israeli ‘leaders’ have said and done even before (peace) talks and how their actions contradict the reality and ugly facts which they try to hide from you:
You can forget all details. Save yourself time. It is only about Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
Israel. Not looking for Peace. Nor Talks. But this…
Palestinian women resist evacuation by Israeli soldiers before the demolition of two Palestinian houses near the West Bank city of Nablus on 7 November 2012. Hundreds of Palestinians are to be evacuated in the Jordan Valley for an Israeli military training on Sunday. (Photo: AFP – Jaafar Ashtiyeh)
Hundreds of Palestinians are being evacuated from the northern Jordan Valley to make way for an Israeli military training exercise, local officials told Ma’an news agency.
According to several village council heads in the Jordan Valley, an estimated 1,500 Palestinians will be displaced by the exercise, which begins on Sunday.
Al-Malih and al-Madareb council chief Aref Daraghmeh said some families would be permitted to return after the two-day exercise, while others were told to leave their homes permanently.
He said several Israeli departments were working together to pressure Palestinians to leave the Jordan Valley in…
The Sabra and Shatila Massacre by a Lebanese Christian and Phalangist Militia 1982
The Sabra and Shatila massacre was the massacre of between 762 and 3,500 Palestinian and LebaneseShiite civilians, by a Lebanese Christian Phalangist militia, in the Sabra and ShatilaPalestinian refugee camps in Beirut, Lebanon between September 16 and September 18, 1982, during the Lebanese civil war.
The massacre was presented as retaliation for the assassination of newly elected Lebanese president Bachir Gemayel, the leader of the Lebanese Kataeb Party. It was wrongly assumed that Palestinian militants had carried out the assassination, which is now generally attributed to pro-Syrian militants.
Shortly before the massacre, Israel had been at war with the PLO in Lebanon, whom it managed to drive out of the territory. Various forces (Israeli, Phalangist and possibly SLA) were in the vicinity. The actual killers were “the Young Men“, a gang recruited by Elie Hobeika, the Lebanese Forces intelligence chief, from men who had been expelled from the Lebanese Forces for insubordination or criminal activities. The massacre is widely believed to have taken place under Hobeika’s direct orders. Hobeika’s family and fiancée had been murdered by Palestinian militiamen, and their Lebanese allies, at the Damour massacre of 1976, itself a response to a previous massacre of Palestinians at the hands of Christian militants. Hobeika later became a long-serving Member of theParliament of Lebanon and served in several ministerial roles.
The Israel Defense Forces surrounded the Palestinian refugee camps, controlled access to them, and fired illuminating flares over the camps. In 1982, an independent commission chaired by Sean MacBride concluded that the Israeli authorities or forces were, directly or indirectly, responsible for the events. The Israeli government established the Kahan Commission to investigate, and in early 1983 it found that Israeli military personnel were aware that a massacre was in progress without taking serious steps to stop it. Therefore it regarded Israel as having indirect responsibility. The commission held Ariel Sharon personally responsible for having disregarded the prospect of acts of bloodshed by the Phalangists against the population of the refugee camps and not preventing their entry.
Background
From 1975 to 1990, groups in competing alliances with neighboring countries fought against each other in the Lebanese Civil War. Infighting and massacres between these groups claimed several thousand victims; notably the Syrian-backed Karantina (January 1976) by the Lebanese Christian militia against Kurds, Syrians and Palestinians in the predominantly Muslim slum district, Damour (January 1976) by the PLO against Christians in Beirut, including the family and fiancée of the Lebanese Forces intelligence chief Elie Hobeikaand Tel al-Zaatar (August 1976) by Phalangists against refugees living in a camp administered by UNRWA. The total death toll in Lebanon for the whole civil war period was around 200,000–300,000 victims.
The Civil War saw many shifting alliances among the main players; the Lebanese Nationalists, led by the Christian Phalangist partyand militia, were allied initially with Syria then with Israel, which provided them with arms and training to fight against the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO); other factions were allied with Syria and other states of the region. In addition, Israel had been training, arming, supplying and uniforming the Christian-dominated South Lebanon Army (SLA), led by Saad Haddad, since 1978.
Sabra is the name of a poor neighborhood in the southern outskirts of West Beirut, which is adjacent to the Shatila UNRWArefugee camp set up for Palestinian refugees in 1949. Over the years the populations of the two areas became ever more mingled, and the loose terminology “Sabra and Shatila camps” has become usual. Their populations had been swelled by Palestinians and LebaneseShiites from the south fleeing the wars.
The PLO had been attacking Israel from southern Lebanon, and Israel had been bombing PLO positions in southern Lebanon. The attempted assassination of Israeli Ambassador Shlomo Argov in London on June 4, 1982 by Abu Nidal‘s organization became a casus belli for a full-scale Israeli invasion of Lebanon. This was despite Abu Nidal having assassinated numerous PLO diplomats, and attempted to kill both Arafat and Mahmud Abbas, and was in fact condemned to death by the PLO. Additionally, British intelligence reported that the attempt had likely been sponsored by Iraq, and Israeli intelligence agreed. However, Ariel Sharon and Menachem Begin ordered a retaliatory aerial attack on PLO and PFLP targets in West Beirut that led to over 100 casualties.
Israel launched Operation Peace for Galilee on 6 June 1982, where Israeli forces attacked PLO bases in Lebanon and quickly drove 40km into Lebanon, in an act that was heavily criticised by the UN Security Council five days later in the United Nations Security Council Resolution 425. Two months later, amid escalating violence and civilian casualties, Philip Habib was sent to restore order, which he accomplished on 12 August on the heels of IDF’s intensive, day-long bombardment of West Beirut. The Habib-negotiated truce called for the withdrawal of both Israeli and PLO elements, as well as a multinational force composed of U.S. Marines along with French and Italian units that would ensure the departure of the PLO and protect defenseless civilians.
On August 23, 1982, Bachir Gemayel, who was very popular among Maronites, was elected President of Lebanon by the National Assembly. Israel had relied on Gemayel and his forces as a counterbalance to the PLO, and as a result, ties between Israel and Maronite groups had grown stronger.
On September 1, the expulsion of the PLO fighters from Beirut was completed. Two days later, Israel deployed its armed forces around the refugee camps.
The Israeli Premier Menachem Begin met Gemayel in Nahariya and strongly urged him to sign a peace treaty with Israel. According to some sources, Begin also wanted the continuing presence of the SLA in southern Lebanon (Haddad supported peaceful relations with Israel) in order to control attacks and violence, and action from Gemayel to move on the PLO fighters which Israel believed remained a hidden threat in Lebanon. However, the Phalangists, who were previously united as reliable Israeli allies, were now split because of developing alliances with Syria, which remained militarily hostile to Israel. As such, Gemayel rejected signing a peace treaty with Israel and did not authorize operations to root out the remaining PLO militants.
On September 11, 1982, the international forces that were guaranteeing the safety of Palestinian refugees left Beirut. Then on September 14, Gemayel was assassinated in a massive explosion which demolished his headquarters. Eventually, the culprit, Habib Tanious Shartouni, a Lebanese Christian, confessed to the crime. He turned out to be a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Partyand an agent of Syrian intelligence. The Palestinian and Muslim leaders denied any connection.
Within hours of the assassination, Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, supported by Begin, decided to occupy West Beirut, informing only then Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir and not consulting the Israeli cabinet. The same night Sharon began preparations for entering the Sabra-Shatila refugee camps. Thus on September 15, the Israeli army reoccupied West Beirut. This Israeli action breached its agreement with the United States not to occupy West Beirut; the US had also given written guarantees that it would ensure the protection of the Muslims of West Beirut. Israel’s occupation also violated its peace agreements with Muslim forces in Beirut and with Syria.
Events
Following the assassination of Lebanese Christian President Bashir Gemayel, tensions built as Phalangists called for revenge. By noon of September 15, the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) had completely surrounded the Sabra-Shatila camps, and controlled all entrances and exits by the means of checkpoints. The IDF also occupied a number of multi-story buildings as observation posts. Amongst those was the seven-story Kuwaiti embassy which, according to TIME magazine, had “an unobstructed and panoramic view” of the camps. Hours later, IDF tanks began shelling the camps.
Ariel Sharon and Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan met with the Lebanese Phalangist militia units, inviting them to enter the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps and telling them the PLO fighters were responsible for the assassination of their leader Bashir Gemayel. Under the Israeli plan, Israeli soldiers would control the perimeters of the refugee camps and provide logistical support while the Phalangists would enter the camps, find the PLO fighters and hand them over to Israeli forces. The meetings concluded at 3:00 p.m. September 16.
An hour later, 1,500 militiamen assembled at Beirut International Airport, then occupied by Israel. Under the command of Elie Hobeika, they began moving towards the camps in IDF supplied Jeeps, following Israeli guidance on how to enter the camps. The forces were mostly Phalangist, though there were some men from Saad Haddad‘s “Free Lebanon forces”. According to Ariel Sharon and Elie Hobeika’s bodyguard, the Phalangists were given “harsh and clear” warnings about harming civilians. However, it was by then known that the Phalangists presented a special security risk for Palestinians. Bamahane, the IDF newspaper, wrote on 1 September, two weeks before the massacre, that, in a conversation with an Israeli official, a Phalangist said: “the question we are putting to ourselves is — how to begin, by raping or killing?” The Phalangists had also told the Israelis that only by means of violence could they achieve their objective: to bring about a Palestinian. General Amos Yaron was on record saying that it was known the Phalangists meant to destroy the camps.
The first unit of 150 Phalangists entered the camps at 6:00 p.m. A battle ensued that at times Palestinians claim involved lining up Palestinians for execution. During the night the Israeli forces fired illuminating flares over the camps. According to a Dutch nurse, the camp was as bright as “a sports stadium during a football game”.
At 11:00 p.m. a report was sent to the IDF headquarters in East Beirut, reporting the killings of 300 people, including civilians. The report was forwarded to headquarters in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, where it was seen by more than 20 senior Israeli officers.
Further reports of these killings followed through the night. Some of these reports were forwarded to the Israeli government in Jerusalem and were seen by a number of Israeli senior officials.
For the next 36 to 48 hours, the Phalangists massacred the inhabitants of Sabra and Shatila, while Israeli troops guarded the exits and allegedly continued to fire flares at night.
At one point, a militiaman’s radioed question to his commander Hobeika about what to do with the women and children in the refugee camp was overheard by an Israeli officer, who heard Hobeika’s reply: “This is the last time you’re going to ask me a question like that; you know exactly what to do.” Phalangist troops could be heard laughing in the background. The Israeli officer reported this to his superior, Brig. Gen. Amos Yaron, who warned Hobeika against hurting civilians but took no further action. Lt. Avi Grabowsky was cited by the Kahan Commission as having seen (on that Friday) the murder of five women and children, and gave a hearsay report of a battalion commander saying of this, “We know, it’s not to our liking, and don’t interfere.” Israeli soldiers surrounding the camps turned back Palestinians fleeing the camps, as filmed by a Visnews cameraman.
Later in the afternoon, a meeting was held between the Israeli Chief of Staff and the Phalangist staff. On Friday morning, the Israelis surrounding the camps ordered the Phalange to halt their operation, concerned about reports of a massacre. According to the Kahan Commission’s report (based on a Mossad agent’s report), the Chief of Staff concluded that the Phalange should “continue action, mopping up the empty camps south of Fakahani until tomorrow at 5:00 a.m., at which time they must stop their action due to American pressure.” He stated that he had “no feeling that something irregular had occurred or was about to occur in the camps.” At this meeting, he also agreed to provide the militia with a tractor, supposedly to demolish buildings.
On Friday, September 17, while the camps still were sealed off, a few independent observers managed to enter. Among them were a Norwegian journalist and diplomat Gunnar Flakstad, who observed Phalangists during their cleanup operations, removing dead bodies from destroyed houses in the Shatila camp.
The Phalangists did not exit the camps at 5:00 a.m. on Saturday as ordered. They forced the remaining survivors to march out of the camps, to the stadium for interrogations; this went on for the entire day. The militia finally left the camps at 8:00 a.m. on September 18. The first foreign journalists allowed into the camps at 9:00 a.m. found hundreds of bodies scattered about the camp. The first official news of the massacre was broadcast around noon.
Many of the bodies found had been severely mutilated. Many boys had been castrated, some were scalped, and some had theChristian cross carved into their bodies.
Janet Lee Stevens, an American journalist, later wrote to her husband, Dr. Franklin Lamb,
“I saw dead women in their houses with their skirts up to their waists and their legs spread apart; dozens of young men shot after being lined up against an alley wall; children with their throats slit, a pregnant woman with her stomach chopped open, her eyes still wide open, her blackened face silently screaming in horror; countless babies and toddlers who had been stabbed or ripped apart and who had been thrown into garbage piles.”
Before the massacre, it was reported that the leader of the PLO, Yasir Arafat, had requested the return of international forces, from Italy, France and the United States, to Beirut to protect civilians. Those forces had just supervised the departure of Arafat and his PLO fighters from Beirut. Italy expressed ‘deep concerns’ about ‘the new Israeli advance’, but no action was taken to return the forces to Beirut. Henry Kamm, Special to The New York Times, in a report dated 16 September 1982, from Rome:
“Yasir Arafat, leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, demanded today that the United States, France and Italy send their troops back to Beirut to protect its inhabitants against Israel…The dignity of three armies and the honor of their countries is involved, Mr. Arafat said at his news conference. I ask Italy, France and the United States: What of your promise to protect the inhabitants of Beirut?”
Number of victims
Memorial in Sabra, South Beirut
The exact number of victims of the massacre is disputed. It is estimated that at least a quarter of the victims were Lebanese, the rest Palestinians. Here follow the main bodycounts and estimates that have circulated, ordered by number of deaths:
A letter from the head of the Red Cross delegation to the Lebanese Minister of Defense, cited in the Kahan Commission report as “exhibit 153”, stated that Red Crossrepresentatives had counted 328 bodies; but the Kahan Commission noted that “this figure, however, does not include all the bodies …”
The Kahan Commission said that, according to “a document which reached us (exhibit 151), the total number of victims whose bodies were found from 18.9.82 to 30.9.82 is 460”, stating further that this figure consists of “the dead counted by the Lebanese Red Cross, the International Red Cross, the Lebanese Civil Defense, the medical corps of the Lebanese army, and by relatives of the victims.” Thirty-five women and children were among the dead according to this account.
Israeli figures, based on IDF intelligence, cite a figure of 700–800. In the Kahan Commission’s view, “this may well be the number most closely corresponding with reality.”
According to the BBC, “at least 800” Palestinians died.
Bayan Nuwayhed al-Hout in her Sabra and Shatila: September 1982 gives a minimum consisting of 1,300 named victims based on detailed comparison of 17 victim lists and other supporting evidence, and estimates an even higher total.
Robert Fisk, one of the first journalists to visit the scene, quotes (without endorsing) unnamed Phalangist officers as saying “that 2,000 Palestinians – women as well as men – had been killed in Chatila.” In a 2002 article in The Independent, Fisk speaks of “1700 civilians murdered.” The Palestinian Red Crescent put the number killed at over 3,000.
In his book published soon after the massacre, the Israeli journalist Amnon Kapeliouk of Le Monde Diplomatique, arrived at about 2,000 bodies disposed of after the massacre from official and Red Cross sources and “very roughly” estimated 1,000 – 1,500 other victims disposed of by the Phalangists themselves to a total of 3,000–3,500.
International reactions
The attack was explicitly grieved and condemned in Muslim countries in and surrounding the Arab Middle East, and in Western countries as well.
U.N. condemnation
On December 16, 1982, the United Nations General Assembly condemned the massacre and declared it to be an act of genocide. The voting record on section D of Resolution 37/123, which “resolves that the massacre was an act of genocide”, was: yes: 123; no: 0; abstentions: 22; non-voting: 12. The abstentions were: Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany (Federal Republic), Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, United Kingdom, U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Israel,Ivory Coast, Papua New Guinea, Barbados and Dominican Republic.
Disputes with U.N. verdict
Some delegates disputed the claim that the massacre constituted genocide.
The delegate for Canada stated: “The term genocide cannot, in our view, be applied to this particular inhuman act”. The delegate ofSingapore – voting ‘yes’ – added: “My delegation regrets the use of the term ‘an act of genocide’ … [as] the term ‘genocide’ is used to mean acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” Canada and Singapore also questioned whether the General Assembly was competent to determine whether such an event would constitute genocide.
The United States commented that “While the criminality of the massacre was beyond question, it was a serious and reckless misuse of language to label this tragedy genocide as defined in the 1948 Convention …”.
Such comments led William Schabas, director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights at the National University of Ireland, to state: “the term genocide … had obviously been chosen to embarrass Israel rather than out of any concern with legal precision”.
Israeli Role
MacBride commission report
In 1982, an independent commission, the International Commission to enquire into reported violations of International Law by Israel during its invasion of the Lebanon, was formed. Chaired by former Irish foreign minister Sean MacBride, the commission included the following members:
Professor Richard Falk, Vice Chairman, Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law and Practice, Princeton University,
Dr Kader Asmal, Senior Lecturer in Law and Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Trinity College, Dublin,
Dr Brian Bercusson, Lecturer in Laws, Queen Mary College, University of London,
Professor Géraud de la Pradelle, Professor of Private Law, University of Paris, and
Professor Stefan Wild, Professor of Semitic Languages and Islamic Studies, University of Bonn.
The commission toured the area of fighting and examined witnesses in Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Syria, UK, and Norway. The government of Israel refused to cooperate. The commission’s report, Israel in Lebanon, concluded that the Israeli authorities or forces were directly or indirectly responsible in the massacres and other killings that have been reported to have been carried out by Lebanese militiamen in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in the Beirut area between 16 and September 18.
Kahan Commission report
300,000 demonstrating Israelis put pressure on their government to investigate on the massacre. The Kahan Commission concluded in February 1983 that Israel bore part of the indirect responsibility for the massacres, advised Minister of Defense Ariel Sharon to be dismissed from his post and not to hold public office again.
Israeli population demands investigation
In its initial statements, the Israeli government declared that those critics who regarded the IDF as having responsibility for the events at Sabra and Shatila were guilty of “a blood libel against the Jewish state and its Government.” However, as the news of the massacre spread around the world, the controversy grew, and on September 25, 300,000 Israelis—roughly one-tenth of the country’s population at the time—demonstrated in a Tel Aviv square demanding answers. The protest, known in Israel as the “400,000 protest” (the number of protesters was first exaggerated) was one of the biggest in Israel’s history.
Israel “indirect responsibility”
On September 28, the Israeli Government resolved to establish a Commission of Inquiry, which was led by former Supreme Court Justice Yitzhak Kahan. The report included evidence from Israeli army personnel, as well as political figures and Phalangist officers. In the report, published in February 1983, the Kahan Commission stated that there was no evidence that Israeli units took direct part in the massacre and that it was the “direct responsibility of Phalangists.” However, the Commission recorded that Israeli military personnel were aware that a massacre was in progress without taking serious steps to stop it, and that reports of a massacre in progress were made to senior Israeli officers and even to an Israeli cabinet minister; it therefore regarded Israel as bearing part of the “indirect responsibility.”
In a book about Lebanese history, British journalist David Hirst accused the Commission of inventing the concept of indirect responsibility so as to protect Israel from sharing with the Phalangists real responsibility for the massacres. He further states that the Commission was only able to achieve that verdict by means of errors and omissions in the analysis of the massacre.[38]
Sharon “personal responsibility”
The Kahan commission found that Ariel Sharon “bears personal responsibility”, recommended his dismissal from the post of Defense Minister and concluded that Sharon should not hold public office again, stating that:
“It is our view that responsibility is to be imputed to the minister of defense for having disregarded the prospect of acts of vengeance and bloodshed by the Phalangists against the population of the refugee camps and for having failed to take this danger into account when he decided to have the Phalangists enter the camps. In addition, responsibility is to be imputed to the minister of defense for not ordering appropriate measures for preventing or reducing the chances of a massacre as a condition for the Phalangists’ entry into the camps.”
At first, Sharon refused to resign, and Begin refused to fire him. It was only after the death of Emil Grunzweig after a grenade was tossed into the dispersing crowd of a Peace Now protest march, which also injured ten others, that a compromise was reached: Sharon would resign as Defense minister, but remain in the Cabinet as a minister without portfolio. Notwithstanding the dissuading conclusions of the Kahan report, Sharon would later become Prime Minister of Israel.
Other conclusions
The Kahan commission also recommended the dismissal of Director of Military Intelligence Yehoshua Saguy and the effective promotion freeze of Division Commander Brig. Gen. Amos Yaron for at least three years.
Additional views
In the 2005 Swiss-French-German-Lebanese co-produced documentary Massaker six former Lebanese Forces phalangist soldiers who participated personally in the massacre stated there was Israeli participation in two ways: one of them said that he saw Israeli soldiers driving bulldozers into inhabited houses inside the camp; another said that Israeli soldiers provided the Lebanese Forces soldiers with material to dispose of the corpses lying around in the streets. Several of the soldiers said that they had received training in Israel. However, these claims are controversial.
“Noam Chomsky and Robert Fisk have said that Israel could have predicted that a massacre by Phalange fighters who entered the camps might have taken place. In particular, such commentators do not believe it is possible that there were “2000 PLO terrorists” remaining in the camps, because
(1) the Kahan Commission documents that the Israeli army allowed only 150 Phalangist fighters into the camps and
(2) the Phalangists suffered only two casualties; an improbable outcome of a supposedly 36-hour battle of 150 militants against 2000 experienced “PLO terrorists”.
Opinions on Hobeika’s responsibility
Robert Maroun Hatem, Elie Hobeika‘s bodyguard, stated in his book From Israel to Damascus that Hobeika ordered the massacre of civilians in defiance of Israeli instructions to behave like a “dignified” army.
Pierre Rehov, a documentary filmmaker who worked on the case with former Lebanese soldiers, while making his film Holy Land: Christians in Peril, came to the conclusion that Hobeika was definitely responsible for the massacre, despite the orders he had received from Ariel Sharon to behave humanely.
Hobeika was assassinated by a car bomb in Beirut on January 24, 2002. Lebanese and Arab commentators blamed Israel for the murder of Hobeika, with alleged Israeli motive that Hobeika would be ‘apparently poised to testify before the Belgian court about Sharon’s role in the massacre. Prior to his assassination, Elie Hobeika had made it clear that he would testify against Sharon.
Sharon sues Time for libel
Ariel Sharon sued Time magazine for libel in American and Israeli courts in a $50 million libel suit, after Time published a story in its February 21, 1983, issue, implying that Sharon had “reportedly discussed with the Gemayels the need for the Phalangists to take revenge” for Bashir’s assassination. The jury found the article false and defamatory, although Time won the suit in the U.S. court because Sharon’s defense failed to establish that the magazine’s editors and writers had “acted out of malice,” as required under the U.S. libel law.
Relatives of victims sue Sharon
After Sharon’s 2001 election to the post of Prime Minister of Israel, relatives of the victims of the massacre filed a lawsuit in Belgium alleging Sharon’s personal responsibility for the massacres. The Belgian Supreme Court ruled on February 12, 2003, that Sharon (and others involved, such as Israeli General Yaron) could be indicted under this accusation. Israel maintained that the lawsuit was initiated for political reasons.
On September 24, 2003, Belgium’s Supreme Court dismissed the war crimes case against Ariel Sharon, since none of the plaintiffs had Belgian nationality at the start of the case.
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