"Twelling"
Bit bereft of ideas if you have to highlight typos but is sums up your position perfectly
I assume you haven't quite got over 'last night's fun' yet.
"Now then J.I.M. tell us all exactly what it is that I have "denied"."
Take your pick - just about everything here and more - tell us what you've accepted other than the word of the isreali establishment
Take your pick
Jim Carroll

The survivors of Sabra and Shatila watched in mute horror, powerless to stop marauding militiamen from exterminating, mutilating, and raping their children, parents, husbands, wives, and friends. The lucky ones know where their loved ones' bodies are buried; many more, however, still have no clue about the final resting place of their dead. And in the hours and days after the massacres, many Palestinian men and boys were rounded up and trucked away, never to be seen again, most notably from a sports stadium near the refugee camps where Israeli military and intelligence officers were present. A mass grave site at the edge of the refugee camp now does double duty as a garbage dump and an occasional soccer field. Nearly 20 years after the massacre, not a single permanent memorial has been erected to commemorate the dead, not a single person--Israeli or Lebanese--has stood trial for the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the camps of Sabra and Shatila in September 1982. Such impunity is not only morally reprehensible and psychologically unbearable, but also politically dangerous because of the precedent it sets and the hearts and minds it poisons.
For those who covered the Sabra and Shatila massacre as journalists, no less than for those who served as medical workers in the camps' hospitals that scorching September twenty years ago, this week's televised images/archive/archive of Israeli tanks surrounding refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza and the photographs of young men lined up, blindfolded and separated from their families as Israeli soldiers point guns at them, are chillingly familiar. Those who have witnessed massacres fear another may unfold at any minute. Those who survived the massacres are incredulous that it might happen again, but this time with the entire world witnessing the killings on prime time television. Those who have followed Ariel Sharon's biography closely--from the cold-blooded attack on the village of Qibya in 1953 that he orchestrated as leader of the notorious Unit 101, resulting in the deaths of nearly 70 innocent civilians, to his latest threats to wreak large scale destruction and collective punishment on Palestinians who have been trapped in their towns and villages under a long siege--urgently warn that Sharon must be stopped before mass graves are dug again in other refugee camps.
Laurie King-Irani
North American Coordinator
International Campaign for Justice for the Victims of Sabra and Shatila


Aftermath – persecution of refugees
Meanwhile, despite Yaron's apparent order from the morning, the pace of the killing had hardly slowed. As executions, knifings, and point-blank shootings continued, bulldozers were at work digging mass graves inside the camps—one of the largest being in full view of the IDF forward command— and, as witnessed by a Norwegian envoy, loading scoops of bodies onto trucks just outside the camp to be hauled away.2 3 A pattern had moreover emerged of executing groups and then bulldozing houses to bury the bodies under the rubble. At the same time, truckloads of Palestinian men, women, and children were seen leaving the camp—a Danish TV crew on Friday filmed groups being herded into trucks near Shatila.2 4 The bulldozing and dynamiting of houses (the "illegal structures" referred to by the Phalange to the Israelis), often with the inhabitants inside, accelerated.
Kapeliouk makes a similar point when describing Israel's provision of bulldozers to the Phalangists during the massacres. In a passage that seems eerily current in this summer of 2002, he writes,
Since the beginning of the war in June 1982, the Israelis have repeatedly used bulldozers to destroy homes and force the residents to flee. The refugee camps of south Lebanon were bombarded and then destroyed with explosives and bulldozers. In Israel, this operation was known as "the destruction of the terrorist infrastructure." The objective was to prevent the Palestinians from forming a national community in Lebanon. Therefore, it was necessary to destroy not only homes, but also Palestinian institutions such as schools, hospitals, and social service centers. In addition, the Israelis sought to deprive the Palestinian population of all males by arresting thousands of men and forcing thousands more to flee.3 3
Amnon Kapeliouk Israeli Author and Journalist

Elsewhere, one could find women with their heads blown apart and others rotting together with the garbage surrounded by flies. A Norwegian diplomat, Gunnar Flakstad, said he saw a pile of bodies being taken off in a scoop bulldozer, apparently destined for burial. In the middle of the camp, near some of the worst bodies, was a freshly dug hole covered with red dirt and patted down by a bulldozer. The site is believed to be a mass grave.
New York Times

Nearby the Israelis continued their roundup of suspected Palestinian guerrillas. Israeli troops armed with loudspeakers drove through the Sabra refugee camp and the Fakhani Palestinian quarter and ordered all men to go to the sports stadium with their identification papers for interrogation.
By late afternoon 500 to 600 men were huddled together under several tiers of the stadium awaiting questioning. The men were being provided with food and water, and anyone in need of medical attention was being treated. The wives and sisters of many of those inside stood behind a fence begging reporters, kissing them up and down the arm, if they would only go in and find out about the fate of their husbands, sons or brothers.
The Israeli commander in charge, Col. Naftali Bahiry, said the identification papers of each man would be checked to determine whether or not he was a Palestine Liberation Organization guerrilla who had been ordered to take off his uniform and stay behind in civilian clothes in violation of the withdrawal agreement. The Begin Government says there are some 2,000 such guerrillas still in the camp. Most Are Not P.L.O. Guerrillas
Colonel Bahiry conceded that most of those being detained by the Israelis after questioning were not P.L.O. guerrillas ordered to stay behind, since few of those were apparently being found. Rather they were members of the Palestinian militia, which is made up of older men or school boys and was in charge of providing law and order in the camps.
Those who belonged to the militia are known as Lebanese Palestinians - the Palestinians who have lived in Beirut since 1948 and who unlike the guerrillas did not come here to fight. The militiamen are for the most part students, workers or businessmen who fight only when called upon to protect the camps.
Asked if all the Palestinian fighters being found by the Israelis were simply local militiamen rather than guerrillas ordered to stay behind by Yasir Arafat, the P.L.O. leader, as the Begin Government claimed, Colonel Bahiry stated, ''Oh, much more than half are militiamen.''
As the Palestinian men trudged to the sports stadium for interrogation, many asked reporters if any Phalangists or Haddad men were there, as they had heard of the killings in Shatila. One woman, Badria Muhaid, said she had her father and three brothers inside the sports stadium with the Israelis, but her 15-year-old brother, Marwan, had been taken away Friday night from the Sabra refugee camp by the Phalangists working together with the Israelis. Interrogated by Haddad's Militia
Colonel Bahiry declared the Haddad men and the Phalangists had been ordered out of the area this morning -but it appears to have been a little too late for the residents of Shatila.
According to residents of Shatila and reporters who visited the main street of the camp Friday evening, things were relatively calm in the area. One young boy, who declined to identify himself, said all the men were ordered out of the camp Friday and were divided up near the sports stadium between Lebanese and Palestinians. They were interrogated by members of Major Haddad's militia, which was transported into Beirut by the Israeli Army. Some of the men, he charged, were cut across the cheek when they refused to cooperate in the interrogation.
New York Times


Amos Yaron Charged For Genocide At Sabra & Shatilla
By Professor Francis A. Boyle
30 August, 2013
26. At this same meeting, the Phalangists requested the I.D.F. to provide them with a tractor for use in the camps "to demolish illegal structures." Defendant Yaron has acknowledged in testimony under oath that at the end of the meeting it was "clear" that "the Phalangists could still enter the camps, bring in tractors and do what they wanted ….", and in fact the Phalangists continued to operate unchecked in the camps throughout the night of September 17 and the early morning hours of September 18. I.D.F. forces under the defendant Yaron's command supplied the Phalangists with a tractor from which I.D.F. markings had been removed. During the night and the following morning the Phalangists used tractors and bulldozers to pile up and bury in mass graves the bodies of hundreds of men, women, and children they had killed in the camps.
Francis Anthony Boyle is a professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law

"There is further evidence which indicates the extent of Israel's complicity in the massacre. The discovery in one of the camps of an Israeli sergeant's identity tag does not prove that he actually took part in the killing but it is significant that the Israeli army did not allow him to appear before the Israeli Commission of Enquiry. More importantly, the Israelis were prepared to assist their Phalangist allies in a number of different ways: they lent bulldozers so that the killers could bury some of the dead; they fired flares throughout the night of 16 September–at a rate of two a minute according to one Israeli soldier — so that the killers could see what they were doing; worst of all, they prevented civilians from fleeing and forced those who tried back into the camps." –
Mondoweiss

As we continued down the street, we—there was an area that had been part of the camp. And suddenly, there were—there was bulldozers with an Israeli—with a Hebrew letter on it, and it was going back and forth, back and forth. That, I'm sure, turned out to be the mass grave. We were—we kept on walking. Walkie-talkies. We reached the end of the camp, and we turned a corner. This was outside of the camp. They lined us up against a bullet-ridden wall, and they had their rifles ready. And we really thought this is—I mean, it was a firing squad. Suddenly, an Israeli soldier comes running down the street and halts it. I suppose the idea of gunning down foreign health workers was something that was not very appealing to the Israelis. But the fact that they could see this and stop it shows that there was—there was some communication.
Ellen Seigal (eye witness)

"The precise number of victims of the massacre may never be exactly determined. The International Committee of the Red Cross counted 1,500 at the time but by September 22 this count had risen to 2,400. On the following day 350 bodies were uncovered so that the total then ascertained had reached 2,750. Kapeliouk points out that to the number of bodies found after the massacre one should add three categories of victims:
(a) Those buried in mass graves whose number cannot be ascertained because the Lebanese authorities forbade their opening;
(b) Those who were buried under the ruins of houses; and
(c) Those who were taken alive to an unknown destination but never returned.
The precise number of victims of the massacre may never be exactly determined. The International Committee of the Red Cross counted 1,500 at the time but by September 22 this count had risen to 2,400. On the following day 350 bodies were uncovered so that the total then ascertained had reached 2,750. Kapeliouk points out that to the number of bodies found after the massacre one should add three categories of victims:
(a) Those buried in mass graves whose number cannot be ascertained because the Lebanese authorities forbade their opening;
(b) Those who were buried under the ruins of houses; and
(c) Those who were taken alive to an unknown destination but never returned.
The bodies of some of them were found by the side of the roads leading to the south. Kapeliouk asserts that the number of victims may be 3,000 to 3,500, one-quarter of whom were Lebanese, while the remainder were Palestinians."(4)

On September 16, 1982, the Israeli Defense Forces ("IDF") occupying Beirut as a result of Israel's June invasion of Lebanon permitted the Phalangists, a Lebanese Christian militia, to enter the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla. From approximately 6:00 P.M. September 16 until 8:00 A.M. September 18, the Phalangists, and perhaps other militia, massacred men, women and children including Palestinians, Lebanese, Iranians, Syrians, Pakistanis and Algerians. The exact number of those killed cannot be determined-bodies having been buried in the ruins, deposited in mass graves and carried from the site in truckloads. Estimates of those massacred have ranged from roughly 300 to as many as 3000 people.
The Kahan Report

On Saturday morning, September 18, 1982 Israeli Mossad agents inside the camp actually were observed driving three of the bulldozers in a frantic attempt to assist the Christian militia in covering up evidence of the crime before the exported international media arrived on the scene. The late American journalist, Janet Lee Stevens, documented that during Sept. 18 and 19th, most of the massacre victims killed during this period were slaughtered inside the joint Israeli-Lebanese Forces "interrogation center." Janet testified that these killed were put in flatbed trucks and taken to the Golf Course, just 300 yards away, where waiting Israeli bulldozers dug pits. Other trucks drove in the direction of East Beirut. At the time of her death, seven months later, Janet was preparing her report for publication. This observer packed Janet's belongings and after some wrangling with the US Embassy staff who had arrived on the plane President Ronald Reagan sent to return Janet and the other Americans remains to the US, her two cardboard boxes of papers and research notes were onboard.
29 Years After the Massacre at Sabra Shatila Franklin Lamb    SEPTEMBER 16, 2011 by FRANKLIN LAMB
'Franklin Lamb is a former Assistant Counsel of the US House Judiciary Committee and Professor of International Law at Northwestern College of Law, Portland, Oregon.

Sabra Shatila Timeline
9 July 1982: Sharon announces that he will in a few months time help the Lebanese Phalange militia "clean out" the Palestinian refugee camps of Beirut. The Labor Party daily newspaper, Davar, reports that an Israeli liaison officer then suggests that Israelis should accompany the Phalangists in their "mopping-up" mission. His idea is rejected on the spot, on the grounds that the Phalangists can be expected to commit atrocities, so it would be unwise for the Israeli Army to be personally involved.
21 August 1982: The international community intervenes to end the siege of Beirut. Under the protection of an international force, all PLO fighters are to depart Beirut for Tunis. As this will leave undefended the Palestinian civilians in the Beirut refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, Yasser Arafat refuses to evacuate the PLO unless the US guarantees their safety. After receiving assurances from Israel, Ronald Reagan's Mid East envoy, Ambassador Phillip Habib, guarantees that the IDF will not enter West Beirut and that Palestinian civilians there will come to no harm. He provides a written assurance to the PLO: The Governments of Lebanon and the United States will provide appropriate guarantees of the safety...of law-abiding Palestinian noncombatants left in Beirut, including the families of those who have departed...The U.S. will provide its guarantees on the basis of assurances received from the Government of Israel and the leaders of certain Lebanese groups with which it has been in contact.
23 August 1982: The Lebanese Parliament elects Israel's protégé, Bashir Gemayel, President of Lebanon. Gemayel is the sworn enemy of the Palestinians. Two months earlier, in an interview published in Le Nouvel Observateur, he declared that in the Middle East, "there is one people too many: the Palestinian people."
(Phalangist threats to massacre the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon have already been widely reported in the Israeli press. When news of Sabra and Shatila breaks, Knesset Member Amnon Rubenstein [Shinui] reports that, during a visit by Israeli parliamentarians to Israeli-occupied south Lebanon, he met members of the Phalangist Party who openly expressed their intention to massacre the Palestinians. One of them told him: "The death of one Palestinian is pollution; the death of all the Palestinians is the solution.")
1 September 1982: Bamahaneh, the IDF's official weekly newspaper, reports that [a] high-ranking Israeli officer heard the following words uttered by a Phalangist officer: 'The question we ask ourselves is: what should we start with? Rape or murder? ... If the Palestinians have any common sense, they should try to leave Beirut. You do not have any idea of the slaughter to befall the Palestinians, civilians or terrorists, who will remain in town. Their attempt to blend into the local population will be futile. The sword and gun of Christian fighters would pursue them everywhere and will exterminate them once and for all.'
1 September 1982: All PLO fighters (15,000 in all) are evacuated from Beirut. The Lebanese authorities urge the multinational protection force to remain in Beirut, to help the Lebanese Army reassert control of West Beirut. Israel intercedes with the US to have the protection force removed immediately.
10 September 1982 – Having received assurances from Ariel Sharon for the safety of Palestinians in West Beirut, multinational forces begin to withdraw from the city.
11 September 1982 – Ariel Sharon announces that 2000 "terrorists" remain in the refugee camps, and that he will have to "clean them out". U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, Nicholas Veliotes, warns that the claim that 2000 fighters remain in Sabra and Shatila is simply a pretext for Israel to seize West Beirut.
12 September 1982 – Ariel Sharon meets with president-elect Gemayel, to coordinate the "cleaning out" of the camps.
13 September 1982 - The last 850 French paratroopers and infantrymen of the Multinational Force leave Beirut, ten days prior to the expiration of their mandate. Israeli Chief of Staff Gen. Rafael Eitan confirms before the Knesset Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defense that PLO forces have evacuated the city and that: "Only a few terrorists and a small PLO office remain in Beirut." (Ha'aretz, September 15, 1982)
14 September 1982 – Bashir Gemayel is assassinated by a remote-controlled bomb at his headquarters. Ariel Sharon informs Gemayel's Phalangist militias that Israel has proof the Palestinians are responsible. (The bombing was actually carried out by Habib Chartouni, an agent of Syrian Intelligence).
14 September 1982, 6:00pm – Ariel Sharon contacts PM Begin. They decide to send the IDF into Muslim West Beirut without informing the Israeli government. (The Israeli government will not find out that its army is occupying Beirut until it finds out the following day from Voice of Israel radio broadcasts).
14 September 1982 - In an interview that Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv will publish on 16 Sept, Israeli Chief of Staff Gen. Rafael Eitan declares: We are going to mop-up West Beirut, gather all the weapons, arrest the terrorists, exactly like we did in Sidon and Tyre and in all other places in Lebanon. We will find all the terrorists and their leaders. We will destroy whatever requires destruction.
14 September 1982, 6:00pm - An officer of Lebanese Internal Security, on duty near Beirut International Airport, notes the beginning of an airlift of Israeli military equipment into the city.
Wednesday 15 September, 1982
00:30am – IDF Major General Amir Drori, commander of Israel's northern region and occupied south Lebanon, receives orders to seize all key points in West Beirut.
03:30am - Israeli Generals Eitan and Drori meet with Fadi Frem, C-in-C of the Phalangist militia and his chief of intelligence, Elie Hobeika [2]. On September 22, Ariel Sharon acknowledges to the Knesset that at this meeting "the principle of Phalangist entry into the refugee camps of Beirut was discussed." At the end of the meeting, one of the Phalangist commanders tells the Israelis: "We have been waiting for this moment, for many years."
05:00am - The Israelis occupy West Beirut, meeting little resistance, but causing great devastation. IDF troops have orders to disarm, in their advance, all Muslim and leftist militias. Colonel Zvi Elpeleg, former Israeli governor of Nabatiyyeh, comments: In Lebanese society, paradoxically, the continuous presence of armed civilians has been an element of equilibrium and mutual deterrence. The entry of Israeli troops into West Beirut has subverted the existing facts. The Israelis have disarmed thousands of citizens, including members of the Shiite movement, Amal. Most of these were simple workers or peasants who bought these weapons with their meager savings for personal defense. These people, therefore, found themselves exposed, at the mercy of the Phalangists. (Ma'ariv, September 26, 1982).
09:00am - Ariel Sharon arrives in Beirut to personally direct the IDF campaign from the Israeli HQ located on the roof of a large building at the Kuwaiti Embassy crossroads, overlooking the city and the Sabra and Shatila camps.
09:00am - The Israeli occupation of West Beirut provokes unanimous protest throughout the world. President Reagan's special envoy, Morris Draper, visits PM Begin in Jerusalem. Begin assures him that Israel's goal in West Beirut is simply to maintain order and prevent "pogroms". He does not mention that Israel intends to allow the Phalangists into the Palestinian camps.
PLO leaders are fearful for the Palestinians left behind in West Beirut, and now under Israeli occupation. They remind the world that they have signed assurances from American envoy Philip Habib guaranteeing the safety of Palestinian civilians after the departure of PLO fighters from Beirut. Farouq Qaddoumi, head of the PLO political department, declares: "We have been given a word of honor that Israel would not enter West Beirut, this promise was broken." Former Lebanese Prime Minister Sa'eb Salam, the intermediary who helped broker the "Habib Agreements", confirms that the Israeli entry into the western part of the city is a violation of the signed accords. Senior State Department officials confirm the view expressed by Sa'eb Salam.
Noon - IDF tanks surround Sabra and Shatila, and Israeli soldiers set up check-points around the camps, allowing them to control all entrances and exits. Anxiety begins to mount among the refugees, who in the past were defended by the now-departed PLO fighters. Most inhabitants lock themselves inside their homes.
Late afternoon/early evening - The IDF launches sporadic shellfire at Sabra and Shatila. Norwegian Doctor Per Maehlumshagen, an orthopaedic surgeon at Gaza Hospital situated to the west of Sabra, treats about fifteen wounded civilians. Other Palestinian wounded, generally victims of sniper fire, arrive the same evening at Akka Hospital, across the road that marks the southern edge of Shatila.
Evening - An Israeli divisional intelligence officer, providing an update briefing on the situation in the camps, reports to the Chief of Staff: "It seems there are no terrorists there, in the camp; Sabra camp is empty." (Kahan Commission Final Report, p. 24).
Thursday 16 September, 1982
08:00am - Gen. Eitan chairs a meeting at Israeli HQ, in which he describes for General Saguy (IDF director of intelligence), a high-ranking representative of the Mossad, and the head of the Shin Bet, the Phalangists' imminent operation in the camps.
Noon - IDF Gen. Drori meets with Fadi Frem, Chief of Staff of the Lebanese Forces, to ascertain whether the Phalangists are ready to enter Sabra and Shatila. Frem responds: "Yes, immediately", and is given permission to proceed.
03:00pm - Brigadier General Amos Yaron (commander of Israeli forces in Beirut) meets Frem and his intelligence chief, Elie Hobeika. Using aerial photographs furnished by the Israelis, they coordinate the details of the Phalangist entry into the camps. Yaron assures the Lebanese that his troops will supply all the necessary assistance "to mop up the terrorists in the camps."
Following the meeting, Gen. Drori calls Ariel Sharon to announce: "Our friends are marching on the camps. We have coordinated their entry." Ariel Sharon replies, "The operation of our friends is approved. Congratulations!" It is not known whether Drori informs Sharon that the Phalangist commanders have told him: ''Bones are going to be broken in the camps." (On October 31, Drori will reveal to the Commission of Inquiry that one of his officers warns him that the Phalangists might massacre the Palestinians).
04:00pm - A Phalangist unit of 150 men, assembled near the airport, begins to move. It advances to the Phalangist HQ at the Kuwaiti Embassy traffic circle. Across the road from the Phalangist HQ, the Israelis set up a command and observation post in an apartment building, which stands 200 meters from one of the massacre sites in Shatila. From the roof of this seven-story building, "it is possible to see into at least part of the Shatila camp, including those parts where piles of dead bodies were found later." (New York Times, September 26, 1982).
Late afternoon - Israeli soldiers manning roadblocks at the entrance of the Shatila camp receive an order by radio to allow the Phalangist forces into the camp at sunset.
05:00pm The Phalangists enter Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. The organized murder of the inhabitants begins immediately, in the Arsal neighborhood of Shatila, across from Israeli headquarters. The Israeli HQ building is seven storeys high and only 200 meters from the major location of the carnage. One Israeli officer says that watching from the roof is like watching "from the front row of a theater."
Evening - Phalangist militiamen murder hundreds of people in the first hours after entry. They shoot everything that moves in the alleys, then break into homes and liquidate whole families at the dinner table, or asleep in bed. In many cases, the victims are dismembered. Infants are killed by having their heads smashed against the walls of their homes. Women and girls are raped before being killed. Most of the victims on the first evening are hacked to death with knives and hatchets (most of the second day's victims will be shot at point-blank range). In some houses, the Phalangists spare the life of a single family member - killing the rest in front of him or her - so the survivor can recount what he lived through and spread terror among the Palestinians.
In the Horsh Tabet area, all 45 members of the Miqdad family are murdered. Some have their throats cut, others are disemboweled, among them a 29 year old woman named Zeinab, who is 8 months pregnant and whose foetus is placed in her arms. Her seven other children are also murdered. Another relative, Wafa Hammoud, 26 years old and in her seventh month of pregnancy, is also killed with her four children. A seven year old daughter of the Miqdad family is raped before being killed. In the same neighborhood, several other women are raped before being murdered, and their naked bodies arranged in the street in the form of a cross.
Evening - Four elderly men from Shatila form a delegation to try to stop the massacre. They are last seen heading south to the Israeli HQ, where they intend to tell the Israelis there are no fighters in the camp, and the civilians wish to surrender. They never arrive, and are found dead near the Kuwaiti Embassy several days later.
07:30pm - The Israeli Cabinet meets in Jerusalem. Cabinet members complain that the government should have been consulted before the IDF was sent into West Beirut, but they agree a draft resolution affirming that the seizure of West Beirut is necessary "in order to forestall the danger of violence, bloodshed and chaos." Defence Minister Sharon mentions in passing that Phalangist forces have entered the refugee camps "in order to clear out terrorist nests." He adds that the contact with the Phalangists is continuing and that their actions are totally coordinated with those of the Israeli Army. Only David Levy, the deputy PM, mentions the possibility that the Phalangists might massacre the Palestinians. The meeting lasts 4 hours. Most of the discussion centers on how to counter U.S. pressure for the IDF to get out of Beirut. The Cabinet devotes less than 5 minutes to the entry of the Phalangists into Sabra and Shatila.
Evening/Night - The Israeli soldiers stationed around the camps' perimeter quickly began to realize that something terrible is happening inside. Two Israeli paratroopers tell correspondent Michael Gerti: On Thursday evening, as darkness fell, Palestinian women from Shatila arrived at the post and hysterically told us that the Phalangists were shooting their children and putting the men in trucks. I reported this to my commander, but all he said was: 'It is okay, do not worry.' My order was to tell the women to go back home. However, many women, and entire families as well, ran away from the camps to the north. I went back and repeated my report over and over. Each time, however, the answer was the same: "It is okay."...It was possible to stop the massacre in Shatila, even on Thursday; had they acted on what we reported to our commander. (Ha'aretz, September 23, 1982).
Evening/Night: A Palestinian resident of Sabra approaches the first Israeli checkpoint to the west of the camp, and tells an Arabic-speaking IDF soldier named Rami what is happening: I told him about meeting a woman wounded in her arm who told me that Sa'ad Haddad's men were killing everyone. The officer asked me if we were armed. I told him that some were armed, but that they only had weapons for personal defense. He told me to announce to the whole population that they must gather these weapons and surrender them before 5 o'clock. As for the massacre, it didn't interest him at all.
Evening/Night: An Israeli nurse gives medical treatment to a wounded nine-month-old baby who has been brought to his medical post by his only-surviving relative. The baby dies. A Phalangist militiaman later sees the baby lying dead and blurts out: "Would you like to get rid of this bundle? I will throw it in the garbage." The nurse testifies that this makes him realize a real carnage is taking place, and he alerts his superiors.
Evening/Night - A militiaman boasts to Israeli soldiers manning a checkpoint: "We have already killed 250 terrorists." One of the soldiers later recalls for journalists that this made the soldiers laugh, and one of them commented: "These [Phalangists] and their exaggerations... How could they have killed 250 terrorists when we have not heard the noise of combat?". The soldier adds, "When he left, we stopped laughing and began to realize that indeed a massacre was unfolding."
10:00pm - Electric power is abruptly cut off in all of West Beirut. Israeli soldiers around the perimeter receive an order to fire illumination flares above Sabra and Shatila, starting at midnight.
11:00pm - News of the massacre begins arriving at the Israeli headquarters from forward command posts near the Shatila camp. They report casualties in the camps, including "terrorists and civilians." The commander of the Phalangist troops in the Shatila camp reports to the Israelis that, "Thus far we have liquidated 300 civilians and terrorists." This report is immediately communicated to Tel Aviv where it is conveyed to more than twenty high-ranking IDF officers.
Night - Israeli troops around the camp fire flares from all directions above Sabra and Shatila. According to one Israeli soldier, his unit fires two 81mm illuminating flares every minute for a duration of several hours. The Israeli Air Force also drops flares to light the camps. International press correspondents based in Beirut see the camps lit up at night, and ask for an explanation from Israeli military spokesmen. The spokesmen don't answer.
Overnight - Casualties pour into the Gaza and Akka Hospitals, bringing news of terrible massacres. At the same time, 1000-2000 civilians, in a state of indescribable panic, seek sanctuary in the hospitals.
Friday 17 September, 1982
01:00am - IDF radio reports from Beirut that "the IDF will not operate tonight to purge the areas of Sabra and Shatila ... It was decided to entrust the Phalange with the mission to carry out these purging operations." The report was rebroadcast at 02:00am, never to be repeated afterward.
Daybreak - Israeli officers and soldiers watch with binoculars what is happening inside the Shatila camp. They can see piles of bodies and men being lined up for execution. Soldiers from an armored unit stationed 100 meters from the camp report that they can see the execution of civilians by the militiamen. Lieutenant Avi Grabowski, deputy commander of an IDF tank company witnesses the Phalangists killing civilians, including women and children. He confronts a Phalangist about killing pregnant women. The Phalangist answers that "pregnant women will give birth to terrorists." Israeli soldiers who report Phalangist atrocities against civilians to their superiors are ordered not to interfere with what is happening in the camps and not to enter the area. When Grabowski reports to his battalion commander, he is told: "We know, it's not to our liking, and don't interfere."
05:30am - Lieutenant Colonel Moshe Hevroni, the bureau chief at IDF General Staff HQ in Tel Aviv, receives a report indicating that 300 casualties are reported in the camps. At 07:30am, he passes this information to Avi Duda'i, a personal aide to Defense Minister Sharon.
On 22 September, Sharon will inform the Knesset: Once the first rumors reached us as to what was occurring in the camps, the northern commander [General Drori] immediately took certain measures to halt the activities of the Phalangists in Shatila... [The IDF] put an end to Phalangist activity as early as Friday around noon. We eventually evacuated them from the area by Saturday noon. This is not true. Throughout Friday, fresh Phalangist troops are admitted into the camps, bringing the total number of assailants up to about 400. The rampage continues all day Friday, with the approval of the IDF (see entry for 04:30pm, below). It is not until 10:00am on Saturday that the massacre finally stops.
Morning - Upon hearing the news that the IDF has entered West Beirut, some Israelis express the fear that this new offensive might be followed by a massacre of Palestinians and the destruction of their camps. A statement from former MK Uri Avneri, appears in this morning's Israeli press, accusing Ariel Sharon of seeking to destroy the refugee camps of West Beirut under the guise of a military operation.
08:00am - Several foreign journalists try to enter the camps, after hearing alarming rumors about what is going on inside. Roy Wilkinson of Newsweek, is stopped from going in by IDF soldiers and Phalangists manning a roadblock. While Wilkinson is talking to the soldiers, a militiaman rushes to the roadblock and announces he had found "an old man." He receives orders to shoot the man. An Israeli officer named Elie explains to Wilkinson that Israeli forces have been ordered not to disturb the militias who are "mopping up the area."(Newsweek, October 4, 1982).
Morning - Additional Phalangist troops enter Shatila through the southern and western entrances. They are equipped with jeeps, trucks, and three bulldozers (at least one of which has been supplied by the IDF, after having its identification removed). The bulldozers will be used for home demolitions and for the preparation of mass graves.
Morning - Phalangist militiamen escort foreign medical personnel from the Akka Hospital, and deliver them into the care of the ICRC. The evacuated medical staff alert the press and the diplomatic corps to the grave developments in the camps.
Between 11:00am and noon - Armed militiamen arrive at Akka Hospital. They murder several of the wounded in their beds, and kill camp residents who have been seeking sanctuary at the hospital. Forty of the people sheltering in the hospital are forced into a truck, and driven away. They are never accounted for. Militiamen also murder two Palestinian doctors, Ali Othman and Sami Khatib, and an Egyptian staff member. A 19-year-old Palestinian nurse named Intisar Ismail is raped by about ten men, then killed. A Lebanese colleague can identify her mutiliated body only because he recognises a ring on her hand.
11:00am - Gen. Amos Yaron reports to Gen. Amir Drori from Israeli HQ overlooking the camps that rumors of "irregular activity" by the Phalangists in the camps are getting more and more persistent. Yaron tells the Phalangist liaison officer at Israeli HQ that the Phalangists must cease firing immediately. But he does not order them to vacate the camps, nor does he verify whether the cease-fire order is being implemented, or send IDF troops to the camp to determine what is happening.
12:00am - Gen. Drori reports to Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan in Tel Aviv that something "suspicious" is taking place in the camps. Eitan leaves Tel Aviv for Beirut, arriving at 03:30pm.
Shortly after noon - Militiamen gather about one hundred men on the main road south of Shatila. After separating Palestinians from Lebanese, they begin torturing the former by slashing their faces with knives and interrogating them.
Late morning/Early afternoon - Additional Phalangist troops gather by Beirut International Airport. The military correspondent of Israeli television, Ron Ben-Yishai, asks their commander where they are going. The commander replies: "Military mission." Ben-Yishai notes that the Phalangist convoy includes 13 tanks, half-tracks equipped with 120mm mortars, vehicles armed with heavy machineguns and many "command cars." He also observes that the soldiers combat gear, even their uniforms, have been supplied by the IDF: the Phalangists have simply replaced the inscription "Tzahal" (i.e. IDF) with the words "Lebanese Forces."
While awaiting for orders, the Phalangists are unambiguous about their mission, boasting: "We are going to kill them", and "We are going to f*ck their mothers and sisters." Eventually, the Phalangist column departs north along the airport road, and enters Shatila from the south and east.
04:30pm - Accompanied by Gen. Drori and Gen. Yaron, Gen Eitan meets Phalangist officers (including Fadi Frem) at Lebanese Forces HQ. According to the testimony of Gen. Yaron, Gen. Eitan congratulates the Phalangists on their operation. The Phalangists report that they have been "mopping up" the area. They complain that the Americans are pressuring them "to stop their operations in the camps," and appeal to the Israelis for "additional time to clean up the grounds." The two parties agree that, "All the Phalangists will leave the refugee camps on Saturday morning, the 18th of September". Until then, the Phalangists continue their "mopping up" operations.
According to the summary made by the Mossad representative at the meeting, Chief of Staff Eitan acknowledges that the Phalangists are mopping up "empty camps", i.e. empty of "terrorists". (Kahan Commission Final Report, p.37)
Throughout The Day - Access to the camp is blocked by Israeli soldiers, who repeatedly order fleeing refugees to turn back. During the afternoon, a crowd of 500 refugees sheltering in the Gaza Hospital in Sabra hear that the Phalangists are attacking the hospitals. Brandishing white flags, the crowd tries to escape the camp, but when they reach Beirut's main east-west thoroughfare, Corniche el-Mazra'a, they are stopped by Israeli soldiers. A spokesman for the group explains to the soldiers that Sa'ad Haddad's men are murdering civilians, but the soldiers order them back to the camp. When they hesitate, an Israeli tank chases them several hundred feet back toward the camps. (New York Times, September 26, 1982).
Throughout The Day - Phalangist units prepare mass graves for hundreds of the scattered corpses. Bulldozers dig one of the mass graves halfway between an Israeli position and IDF headquarters.
Throughout The Day - Eyewitnesses report that truckloads of civilians are being deported to unknown locations. A Danish TV cameraman, M. Petersen, actually films the militiamen loading men, women and children aboard such trucks on the edge of Shatila, just 400 meters from an Israeli position. Residents of the Lebanese villages of Shweifat and Hadath, south of Beirut, confirm that at noon on Friday, three large trucks and two smaller vehicles loaded with civilians pass through their area. None of the people loaded onto trucks will ever be accounted for.
08:00pm - Israeli TV correspondent Ron Ben-Yishai overhears a group of officers from a tank battalion surrounding Shatila say that a soldier and an officer from their unit has watched camp residents being lined up against the wall and summarily executed. They mentioned many "horrors," including the case of one resident who was killed with a shot to the head for refusing to follow the militiamen. The officers continue to discuss events in the camps throughout the rest of the evening. At 11:30pm, the correspondent tells them: "If you are certain of what you are describing; I will call the Minister of Defense." Ben-Yishai calls Sharon at his farm, and tells him: "Something must be done immediately to put an end to this ... IDF soldiers have witnessed executions and murders... In a few hours, the entire world press will know the news, and then we'll be in a big mess." Ben-Yishai states afterwards: "Sharon hardly spoke. We greeted each other on the Jewish New Year and hung up. My impression is that he was rather aware of the developments in the camps."
Saturday 18 September, 1982
06:00am - A group of militiamen with bullhorns call upon the surviving residents to come out of their homes and shelters, assuring them they will not be harmed. As many as 1,000 bewildered survivors - mostly elderly people, women and children - gather in Shatila's main street (Abu Hassan Salameh Street), carrying white flags and Lebanese flags. The militiamen march them at gunpoint south along the street, intermittently selecting out small groups of people who are stood up against the wall of the nearest house and shot. A bulldozer then demolishes each house to hide the bodies under the rubble. Near the camp entrance, Phalangists separate Palestinians from Lebanese citizens. Some Palestinians are taken away in small groups; often, the noise of sustained gunfire is heard, just after a group disappears from sight. Other Palestinians are forced onto trucks parked in front of the Kuwaiti Embassy, and driven away. People taken by the militiamen will never be seen again.
Between 06:00am and 07:00am - Seven Phalangist militiamen come to Gaza Hospital in the northern part of Sabra. They order the medical staff (22 doctors and nurses; mostly internationals, but also including 2 Palestinians) to gather by the entrance. The militiamen check the nationalities of the medical staff, over the objections of a Norwegian physician, Dr. Per Maehlumshagen. A Palestinian male nurse is dragged out of the line and murdered. A Palestinian colleague and a Syrian staff member are also shot. The rest of the medical team is marched down the main street of Shatila Phalangist headquarters near the Kuwaiti Embassy traffic circle. The militiamen harangue them as "Communist scum" and "people who help our enemies". Israeli HQ is located across the street from Phalangist HQ; Israeli Gen. Amos Yaron sees the mistreatment of the internationals, and orders their release.
08:00am - General Amos Yaron observes the remnants of the crowd of most elderly people, women and children, who were gathered at the camp entrance at 06:00am. He announces that the women and children may leave. The men are taken to the nearby Camille Chamoun Sports Stadium for interrogation by the Israelis, who warn them that they must "reveal terrorist hideouts" because, "If you do not tell us the truth, you know that the Phalangists and Sa'ad Haddad's men are here!". Twenty-eight dead prisoners are subsequently found in the sports stadium, their hands tied behind their backs.
Early Morning - U.S. special envoy, Morris Draper (deputy to Phillip Habib), demands of the Israeli Foreign Ministry: You must stop the massacres. They are obscene. I have an officer in the camp counting the bodies. You ought to be ashamed. The situation is rotten and terrible. They are killing children. You are in absolute control of the area and therefore responsible for that area. (Testimony of Israeli FM official Bruce Kashdan to the Kahan Commission of Inquiry; cited in the LA Times, 22 Nov 1982).
10:00am - Israeli tanks approach the main gate of Shatila. Militiamen of the Lebanese Forces get into their vehicles, evacuate the camps, and return to their bases. The camps are silent. Survivors begin to emerge, and to search through the rubble for members of their families.
10:00am - Journalist Robert Fisk and two colleagues are driving past Shatila when they notice an overwhelming smell. They enter the camp, and find dazed survivors and dead refugees in every alley. (Read part of their description). Fisk climbs onto an earthen wall to survey the scene. It shifts beneath his feet, and he realises he is not standing on a wall but on a hurriedly-covered mound of bodies. He falls, and finds himself face to face with the head of a child whose lower jaw has been hacked off. Fisk returns to his bureau to file a report on what he has seen. His editor will not allow him to use the word "massacre" to describe the actions of "our" side.
Noon - Terrorized survivors have left the camps and spread word of what has happened. American and European journalists and diplomats arrive at the camps and discover hundreds of scattered bodies and mangled limbs. A group including the French Ambassador finds a mother hugging her baby in her arms, both shot with a bullet in the head; naked women with their feet and wrists tied behind them; a baby whose head has been crushed, lying in a pool of blood with a milk-feeding bottle next to him; and the mutilated parts of a baby carefully arranged in a circle with the head neatly placed on top.
Foreign correspondents file their first reports. Their reports and pictures have a huge impact worldwide.
Morning - Lebanese Army soldiers and Red Cross rescue workers begin recovering bodies from the rubble. Recovery operations cease after a couple of days, because of the advanced decomposition of the bodies, leaving many of the demolished homes unsearched.
Journalists interview Israeli troops, who say they saw and heard nothing, or say nothing at all. The military correspondent of Ma'arivwrites: "I have never seen our soldiers so silent throughout this war... They listened to our questions, but did not answer". However, some Phalangists are happy to be interviewed. One officer tells a U.S. journalist: "We have waited for years to be able to enter the camps of West Beirut. The Israelis chose us because we are better than they at this kind of house-to-house operation." When the journalist asks him if they had taken any prisoners, he responds: "This is not the kind of operation in which prisoners are taken."
Noon - The Israeli government tries to distance itself from any responsibility in its first official statement: "We do not know anything about these alleged massacres. There is no Israeli presence in the camps themselves. We do not know what is happening in these camps."
08:00pm Voice of Israel Radio reports that "Phalangists entered the vicinity of Shatila yesterday. On their way out they reported to Israeli forces that fierce fighting took place resulting in casualties on both sides. The army intervened to put an end to the hostilities. Instead of reproaching our armed forces we should rather congratulate them for intervening, belatedly, but in a situation where they did not have to intervene, thus preventing a much larger tragedy...."
Midnight - The Israeli Foreign Ministry states that "Israel condemns the massacre", and again maintains that the IDF's only involvement was to stop the Phalangists. But international correspondents reporting to a worldwide audience raise the questions that the Israeli government studiously avoids: such as how could the Phalangists get into the camp, when all of West Beirut was under Israeli occupation, and every entrance to Sabra and Shatila guarded by an IDF checkpoint? And how could the IDF be unaware of a 40-hour massacre taking place before their eyes?
In the United States, President Reagan attributes to Israel a large share of the responsibility for the massacre. A high-ranking American official confirms that the US "would be extremely surprised if Israel was really unaware of what happened in the camps... Israeli forces evidently controlled the whole sector where the massacres occurred."
Throughout the day - In the rest of West Beirut, the IDF continues to arrest and interrogate "terrorist suspects", as if nothing had happened. It picks up 1,000 suspects and takes them for interrogation at the Sports Stadium adjoining Sabra.
Night - By nightfall, the camps are deserted. Surviving residents are too terrified to stay overnight. For the following week, they sleep in the parks and schools of West Beirut.
Sunday September 19, 1982
Morning - US diplomats in Tel Aviv reveal that Lebanese intermediaries who negotiated the evacuation of the PLO from Beirut had repeatedly expressed their fear of a Phalangist massacre of camp residents, but that US envoy Philip Habib and his deputy Morris Draper had assured them that they had a "firm and clear commitment" from representatives of the Israeli government and military that such a massacre would not occur. "Now, we feel that by trusting Israeli promises, we have abandoned the Palestinian residents of the camps to their fate," the diplomats add. Ha'aretz quotes one of the diplomats: "They [the Palestinians] have placed their confidence in us. And we placed our trust in you [Israel]. Now we realize our mistake, but it is too late."
Late Morning - One thousand Israeli demonstrators gather outside PM Begin's residence. They chant "Begin is a murderer. Beirut-Deir Yassin 1982" [3] and ''Down with Sharon, the butcher of Qibya."[4].
Throughout the day. Medical and rescue teams continue retrieving and burying corpses. The body count is inexact. Israel estimates that 700-800 people were killed. French-Israeli journalist, Amnon Kapeliouk, who compiled the first reconstruction of the massacre based on eyewitness testimony, suggests that this is a minimization of the death toll. He notes that the Lebanese authorities recorded 762 bodies buried or cremated by the Red Cross, and about 1200 bodies claimed by family members for private burial, for a total of about 2,000 dead.
Kapeliouk also notes that this number does not include those victims - he suggests in the low hundreds - bulldozed into mass graves during the assault. (The Lebanese authorities did not allow the exacavation of known or suspected mass grave sites, for fear of reigniting Lebanon's sectarian hatreds. They failed to hold a serious investigation into the massacre, for the same reason). Nor do the official figures account for those - again, possibly in the low hundreds - who remained buried under the rubble of destroyed homes after recovery efforts were abandoned due to advanced decomposition of the bodies.
The Lebanese official total also does not include those (in the high hundreds?) who were seen by multiple eyewitnesses being loaded onto trucks and driven away by the Phalangists. A few of the bodies of these missing people, apparently thrown from the trucks, were later discovered along the roads runnning south through the villages of Ouzai, Khalde, Haret el-Naimeh, and Kafr Shima. Other bodies were found on the Airport Road. But the majority were never recovered. American diplomats told the NY Times that they were feared massacred in southern Lebanon. (It is possible that some lie under the new stadium built on the ruins of Camille Chamoun Sports Stadium. And, according to the UK's Independent newspaper, some dozens are also buried near the Lebanese town of Jounieh [5]).
Kapeliouk concludes that, bearing in mind all these factors, it is probable that "between 3,000-3,500 men, women and children were massacred within 48 hours between September 16 and 18, 1982". About three-quarters of the dead were Palestinians, the remainder were Lebanese citizens. Nine of the dead were Jews, who had married Palestinians in the Mandate period, and had chosen to go into exile with them when they were expelled from their homes in Galilee in 1948.
Early Evening - Gen. Eitan holds a press conference in Beirut, and denies any responsibility for the atrocities. He blames the Phalangists and, indirectly, the Lebanese Army and the Americans.
10:00pm - In a special session of the Israeli Cabinet, PM Begin insists that suggestions of Israeli culpability are anti-Semitic, saying: "Goyim killing other goyim, and they accuse the Jews!" Begin refuses to hold a commission of inquiry, as this will be interpreted as "as an admission of guilt" in what is purely "an internal Lebanese affair." The Cabinet adopts and releases a statement absolving Israel of any responsibility; it raises again the fiction that the PLO left behind in the camps "2,000 terrorists" [6], and maintains that accusations of Israeli responsibility are a slanderous "blood libel".
Monday 20 September, 1982
Morning - Two trucks arrive at Shatila, bringing Lebanese soldiers to help with burials. Their bright green uniforms are reminiscent of the Lebanese militias'. Hundreds of panic-stricken survivors stampede northward out of the camp, believing that the militiamen have returned to finish them off.
Morning - The Israeli public and press do not believe their government's denials of involvement. Under the frontpage heading, "War Crime in Beirut", Ha'aretz's military correspondent Ze'ev Schiff reports: A war crime has been committed in the refugee camps of Beirut. The Phalangists have killed hundreds, if not more, of elderly people, women and children, exactly in the same fashion pogroms were carried out against Jews. It is not true, as claimed by official spokesmen that we didn't learn of this crime until Saturday at noon after receiving reports filed by foreign correspondents stationed in Beirut. I personally heard about it on Friday morning. I brought all my information to the attention of a senior official who took immediate action. In other words, the massacre began Thursday evening, and what I learned on Friday morning was certainly known to others before me.
Ha'aretz also publishes a statement by the Israeli Committee Against the War in Lebanon: Those who invaded Lebanon, those who ordered the Israeli Army to enter West Beirut, those who allied themselves with Phalangist murderers and helped them to enter the refugee camps - those are the ones responsible for the massacre of Palestinians. Those who disarmed the residents of West Beirut and delivered them to their enemies - they are the ones responsible for the massacre. Those who made the decision to 'establish order in Beirut,' are the ones responsible for the massacre committed by the 'guardians' they appointed. Begin, Sharon, and Eitan are fully responsible for the assassination of hundreds of elderly people, women and children.
Yosef Burg, Israel's interior minister, echoes Begin's defense, saying: "Christians killed Muslims; how are the Jews responsible?" Novelist Yitzhak Smilanski tells him ironically: We have released famished lions into the arena. They devoured the people; therefore, the lions are the guilty party who devoured the men, aren't they? Who could have foreseen, when we opened the door and let them in that these lions would devour the people?
Writing in Ha'olam Ha'ze, Yeshayahu Leibovitz (professor of Philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem) comments: The massacre was done by us. The Phalangists are our mercenaries, exactly as the Ukrainians and the Croatians and the Slovakians were the mercenaries of Hitler, who organised them as soldiers to do the work for him. Even so have we organized the assassins in Lebanon in order to murder the Palestinians.
In the same publication, Israeli novelist A. B. Yehoshua comments: What can one say? Even if I could believe that IDF soldiers who stood at a distance of 100 meters from the camps did not know what happened, then this would be the same lack of knowledge of the Germans who stood outside Buchenwald and Treblinka and did not know what was happening! We too did not want to know.
22 September 1982 - The Israeli General Command holds a meeting, in which Chief of Staff Eitan sets aside five minutes on the agenda to discuss "events in Sabra and Shatila." No one says a word.
22 September 1982 -In Shatila camp, correspondents find a Palestinian woman pacing back and forth near a mass grave which contains thirteen members of her family, including a 4 month-old baby. Finally she stops, sits on the ground, throws dirt over her head, and asks: "But where do I go now?"
23 September 1982 - A Gallup poll, based on interviews with 1700 people, shows that 60 percent of Israelis considered their government responsible, in one way or another, for the Beirut massacre. (Published in Ha'aretz, September 23, 1982).
25 September 1982 - Public protests against the government escalate in Israel, culminating in a demonstration in Tel Aviv by 400,000 people. (The largest demonstration in Israel's history).
28 September 1982 - PM Begin reverses himself, and accepts the appointment of a limited commission of inquiry. (The Kahan Commission)
16 December 1982 - The UN formally declares the Sabra and Shatila massacres "an act of genocide." As a signatory to both the Geneva Conventions and the Genocide Convention, Israel is legally bound to arrest and try any of its citizens directly or indirectly involved in the slaughter.
8 February 1983 - The Kahan Commission clears Israel of involvement in planning and carrying out the murders at Sabra and Shatila. It concludes however that Ariel Sharon bears "personal responsibility" for the killings, and recommends that he resign as Defence Minister. Sharon is forced to resign, but PM Begin retains him in the government as a Minister without Portfolio, and appoints him to two important Ministerial Committees (on Negotiations with Lebanon, and on Security).
The Commission also recommends that Gen. Yaron, who knew of the killings on the first evening they began but did nothing, should be relieved of field command for three years. Instead, PM Begin promotes him to Head of IDF Manpower and Training.
The Commission makes no recommendations about Chief of Staff Eitan, who allowed the Phalangists extra "mopping-up" time even when he knew a massacre was underway, on the grounds that he is due to retire from the IDF soon anyway.
6 February 2001 - Ariel Sharon is elected Prime Minister of Israel. He will be invited to the White House as a guest of the Bush Administration more often than any other world leader. In contrast, the Adminstration will boycott Palestinian President, Yasser Arafat.
17 June 2001 - British journalist Feargal Keane asks PM Ariel Sharon if he would apologise for the tragedy of Sabra and Shatila. Sharon replies: "Apologize for what?"
19 April 2002 - In the midst of the IDF's invasion and re-occupation of the Palestinian West Bank cities, President Bush describes PM Sharon as "A man of peace".
24 June 2002 - President Bush insists that the Palestinians must choose a new leader, on the grounds that Arafat is "tainted by terror".
Hopefully, anyone who has read this far, through the whole sordid episode of Sabra and Shatila, will have a better appreciation now of why most of the world rolls its eyes when our President lauds the Israeli PM as a "man of peace", but labels the Palestinian leader a "terrorist". Because the other 95% of the world understands that terrorism is not terrorism only when it is committed by Muslims or Arabs, and that the politically-motivated murder of about 3,000 U.S. civilians in New York and Washington DC on September 11, 2001 is a despicable act, but no more despicable than the conveniently-forgotten politically-motivated murder of about 3,000 Palestinian civilians in Sabra and Shatila on 16-18 September 1982.
Journalist Diane Mason writing as ' Lawrence of Cyberia