BS: Israel condemned by UN

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Mar 13 - 03:22 AM

By the way, have just received your nastily smug P M message which appears to claim that you have actually said something here!
"We have reached the tennis end-game you kept announcing.
I leap the net to shake your hand."

"I have and can provide links if you want."
Do so - you have deliberately avoided doing so throughout this thread in order to hide the fact that all your "information!!!!" has come from a murderous human rights abusing regime.
Nurse's eye wwitness account.
You have her statement of what she saw, even to the extent of her witnessing Israeli bulldozers burying the, just as you have with everyone else who has provided evidence that is contrary to Israel's account.
She wrote:
"AFTER INTERROGATING US, THEY TOOK US ACROSS THE STREET TO THE ISRAELI DEFENSE FORCES FORWARD COMMAND POST. IT WAS LOCATED IN A FIVE STORY BUILDING THAT OVERLOOKED THE SURROUNDED CAMPS we saw soldiers looking down on the camps with binoculars."
The building she was describing is the one used by the Israelis as a headquarters – the soldiers were able to witness every detail of the massacre and did nothing.
She was in the camp when the massacre commenced and was removed from the camp during the work of concealing the evidence by bulldozing the bodies into the ground and destroying the dwellings – she describes those bulldozers as having Israeli markings.
The account of the traumatised Israeli soldier who witnessed the massacre first hand (and whose testimony you have rejected out-of-hand) describes the Falangists as being armed with Israeli weapons far superior to those issued to Israeli troops.
You have totally ignored a far more detailed eye-witness account of the massacre; one which is infinitely more specific about the Israeli's involvement in the massacre - I didn't think for a moment that you would wish to comment on it.
Jim Carroll

Robert Fisk's account of teh aftermath – also linked:
"September 15, 1982 – Sharon orders shelling of refugee camps and with Israel support, Lebanese Christian militia enter camps and begin slaughter
As soon as the peacekeeping force was withdrawn, the then Israeli Defence Minister Ariel Sharon moved to root out some "2,000 terrorists" he claimed were still hiding in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. After totally surrounding the refugee camps with tanks and soldiers, Sharon ordered the shelling of the camps and the bombardment continued throughout the afternoon and into the evening of 15 September leaving the "mopping-up" of the camps to the Lebanese right-wing Christian militia, known as the Phalangists. The next day, the Phalangists – armed and trained by the Israeli army – entered the camps and proceeded to massacre the unarmed civilians while Israel's General Yaron and his men watched the entire operations. More grotesquely, the Israeli army ensured there was no lull in the 36 hours of killings and illuminated the area with flares at night and tightened their cordon around the camps to make sure that no civilian could escape the terror that had been unleashed.
Israel's Kahan Commission of Inquiry "not intended for people who have a prejudice in favour of truth and honesty", including US Congress
Although Israel's Kahan Commission of Inquiry did not find any Israeli directly responsible, it did find that Sharon bore "personal responsibility" for "not ordering appropriate measures for preventing or reducing the danger of massacre" before sending the Phalangists into the camps. It, therefore, lamely recommended that the Israeli prime minister consider removing him from office. [14] Sharon resigned but remained as Minister without portfolio and joined two parliamentary commissions on defence and Lebanese affairs.
There is no doubt, as Chomsky points out "that the inquiry was not intended for people who have a prejudice in favour of truth and honesty", but it certainly gained support for Israel in the US Congress and among the public. [15]
Although International Commission found Israel directly responsible, no one was prosecuted
It took an International Commission of Inquiry headed by Sean MacBride to find that Israel was "directly responsible" because the camps were under its jurisdiction as an occupying power. [16] Yet, despite the UN describing the heinous operation as a "criminal massacre" and declaring it an act of genocide [17], no one was prosecuted.
2001 law suit filed in Belgium by survivors of massacre was blocked by US interference
http://citizenactionmonitor.wordpress.com/2012/09/18/truth-about-israels-vile-role-in-1982-sabra-shatila-massacre-of-palestinians/

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Mar 13 - 04:01 AM

Sorry missed my summing up bfore I conceed the "march" to you!!!!
A recap on Israel's exact role in this massacre, researched, documented and proved beyond doubt.
Sharon ordered the shelling of these camps claiming there were 2,000 terrorists hiding there - none were ever discovered nor was there ever any evidence to the claim, before or after the massacres.
Israel provided transport to the site and gave access to the killers.
They also provided the killers with weapons.
They provided massive illumination so the killing could be carried out uninterrupted for three days and nights.
The refugee women were dragged into abandoned buildings and raped before having their throats cut.
Eyewitnesses described how some women being dragged off to be raped and slaughtered reached out to Israeli soldiers standing at arm's length, but where slapped aside, allowing their rapists and killers to indulge themselves.
Israeli forces watched the massacre for three days without making any attempt to stop it.
The killers were allowed to escape
The Israelis proceeded to destroy the evidence of the massacre of up to 3,500 unarmed people, men women and children; destroying buildings where the rapes and murders had taken place.
The bodies were buried in unmarked graves and then bulldozed over - the final touch was to erect a sports stadium over the graves, making it impossible even to do anything but guess how many unarmed and impoverished refugees died at the hands of the combined efforts of the Israelis and Phalangists.
Not a bad three night's work of a regime who claimed it was "nuffin' to do wiv us guv!!!"
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 08 Mar 13 - 04:08 AM

You have her statement of what she saw, even to the extent of her witnessing Israeli bulldozers burying the, just as you have with everyone else who has provided evidence that is contrary to Israel's account.
Yes we have her account.
She saw bulldozers clearing an area at the edge of the camps.
That is where defended and fortified buildings would have been.

The building she was describing is the one used by the Israelis as a headquarters – the soldiers were able to witness every detail of the massacre and did nothing.
No.
That building was a mile from the edges of the camp.
No-one could observe into the narrow maze of streets in the vast sprawling camps from there.

She herself had seen no signs of the civilian massacre from the top of her hospital deep within the camp, or during her long walk out.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 08 Mar 13 - 04:12 AM

All those accusations against IDF are disputed as propaganda.
The evidence is certainly not " proved beyond doubt."
Far from it.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 08 Mar 13 - 04:36 AM

""It took an International Commission of Inquiry headed by Sean MacBride to find that Israel was "directly responsible" because the camps were under its jurisdiction as an occupying power. Yet, despite the UN describing the heinous operation as a "criminal massacre" and declaring it an act of genocide, no one was prosecuted.""

Doesn't seem to be much doubt about that evidence.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 08 Mar 13 - 04:45 AM

There is no dispute that " the camps were under its jurisdiction as an occupying power"

IDF thus does bear a shameful, but indirect responsibility for what happened.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Mar 13 - 05:18 AM

"All those accusations against IDF are disputed as propaganda."
By the proven perpetrators of the crimes, unless you care to provide other evidence - you haven't so far.
"She saw bulldozers clearing an area at the edge of the camps."
Where does she say that ?
There is a mass of independent evidence which says the bulldozers were burting bodies and destroying houses "crime scenes".
Again, if you have evidence to the contrary, apart from claims of innocence from the convicted perpetrators, feel free to put it up.
"That is where defended and fortified buildings would have been."
The only defended and fortified building was the one used by the Israelis as a viewing platform for the massacre - the refugees had no such construction; if they had, 3,500 of them wouldn't have been butchered.
If you have evidence to the contrary, again, feel free, otherwise this is yet another invention of your own.
"No-one could observe into the narrow maze of streets in the vast sprawling camps from there"
The Israelis, as have all active troops, were equipped with high-powered state-of-the-art viewing equipment - they'd have to be totally myopic not to have noticed the systematic and brutal slaughter of 3,000 unarmed non-combatants - and you appear to have overlooked the reports of Israeli troops witnessing the rapes and killings at arms-length distances.
I appear to have missed the claim from anybody that the Israelis were unaware of what was going on - their claim was that they failed to stop it.
Are you privy to the layout of this camp in order to make this off-the-cuff claim - would be grateful if you'd let us all have one.
"She herself had seen no signs of the civilian massacre from the top of her hospital deep within the camp, or during her long walk out."
You've just claimed that shje was never in a position to witness any massacres.
"She was in the hospital throughout the massacres, and was unaware of them."

nowhere in her letter does she mention walks, long or short, nor have you mentioned before her viewing facility from the top of her hospital, this is pure invention on yourt part
On the contrary, tyou have insisted throughout that she was never in a position to see anything
Make up your ******* mind - she either was or she wasn't?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 08 Mar 13 - 05:44 AM

"She saw bulldozers clearing an area at the edge of the camps."
Where does she say that ?
"As we reached the end of the camp, the landscape had changed dramatically. Where homes had stood were piles of rubble. A yellow bulldozer was moving earth back and forth in an area that had been dug up and greatly enlarged."
http://www.mafhoum.com/press2/79P9.htm

She also describes being marched from the Gaza Hospital all the way to the southern edge of the camp, and beyond.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 08 Mar 13 - 05:53 AM

her viewing facility from the top of her hospital, this is pure invention on yourt part
"That evening, a few other health-care workers and I climbed to one of the top floors of the hospital; it had been unused since the recent invasion. Because most of the walls had been bombed out, the view was unobstructed. We watched for a time as flares were shot into the air, brightly illuminating different parts of the camp. After each flare, rounds of light artillery fire were heard. I thought people were trying to shoot down the flares. Not a sound was heard from the camps except the noise of the flares being projected and the shots that followed. No screaming, no cries for help, no human sound, nothing."

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 08 Mar 13 - 08:01 AM

There is a mass of independent evidence which says the bulldozers were burting bodies and destroying houses "crime scenes".
Neither Fisk nor Siegel reported any such thing, except for those buildings at the Southern edge of the camps.

"No-one could observe into the narrow maze of streets in the vast sprawling camps from there"
The Israelis, as have all active troops, were equipped with high-powered state-of-the-art viewing equipment - they'd have to be totally myopic not to have noticed the systematic and brutal slaughter
Not from a mile outside the camps Jim, but Ellen Siegel made the same mistake in believing it to be possible.

I hope I have answered all you points, but you were a bit incoherent in places.
No shame in that. It is an awful subject.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Mar 13 - 08:52 AM

"As we reached the end of the camp......"
Will give you that one Keith I obviously should have checked what I had provided much earlier. My apologies - I hope it won't happen again.
However, what you failed to mention from your link:
"The IDF supplied the flares that lit the way for the murderers; it provided a bulldozer to help bury bodies in a mass grave and hide it with earth", so what the lady saw or didn't see changes nothing, by the information you have supplied.
"That evening, a few other health-care workers and I climbed to one of the top floors of the hospital; it had been unused since the recent invasion."
Will also concede that - I have been taking your claim that she was never in a position to witness anything as accurate, which still makes your statement that she was never in a position to witness the killings simply not true.
"She also describes being marched from the Gaza Hospital all the way to the southern edge of the camp, and beyond"
NO - The killing was all over so by then - as I said, your "long walks" were purely your own invention.
What is clear from all this is that what she did or did not see has never been explained, but whatever it was it was enough to persuade her to join the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign.
Her statement is somewhat irrelevant to both of us now as it has been superseded by that of Dr Ang Swee Chai - who witnessed the massacre close up.
I apologise for my misreading, and I assume you will do the same - no - it's me that's lying now; I seem to remember that you regard apologising as "grovelling".
This is some more of the information from the link provided:
"As the occupying force in Beirut, the IDF under the command of Ariel Sharon was responsible for the safety of the population. The IDF opened the refugee camps to a militia with a history of hatred and indiscriminate violence against Palestinians. It sealed off the refugee camps. It refused to allow terrified, pleading camp residents to escape through the exits of the camps. The IDF supplied the flares that lit the way for the murderers; it provided a bulldozer to help bury bodies in a mass grave and hide it with earth. And no official intervened when it became clear that innocent lives were being taken."
"but you were a bit incoherent in places."
You have provided no evidence whatever other than the denioals of the killers and have throughout deliberately attempted to mislead throughout, often by openly lying - nobody else here has done that .
You have provided with your own link, the facts of the burial of the bodies - you obviously don't read your own information.
You have yet to respond to the whole of the Fisk report and at no time have you even acknowledged the vivid eye-witness account from Dr Ang Swee Chai - a reminder which I will go on providing until you at least attempt to pass it off as 'prejudiced' as no doubt you will when you get round to it.
http://inminds.co.uk/from-beirut-to-jerusalem.html
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Mar 13 - 09:00 AM

Whoops forgot to provide the reminder of your link to the realities of the massacre.
http://www.mafhoum.com/press2/79P9.htm
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Mar 13 - 10:34 AM

And there's more
Jim Carroll

Remembering Sabra and Shatila and atoning
Ellen Siegel
The Daily Star, 10/4/03

......
I was again in Beirut in September 1982. This time I had volunteered as a nurse in a hospital in the Sabra refugee camp following Israel's invasion of Lebanon. It was on Rosh Hashanah that the Israeli Army, under the command of then-Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, stood watch over the camps of Sabra and Shatila as a grotesque massacre of Palestinian and Lebanese men, women and children by the Phalangists took place. The Israelis allowed the perpetrators to enter the camps, even using flares to light their way, prevented terrified camp residents from leaving, and lent the murderers a bulldozer to help bury the bodies.
After the medical workers were forced to leave the hospital, we were taken away and interrogated. Eventually we were turned over to the Israelis. I clearly remember watching as several soldiers prayed ¬ it was both the Sabbath and the first day of Rosh Hashanah. A soldier offered one of the nurses a piece of honey cake ¬ the symbol for a sweet year. In the end the massacre claimed over 800 lives. It also undermined the concept that the Israeli Army was highly moral and idealistic. The massacre at Sabra and Shatila will continue to follow Sharon for the rest of his days. Legal efforts to bring him to justice have so far failed.
Ellen Siegel, a registered nurse in Washington, is an active member of the Jewish peace movement. She wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR
http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20editorials/2003%20Opinion%20Editorials/October/4o/Remembering%20Sabra%20and%20Shatila%20and%20atoning%20Ellen%20Siegel.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 08 Mar 13 - 11:21 AM

And there's more
No. There is nothing more in that snippet.

Siegel was in the centre of the camp and was walked out, yet she was unaware of the massacre.
How much harder for the Israelis outside to know.

"The IDF supplied the flares that lit the way for the murderers; it provided a bulldozer to help bury bodies in a mass grave and hide it with earth", so what the lady saw or didn't see changes nothing, by the information you have supplied.
You do not need flares just to indiscriminately murder civilians.
Neither Fisk nor Siegel saw bodies being bulldozed.

What is clear from all this is that what she did or did not see has never been explained, but whatever it was it was enough to persuade her to join the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign.
Yes, although she was already strongly committed or she would not have been there.

Her statement is somewhat irrelevant to both of us now as it has been superseded by that of Dr Ang Swee Chai - who witnessed the massacre close up.
No. Ang Swee Chai was in the hospital with Siegel and marched out with her.
Neither of them saw anything of the massacres.

I seem to remember that you regard apologising as "grovelling".
I have posted several apologies.

You have provided with your own link, the facts of the burial of the bodies - you obviously don't read your own information.
No. Neither Siegel nor Fisk saw that.

You have yet to respond to the whole of the Fisk report and at no time have you even acknowledged the vivid eye-witness account from Dr Ang Swee Chai - a reminder which I will go on providing until you at least attempt to pass it off as 'prejudiced' as no doubt you will when you get round to it.
It is not at all clear how much of that is hers.
It is only taken from a book cover.
Much has been added, and like your other quote is propaganda.
The Jenin massacre is mentioned.
That never happened.
It was a lie to discredit Israel, but all the gullible Israel haters fell for it as they always do.
You yourself did, remember?

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Mar 13 - 11:57 AM

,fontr color=red>"The Israelis allowed the perpetrators to enter the camps, even using flares to light their way, prevented terrified camp residents from leaving, and lent the murderers a bulldozer to help bury the bodies."
No links again - can we assume that you continue to maker it up.
Your stupidity on this thread is reaching the proportions of self-harm.
You stupidly and smugly attempt to close the thread leaving yourself wide open to once again being totally humiliated by tons of evidence which you continue to ignore.
I wished to leave this thread long ago; we're learning nothing from sombody who admits over and over again that he knows nothing of the subjects he insists on dominating an always has the last word on despite the fact he has been hammered into the ground.
I am not alone I suspect in refusing to stand be called a racist by a racist, a liar by a liar, gullible by somebody who admits he is only taking his information from the perpetrator of the crimes under discussion and an anti-Semite by somebody who describes wartime British anti Semitic fascism as "harmless", - and then claims some sort of victory at the end of it all.
You now continue to lie to the very end, all in support of huiman rights abuses, the mass murder of the poorest and most vulnerable section of an already impoverished people.... and every other sick crime you have and are continue to defend.
You will, I have no doubt, have the last word on this forum, but you will have said nothing - you are alone here; even the pro Israelis have steered well clear of you for fear of catching something nasty.
I also have no doubt that you will claim this as "a personal attack" because I am losing the argument" - that's how crass your behaviour is. If you do so, please challenge the points I have made, one by one if you wish, and I will be more than happy to provide examples of each one of them to prove my case - but there again - you don't do challenges, just as you don't do apologies.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 08 Mar 13 - 02:32 PM

Jim, all I am saying is that there is no hard evidence to contradict Israel's version.
Find some and I will accept it.

I have not lied or made anything up.
We have many issues going at once. Which requires clarifying?

"The Israelis allowed the perpetrators to enter the camps, even using flares to light their way, prevented terrified camp residents from leaving, and lent the murderers a bulldozer to help bury the bodies."

Yes they did send the militia in.
They fired flares, but the massacre would have happened without them.
Did they prevent residents leaving? Siege, the doctor and Fisk would not know first hand.
IDF did provide the bulldozers.
None of them saw bodies being buried. The militia may well have used them for that, but not right by the entrance I think.
Siegel and Fisk both saw the cleared houses at the Southern entrance.
Fisk thought they had been dynamited but Siegel saw the bulldozers working there.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Mar 13 - 07:12 PM

Well, "guest" (God, isn't it easy to exercise free speech under the umbrella of anonymity!), Stringsinger was actually stating facts. AIPAC and their ilk (but mainly AIPAC) are a relatively small but extremely influential lobby group (I prefer to refer to the "Israel lobby" rather than the "Jewish lobby" myself, not least for accuracy: there are quite a few right-wing Christian nutjobs in AIPAC).

The Israel lobby has so much influence over US politicians and the US media (not that the Murdochs need AIPAC anyway to further what amounts to the same agenda) that any politician who expresses criticism of Israel is toast. It's as simple as that. They will have funding withdrawn, they will be briefed against and their enemies will be bankrolled. It makes me laugh when yanks parrot on about their precious free speech. Yeah, say what you like, but criticise Israel and you will disappear. So no politician ever does. Not in any real sense. The media is just the same. You do not read or hear substantial criticism of Israel in the mainstream US media. You have to search for it online, and your sources, with the best will in the world, hardly enjoy the heft of the mainstream guys. The Israel lobby (along with the anti-global warming lobby) is the most undemocratic organisation it's possible to imagine, yet they shamelessly wield influence, in a so-called flagship democracy, way above their membership numbers. It's a disgrace, and it makes the political system in the US a laughing stock, but, of course, the yanks don't see this because they simply don't get to hear the truth.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 09 Mar 13 - 04:15 AM

You do not read or hear substantial criticism of Israel in the mainstream US media

Mainly because it is very, very far from being the worst country on Earth, so it does not merit "substantial criticism."

You would like it to be singled out for criticism like it is here, and like it is where "You have to search for it online, and your sources, with the best will in the world, hardly enjoy the heft of the mainstream guys."
Quite!

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Mar 13 - 06:37 AM

"You do not read or hear substantial criticism of Israel in the mainstream US media"
Wonder if this has to do with the financial and political friends Israel has in high places - and, of course, those who would excuse atrocities and human rights abuses by claiming "it is very, very far from being the worst country on Earth"   

Re the murder of probably over 3,000 unarmed refugees faciltated by and participated in by Israel, headed by a later to be Israeli Prime Minister
"Although International Commission found Israel directly responsible, no one was prosecuted
It took an International Commission of Inquiry headed by Sean MacBride to find that Israel was "directly responsible" because the camps were under its jurisdiction as an occupying power. [16] Yet, despite the UN describing the heinous operation as a "criminal massacre" and declaring it an act of genocide [17], no one was prosecuted.
2001 law suit filed in Belgium by survivors of massacre was blocked by US interference"
http://citizenactionmonitor.wordpress.com/2012/09/18/truth-about-israels-vile-role-in-1982-sabra-shatila-massacre-of-palestinians/
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Mar 13 - 08:49 AM

Precisely that, Jim.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Mar 13 - 09:02 AM

OK, Keith. What do you think of AIPAC then? Do you agree that a tiny, wealthy minority lobby group should wield all that influence over democratically-elected politicians?? Do you really think that's a good thing?

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Mar 13 - 09:57 AM

Veto usage at UN

US UN veto record
"The United States did not exercise its first veto until 1970, on a resolution regarding Southern Rhodesia, which is present-day Zimbabwe.
Since then, it has used its veto 79 times, with more than 40 related to issues in the Middle East.
The majority have been resolutions that have criticised the Israeli government or failed to condemn armed Palestinian factions in the same language as that being used for Israel.
It used its last veto to block a resolution that would term Israeli settlement activity in Palestinian territory "illegal" and demand a halt to all such actions.
Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, said her country "reject[ed] in the strongest terms the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity", but the resolution "risk[ed] hardening the positions of both sides" and moving them away from negotiations."

UK – UN veto record
The United Kingdom has used its veto 31 times; the first in 1956 when it joined France in opposing a resolution ordering Israel to withdraw from Egypt.
Its most recent veto was in 1989, when it joined the United States and France in rejecting a resolution that criticised the US military intervention in Panama.
London tends to use its veto in conjunction with other countries, usually France and the US, although it has used a unilateral veto on seven occasions.

Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 09 Mar 13 - 10:05 AM

Jim, your link is to a blatant propaganda site.
" the inhumanity of the people who did Israel's bidding"
Lying propaganda.

Steve, there are many lobby groups.
What specifically is wrong with this one compared to all the others?

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 09 Mar 13 - 10:08 AM

""You do not read or hear substantial criticism of Israel in the mainstream US media

Mainly because it is very, very far from being the worst country on Earth, so it does not merit "substantial criticism."

You would like it to be singled out for criticism like it is here, and like it is where "You have to search for it online, and your sources, with the best will in the world, hardly enjoy the heft of the mainstream guys.""

There you go again, Keith the perennial non sequitur.

The fact that it isn't "the worst in the world" is a totally invalid reason for saying it is above criticism.

If Israel were even one tenth as good as you would have us believe, it wouldn't need AIPAC or anybody else blocking news items about its activity. Neither would this, or similar, discussions exist.

It is precisely because the Israel apologist lobby works so damn hard to prevent any exposure of Israeli actions in the mainstream media, that it is obvious there is something they need to keep hidden.

It is because of this cover up that we ""have to search for it online, and our sources, with the best will in the world, hardly enjoy the heft of the mainstream guys"", but are the only sources who cannot be blackmailed into silence by AIPAC and for that reason are able to tell the truth.

In all the world, only Israel is allowed to acquit itself of all blame, simply based on its own denials, given against a mass of contrary evidence, much of it from Israeli citizens.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: bobad
Date: 09 Mar 13 - 10:09 AM

"What specifically is wrong with this one compared to all the others?"

Not hard to figure that one out.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 09 Mar 13 - 10:29 AM

Jim,
"Sabra and Shatila, part of a pattern of ethnic cleansing perpetrated under the Zionist plan to finally and forever extinguish Palestinian society and its people"
This is disgusting stuff.
Did you read it before linking to it?
Does this represent your view?
Please respond.

Don, no country is above criticism.
Many many countries more-so that Israel, so why do you and Steve expect to see "substantial criticism" of Israel in the press?

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 09 Mar 13 - 10:34 AM

Don.
""have to search for it online, and our sources, with the best will in the world, hardly enjoy the heft of the mainstream guys"", but are the only sources who cannot be blackmailed into silence by AIPAC and for that reason are able to tell the truth.

Do you mean like that site Jim just linked too?
There are so many of them , it is like a global industry.
Would you like to see those lies in our mainstream media too?

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Mar 13 - 10:54 AM

A partial list of details of US veto record in support of Israel – 2 years out-of-date, I'm afraid!!!
BTW - these are official records, in this case from the US - anybody wishing to challenge them with figures of their own, please feel free.
Anybody wishing to support Israel's appalling human rights record by comparing it with that of other nations should be prepared to tell us whose record we should compare it with to make it acceptable – Kenneth Kaunda's, Ratco Mladic's, Papa Doc Duvalier's, Augusto Pinochet's, Rwanda's, Greece's under the colonel's ..... Hitler's or Stalin's maybe.
Would be interesting to see if they feel there should be a baseline or a ceiling in excusing war crimes.
Jim Carroll   

US Vetoes of Resolutions Against Israel, 1972-2011.
1   "…condemned Israel's attack against Southern against southern Lebanon and Syria…"
2   "…affirmed the rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination, statehood and equal protections…"
3   "…condemned Israel's air strikes and attacks in southern Lebanon and its murder of innocent civilians…"
4   "…called for self-determination of Palestinian people…"
5   "…deplored Israel's altering of the status of Jerusalem, which is recognized as an international city by most world nations and the United Nations…"
6   "…affirmed the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people…"
7   "…endorsed self-determination for the Palestinian people…"
8   "…demanded Israel's withdrawal from the Golan Heights…"
9   "…condemned Israel's mistreatment of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip and its refusal to abide by the Geneva convention protocols of civilized nations…"
10 "…condemned an Israeli soldier who shot eleven Moslem worshippers at the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount near Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem…"
11 "…urged sanctions against Israel if it did not withdraw from its invasion of Lebanon…"
12 "…urged sanctions against Israel if it did not withdraw from its invasion of Beirut…"
13 "…urged cutoff of economic aid to Israel if it refused to withdraw from its occupation ofLebanon…"
14 "…condemned continued Israeli settlements in occupied territories in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, denouncing them as an obstacle to peace…"
15 "…deplores Israel's brutal massacre of Arabs in Lebanon and urges its withdrawal…"
16 "…condemned Israeli brutality in southern Lebanon and denounced the Israeli 'Iron Fist' policy of repression…"
17 "…denounced Israel's violation of human rights in the occupied territories…"
18 "…deplored Israel's violence in southern Lebanon…"
19 "…deplored Israel's activities in occupied Arab East Jerusalem that threatened the sanctity of Muslim holy sites…"
20 "…condemned Israel's hijacking of a Libyan passenger airplane…"
21 "…deplored Israel's attacks against Lebanon and its measures and practices against the civilian population of Lebanon…"
22 "…called on Israel to abandon its policies against the Palestinian intifada that violated the rights of occupied Palestinians, to abide by the Fourth Geneva Conventions, and to formalize a leading role for the United Nations in future peace negotiations…"
23 "…urged Israel to accept back deported Palestinians, condemned Israel's shooting of civilians, called on Israel to uphold the Fourth Geneva Convention, and called for a peace settlement under UN auspices…"
24 "…condemned Israel's… incursion into Lebanon…"
25 "…deplored Israel's… commando raids on Lebanon…"
26 "…deplored Israel's repression of the Palestinian intifada and called on Israel to respect the human rights of the Palestinians…"
27 "…deplored Israel's violation of the human rights of the Palestinians…"
28 "…demanded that Israel return property confiscated from Palestinians during a tax protest and allow a fact-finding mission to observe Israel's crackdown on the Palestinian intifada…"
29 "…called for a fact-finding mission on abuses against Palestinians in Israeli-occupied lands…"
30 "…confirmed that the expropriation of land by Israel, the occupying power, in East Jerusalem was invalid, and called upon the Government of Israel to rescind the expropriation orders and refrain from such action in the future."
31 "…called on Israel to abide scrupulously by its legal obligations and responsibilities under the 1949 Geneva Convention" and to refrain from it's policy of settlement expansion which "alter facts on the ground pre-empting final status negotiations, and have negative implications for the Middle East Peace Process;"
32 "…demanded that Israel immediately cease construction of the Jabal Abu Ghneim settlement in East Jerusalem as well as other Israeli settlement activities in the occupied territories."
33 "… requested an unarmed UN Observer force to be sent to the West Bank to help protect Palestinian civilians."
34 "…requested the sending of a human rights monitoring force to the Occupied Territories and condemned all acts of terror, extra-judiciary killing, excessive use of force and house demolitions. Also expressed it determination to contribute to ending the violence and to prompting dialogue between Israeli and Palestinian sides.
35 "…condemned the killing by the Israeli occupying forces of
several UN employees" and demanded that Israel, complied fully with the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War" and "refrained from the excessive and disproportionate use of force in the Occupied Palestinian Territory;"
36 "…demanded that Israel ceased threats to deport or harm Yasser Arafat, the elected President of the Palestinian Authority;"
37 "…decides that the construction by Israel, the occupying Power, of a wall in the Occupied Territories departing from the armistice line of 1949 is illegal under relevant provisions of international law and must be ceased and reversed;"
38 "…condemned Israel for the extra-judicial executions that killed Sheikh Ahmed Yassin along with six other Palestinians outside a mosque in Gaza City and calls for a complete cessation of extra-judicial executions by Israel"
39 "…condemned the military incursion into Gaza and demanded the immediate cessation of all military operations in the area of Northern Gaza and the withdrawal of the Israeli occupying forces from that area;
40 "…condemned all acts of violence, terror and destruction during the Gaza conflict including rocket attacks by Hamas into Israel and the military assault being carried out by Israel."
41 "…called upon the Palestinian Authority to take immediate and sustained action to bring an end to violence, including the firing of rockets on Israeli territory. Called upon Israel to immediately cease its military operations within Gaza and to immediately withdraw its forces to to positions prior to 28 June 2006, and expressed grave concern about the dire humanitarian situation of the Palestinian people."
declared Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories were illegal and a "major obstacle to the achievement of a just, lasting and comprehensive peace".

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Mar 13 - 11:06 AM

Don, no country is above criticism.
Many many countries more-so that Israel, so why do you and Steve expect to see "substantial criticism" of Israel in the press?

The point is that substantial criticism of Israel in the press, especially in the US, is actively discouraged. This is not a level playing field here, Keith. The powerful Israel lobby ensures that criticism is muted at best and absent at worst, and not only in the press but in public life in general. There are millions of people like you the western world over who have been hoodwinked into thinking that Israel is just an ordinary democracy going about things in a decent way, with some troublesome Islamic neighbours getting in the way at times. That is the picture presented by a media that is either biased (aka Murdoch et al.) or suppressed by the Israel lobby. We want to hear the unvarnished truth, and we don't get it. The difference between you and those of us who oppose you is that you don't see this and we do. Actually, Keith, you don't want to see it.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Mar 13 - 11:10 AM

"Sabra and Shatila, part of a pattern of ethnic cleansing perpetrated under the Zionist plan to finally and forever extinguish Palestinian society and its people"
I've made clear that I believe the systematic slaughter of civilians and the fascist manipulation of nomadic communities and the forcible removal to or abandoning those already forced to live on toxic sites,is comparable to ethnic cleansing - in the case of the Bedouins in Israel is comparable to ethnic cleansing.
I've also claimed the same of the policies towards Travellers in Britain and Ireland - go and look at the records of all of these countries.
Sabra and Shatila - the cold-blooded massacre of 3,000 refugees facilitated by Israel - how else can it be described?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Mar 13 - 11:57 AM

A final word to Keith.
I produced first the number of times that the US has vetoed criticisms on Israel in the US, following it with the details of some of those vetoes.
Unless my eyesight has completely gone walkabout, I can't find a link to either list nor details; correct me if I'm wrong.
The sites I got those particular items of information from contain nothing like the quote you gave us, in fact they were both simply lists, nothing more.
As you have decided not to back up your own 'information' (sic), and have made it a common practice to attack the source rather than disprove the information, as you have attempted rather disastrously here, I have decided to take up your own practice of not including links in order not to be diverted from the issue in hand.
If you dispute the information provided, please do so with facts and figures rather than divertive tactics.
The details I have offered up are available on dozens of sites, including the UN's own.
I was grateful for your having given me the opportunity to air my views on the ethnic cleansing of Travellers (once more); it is something very dear to my heart; but unless you would like to prove that I got my information from the site you either dug out at random or invented, please be good enough to withdraw your accusation (chance would be a fine thing!!!!)
I have also decided, in the interests of free and honest discussion, no longer to follow your red-herrings and diversions, and so have no intention of dropping into any more of your black holes and cess pits, so I would be ever so grateful if you would concentrate your comments to what I have to say rather than to me.
As far as our little tete-a-tetes are concerned – over and out.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 09 Mar 13 - 01:30 PM

As you have decided not to back up your own 'information' (sic)

Just give me an example Jim.
I promise to substantiate or withdraw.
Or is it just more empty bluster because you have nothing else?

Your post with a link contained no facts or information at all!
Just propaganda from a site full of vicious, hate filled, hate fomenting lies.
Does it represent your views Jim?

Israel was responsible for parts of Lebanon in 1982.
They did "facilitate" a Lebanese Arab militia entering the camps.
They deny knowing a massacre would happen, or knowing it was happening, and they did stop it.
A denial itself is worth nothing, but there is no evidence to show that IDF did know either of those things.

I am deeply suspicious of "witnesses" who only appeared long after the event, and remind you that witnesses were produced to the "massacre" at Jenin, the dumping of bodies from Marmara, the killing of a young Gazan by border guards who turned out not to be dead but wounded by Gazans, faked casualties, etc., etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 09 Mar 13 - 01:39 PM

Steve, all lobby groups aim to influence the media and public life in general.
Are you against them all or just this one?
Why is it singled out?

And, how do you know what the true truth is, and that you are not getting it?
You would rather believe sites like Jim's.
I would value your opinion of that site Steve.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Mar 13 - 09:21 PM

I will give my opinion of whatever I like. Yes, I do single out AIPAC (unlike most lily-livered yanks, who appear to be scared even to type the acronym. That's how bad it is). Of course lobby groups are, in general, perfectly valid. But we are not talking about most lobby groups here. We are talking about a very sinister, relatively small group of people, mostly right-wing, mostly very wealthy, who, conspiratorially, have decided that a good way of helping Israel is to exert improper influence. Not honest-to-goodness publicity, etc., but briefing against politicians who dare to open their mouths against Israel, promoting their political enemies and ensuring that they lose funding and get smeared in any way possible. We are not talking here about a bunch of Guardian-reading do-gooders turning up at Downing Street with a big petition, are we. So yes, this extreme right-wing, extremely undemocratic organisation deserve to be singled out. No one voted for AIPAC yet they effectively run a very large part of US foreign policy. But we can hardly be surprised that you think all that's hunkydory. After all, you also think that Israel is a bastion of democracy.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Mar 13 - 03:45 AM

"You would rather believe sites like Jim's."
This is trolling at its worst.
This comedian has been given many dozens of examples of Israeli atrocities which he has rejected as biased, anti-Semitic and lying
I have not given a source yet he keeps up his sniding lies.
I HAVE NOT GIVEN A SITE AND WHATEVER ONE HE HAS FOUND OR INVENTED BEARS ANY RELATIONSHIP TO THE ONE I USED, WHICH DOES NOT CONTAIN ANYTHING RESEMBLING HIS WORDING - THEY ARE OFFICIAL UN FIGURES AND ARE AVAILABLE ON DOZENS OF SITES, INCLUDING THE UN'S OWN SITE WHICH HE WOULD NO DOUBT DESCRIBE AS "LYING AND ANTISEMITIC ANYWAY
This is a deliberate attempt to undermine evidence he has been given and unless he explains himself or withdraw his accusation I will report him.
Nobody should be allowed to deliberately wreck a discussion and undermine other members contributions by openly lying.
This is an overview dated September/October 1993 which outlines the US's continued policy of protecting Israel from criticism for its terrorist policy:
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/p-neff-veto.html
And this is the record of US vetoes by the US from The Jewish Virtual library - a supporter of Israeli policies and - in its own description   
"A division of the American Israeli Co-operative Enterprise" - from the horses mouth, so to speak.
It is headed "U.S. Vetoes of UN Resolutions Critical of Israel 1972-2011)".
"You would rather believe sites like Jim's. I would value your opinion of that site Steve."
I have become used to Keith's persistent lying on this forum - but it is beyond a joke for him to attempt to involve others in these lies.
LET IT STOP NOW - IT IS NOT ONLY AN INSULT TO THOSE INVOLVED IN THIS DISCUSSION BUT IT TOTALLY DEBASES THE VALUE OF THIS FORUM AS A PLACE OF OPEN, HONEST DISCUSSION.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Mar 13 - 03:53 AM

So you believe in a global Jewish conspiracy of secrecy?
After all, you also think that Israel is a bastion of democracy.
Is it not a democracy, and the only one in the region?

We want to hear the unvarnished truth, and we don't get it.
Have the Jews also silenced The Guardian, the BBC, .....?
That is the only way I could have been hoodwinked and you deprived of the truth.
Is that what you believe?
I would also value your view of Jim's site.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Mar 13 - 04:02 AM

Last post was to Steve.
Jim.

This comedian has been given many dozens of examples of Israeli atrocities which he has rejected as biased, anti-Semitic and lying

Not true Jim, but the this site you linked to yesterday is an antisemetic propaganda site.
http://citizenactionmonitor.wordpress.com/2012/09/18/truth-about-israels-vile-role-in-1982-sabra-shatila-massacre-of-palestinians/
Likewise Electronic Intifada. The clue is in the name.
I also did object to your putting up some random bloke's blog as a source of reliable information.

So be specific.
Which statements of mine are unsupported?
Which legitimate site have I rubbished?

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Mar 13 - 04:07 AM

Condemnation of the US use of the veto in favour of Israeli human rights offences and atrocities run into the 100s – take a look.
This is a small selection of generalised comments on the US use of the veto.
Jim Carroll
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2000.htm
http://rense.com/general48/isr.htm
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/USveto.html

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Mar 13 - 04:20 AM

You continue to call me a liar - I have never seen the site you name and I would have to be off my head to use such a site with your 'rejection' record.
I defy you to to show in any way why my lists could not have come from any one of the hundreds available on the subject.
My figures were drawn from direct UN sources and an American site.
You have described the Guardian, the UN, Human Rights Watch, BBC reports, general newspaper reports - including the Daily Mail......... the list is endless - of being liars, baised, obscure journals
I realise it is not your practice to read what others put up, but I suggest you google 'US veto supporting Israel' to see how many times these lists have been made available.
Do you really want to continue fucking up this forum by debasing it the way you have?
It really isn't making your case, but it has provided us with a perfect example of an Israeli 'atrocity denier'
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Mar 13 - 05:14 AM

You have described the Guardian, the UN, Human Rights Watch, BBC reports, general newspaper reports - including the Daily Mail......... the list is endless - of being liars, baised, obscure journals
Not true Jim, but I did link to a site that suggested Pheobe Greenwood of the Guardian was biased.

I have not challenged your list of vetoes.
It is accurate.
There are so many because General Council singles out Israel for attack as if it was the worse country in the world. No other country comes even close to the number of condemnations Israel gets.

I have never seen the site you name and I would have to be off my head to use such a site with your 'rejection' record.
: 09 Mar 13 - 06:37 AM
......
......
http://citizenactionmonitor.wordpress.com/2012/09/18/truth-about-israels-vile-role-in-1982-sabra-shatila-massacre-of-palestinians/
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Mar 13 - 05:17 AM

I would have to be off my head to use such a site
I fear that you actually are losing it Jim.
Time to give it a rest?

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Mar 13 - 05:26 AM

I believed you to be referring to the list of vetoes I supplied which you have yet to refer to - you did not make that clear.
The site I did refer you to drew all its information from reliable sources - as you have chosen to only present the information out of context (eg - edited it) I give you sections of the article references to provide the context you have deliberately removed.
Having persistently admitted that you are drawing all your information from pro Israeli sites, and only presenting Israel's defence of its war crimes - are you really suggesting that the rest of us have no right to take quotes from wherever we choose
This is a non-aligned world-wide campaigning site which involves itself in all types and levels of issues. The sources used are all, as far as I can see, respectably accredited ones
How ******* dare you attempt to censor such a site when you have chosen to select only that favourable to mass murderers and human rights abusers - challenge the facts provided, not the source of those facts
You have just claimed you have not junked postings - you have done so throughout and are doing so now.
If you have any factual proof that the information here is factually wrong or biased, feel free to provide evidence of your own
Jim Carroll

Truth about Israel's vile role in 1982 Sabra-Shatila massacre of Palestinians
Leave a reply
Facts need testimony to be remembered

No 570 Posted by fw September 18, 2012

2001 law suit filed in Belgium by survivors of massacre was blocked by US interference

"It was not until 2001 that a law suit was filed in Belgium by the survivors of the massacre and relatives of the victims against Sharon alleging his personal responsibility. However, the court did not allow for "universal jurisdiction" – a principle which was intended to remove safe havens for war criminals and allow their prosecution across states. The case was won on appeal and the trial allowed to proceed, but without Sharon who by then was prime minister of Israel and had immunity. US interference led to the Belgian Parliament gutting the universal jurisdiction law and by the time the International Criminal Court was established in The Hague the following year, the perpetrators of the Sabra and Shatila massacre could no longer be tried because its terms of reference did not allow it to hear cases of war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide pre-dating 1 July 2002. Neither Sharon nor those who carried out the massacres have ever been punished for their horrendous crimes."

"This post begins with an 8:39-minute video featuring eye-witness accounts of the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre reported by two journalists, Briton Robert Fisk and Norwegian Odd Karsten Tveit.
Following the video, is a Counterpunch article by Sonja Karkar, founder co-founder and editor of the website http://www.australiansforpalestine.com, an advocacy group that provides a voice for Palestine at all levels of Australian society.
Sabra & Shatila massacre of Palestinians-Eyewitness (Robert Fisk & Odd Karsten Tveit)
Uploaded by VisualJustice on Jan 9, 2011– The Massacre of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon by the Christian Lebanese Phalangists In collaboration with Israel.
The Massacre at Sabra and Shatila, Thirty Years Later: A Never-Ending Horror Story, by Sonja Karkar, Counterpunch. Weekend Edition September 16-18, 2012
The 30th anniversary of a slaughter staged by the Israeli government that has gone unpunished
It happened thirty years ago – 16 September 1982. A massacre so awful that people who know about it cannot forget it. The photos are gruesome reminders – charred, decapitated, indecently violated corpses, the smell of rotting flesh, still as foul to those who remember it as when they were recoiling from it all those years ago. For the victims and the handful of survivors, it was a 36-hour holocaust without mercy. It was deliberate, it was planned and it was overseen. But to this day, the killers have gone unpunished.
A ghastly reminder of Israeli's ruthless inhumanity in an indifferent world
Sabra and Shatila – two Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon – were the theatres for this staged slaughter. The former is no longer there and the other is a ghostly and ghastly reminder of man's inhumanity to men, women and children – more specifically, Israel's inhumanity, the inhumanity of the people who did Israel's bidding and the world's inhumanity for pretending it was of no consequence. There were international witnesses – doctors, nurses, journalists – who saw the macabre scenes and have tried to tell the world in vain ever since.
Each act was barbarous enough on its own to warrant fear and loathing. It was human savagery at its worst and Dr Ang Swee Chai was an eye witness as she worked with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society on the dying and the wounded amongst the dead. What she saw was so unimaginable that the atrocities committed need to be separated from each other to even begin comprehending the viciousness of the crimes. [1]
People Tortured. Blackened bodies smelling of roasted flesh from the power shocks that had convulsed their bodies before their hearts gave out – the electric wires still tied around their lifeless limbs
People with gouged out eye sockets. Faces unrecognizable with the gaping holes that had plunged them into darkness before their lives were thankfully ended.
Women raped. Not once – but two, three, four times – horribly violated, their legs shamelessly ripped apart with not even the cover of clothing to preserve their dignity at the moment of death.
Children dynamited alive. So many body parts ripped from their tiny torsos, so hard to know to whom they belonged – just mounds of bloodied limbs amongst the tousled heads of children in pools of blood.
Families executed. Blood, blood and more blood sprayed on the walls of homes where whole families had been axed to death in a frenzy or lined up for a more orderly execution.
There were also journalists who were there in the aftermath and who had equally gruesome stories to tell, none of which made the sort of screaming front page headlines that should have caused lawmakers to demand immediate answers. What they saw led them to write shell-shocked accounts that have vanished now into the archives, but are no less disturbing now. These accounts too need to be individually absorbed, lest they be lumped together as just the collective dead rather than the systematic torture and killing of individual, innocent human beings.
Women gunned down while cooking in their kitchens. [2] The headless body of a baby in diapers lying next to two dead women. [3] An infant, its tiny legs streaked with blood, shot in the back by a single bullet. [4]   Slaughtered babies, their bodies blackened as they decomposed, tossed into rubbish heaps together with Israeli army equipment and empty bottles of whiskey. [5] An old man castrated, with flies thick upon his torn intestines. [6] Children with their throats slashed. [7] Mounds of rotting corpses bloated in the heat – young boys all shot at point-blank range. [8]

And most numbing of all are the recollections of the survivors whose experiences were so shockingly traumatic that to recall them must have been painful beyond all imaginings. One survivor, Nohad Srour, 35 said:
"I was carrying my one year-old baby sister and she was yelling "Mama! Mama!" Then suddenly nothing. I looked at her and her brain had fallen out of her head and down my arm. I looked at the man who shot us. I'll never forget his face. Then I felt two bullets pierce my shoulder and finger. I fell. I didn't lose consciousness, but I pretended to be dead." [9]
The statistics of those killed vary, but even according to the Israeli military, the official count was 700 people killed while Israeli journalist, Amnon Kapeliouk put the figure at 3,500. [10] The Palestinian Red Crescent Society put the number killed at over 2,000. [11] Regardless of the numbers, they would not and could not mitigate what are clear crimes against humanity.

Is it any surprise that the anniversaries of the massacre are ignored by Western governments and mainstream media? They "prefer" not to remember.

Fifteen years later, Robert Fisk, the journalist who had been one of the first on the scene, said:

"Had Palestinians massacred 2,000 Israelis 15 years ago, would anyone doubt that the world's press and television would be remembering so terrible a deed this morning? Yet this week, not a single newspaper in the United States – or Britain for that matter – has even mentioned the anniversary of Sabra and Shatila."[12]
Thirty years later it is no different.
Events leading up to the massacre –
June 1982 – Israel begins assault on Beirut's Palestinian civilian population
What happened must be set against the background of a Lebanon that had been invaded by the Israeli army only months earlier, supposedly in 'retaliation' for the attempted assassination of the Israeli Ambassador in London on 4 June 1982. Israel attributed the attempt to Arafat's Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) then resident in Beirut. In reality, it was a rival militant group headed by Abu Nidal. Israel wanted to oust the PLO from Lebanon altogether and on 6 June 1982, Israel began its devastating assault on the Lebanese and Palestinian civilian population in the southern part of Lebanon. Lebanese government casualty figures numbered the dead at around 19,000 with some 30,000 wounded, but these numbers are hardly accurate because of the mass graves and other bodies lost in the rubble. [13]
September 1, 1982 – PLO surrender arms and quit Beirut; US guarantee protection for refugees left behind
By 1 September, a cease-fire had been mediated by United States envoy Philip Habib, and Arafat and his men surrendered their weapons and were evacuated from Beirut with guarantees by the US that the civilians left behind in the camps would be protected by a multinational peacekeeping force. That guarantee was not kept and the vacuum then created, paved the way for the atrocities that followed.

September 15, 1982 – Sharon orders shelling of refugee camps and with Israel support, Lebanese Christian militia enter camps and begin slaughter

As soon as the peacekeeping force was withdrawn, the then Israeli Defence Minister Ariel Sharon moved to root out some "2,000 terrorists" he claimed were still hiding in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. After totally surrounding the refugee camps with tanks and soldiers, Sharon ordered the shelling of the camps and the bombardment continued throughout the afternoon and into the evening of 15 September leaving the "mopping-up" of the camps to the Lebanese right-wing Christian militia, known as the Phalangists. The next day, the Phalangists – armed and trained by the Israeli army – entered the camps and proceeded to massacre the unarmed civilians while Israel's General Yaron and his men watched the entire operations. More grotesquely, the Israeli army ensured there was no lull in the 36 hours of killings and illuminated the area with flares at night and tightened their cordon around the camps to make sure that no civilian could escape the terror that had been unleashed.
Israel's Kahan Commission of Inquiry "not intended for people who have a prejudice in favour of truth and honesty", including US Congress
Although Israel's Kahan Commission of Inquiry did not find any Israeli directly responsible, it did find that Sharon bore "personal responsibility" for "not ordering appropriate measures for preventing or reducing the danger of massacre" before sending the Phalangists into the camps. It, therefore, lamely recommended that the Israeli prime minister consider removing him from office. [14] Sharon resigned but remained as Minister without portfolio and joined two parliamentary commissions on defence and Lebanese affairs. There is no doubt, as Chomsky points out "that the inquiry was not intended for people who have a prejudice in favour of truth and honesty", but it certainly gained support for Israel in the US Congress and among the public. [15]
Although International Commission found Israel directly responsible, no one was prosecuted

It took an International Commission of Inquiry headed by Sean MacBride to find that Israel was "directly responsible" because the camps were under its jurisdiction as an occupying power. [16] Yet, despite the UN describing the heinous operation as a "criminal massacre" and declaring it an act of genocide [17], no one was prosecuted.
2001 law suit filed in Belgium by survivors of massacre was blocked by US interference
It was not until 2001 that a law suit was filed in Belgium by the survivors of the massacre and relatives of the victims against Sharon alleging his personal responsibility. However, the court did not allow for "universal jurisdiction" – a principle which was intended to remove safe havens for war criminals and allow their prosecution across states. The case was won on appeal and the trial allowed to proceed, but without Sharon who by then was prime minister of Israel and had immunity. US interference led to the Belgian Parliament gutting the universal jurisdiction law and by the time the International Criminal Court was established in The Hague the following year, the perpetrators of the Sabra and Shatila massacre could no longer be tried because its terms of reference did not allow it to hear cases of war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide pre-dating 1 July 2002. Neither Sharon nor those who carried out the massacres have ever been punished for their horrendous crimes.
Why do Palestinians continue to be treated as a people somehow unworthy of justice?
The length of time since these acts were carried out should be no impediment to exposing the truth. More than 60 years after the Nazi atrocities against the Jews in Europe, the world still mourns and remembers and erects monuments and museums to that violent holocaust.   How they are done, to whom they are done and to how many does not make the crimes any more or less heinous. They can never be justified even on the strength of one state's rationale that another people ought to be punished, or worse still, are simply inferior or worthless beings. It should lead all of us to question on whose judgment are such decisions made and how can we possibly justify such crimes at all?

Sabra and Shatila, part of a pattern of ethnic cleansing perpetrated under the Zionist plan to finally and forever extinguish Palestinian society and its people
"The atrocities committed in the camps of Sabra and Shatila should be put in the context of an ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people. The MacBride report found that these atrocities "were not inconsistent with wider Israeli intentions to destroy Palestinian political will and cultural identity." [17] Since Deir Yassin [massacre] and the other massacres of 1948, those who survived have joined hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fleeing a litany of massacres committed in 1953, 1967, and the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, and the killing continues today. The most recent being the 2008-2009 Gaza massacre – that 3 week merciless onslaught, a festering sore without relief as the people are further punished by an impossible siege that denies them their most basic rights."

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Mar 13 - 05:58 AM

If you have any factual proof that the information here is factually wrong or biased
"Sabra and Shatila, part of a pattern of ethnic cleansing perpetrated under the Zionist plan to finally and forever extinguish Palestinian society and its people"

Israel was responsible for parts of Lebanon in 1982.
They did "facilitate" a Lebanese Arab militia entering the camps.
They deny knowing a massacre would happen, or knowing it was happening, and they did stop it.
A denial itself is worth nothing, but there is no evidence to show that IDF did know either of those things.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Mar 13 - 07:21 AM

Once again you disregard the facts by presenting ONLY THE ISRAELI DENIAL
They bombarded the camps beforehand, provided transport, granted access to the killers, provided illumination, supplied the arms, stood by (sometimes at arms-length) while the rapes torture and slaughter went on, sometimes refusing requests for help by backhanding the victims away, they helped bury the bodies, they allowed the killers to escape then they made the evidence of the massacre inaccessible by building a sports stadium over the mass graves.
They stood by for three days and watched and they only stopped it when it had all but run its course.
This has been proved beyond any shadow of doubt and it is only atrocity deniers like yourself say claim that Israel were innocent of these crimes against humanity. These events were eye-witnessed, by nurses and by Israeli soldiers who have since testified to the events - some of these soldiers were dismissed from the army - all these accounts you have dismissed as "unreliable" or lying.
The only independent inquiry to be held over the matter found Israel and particularly later-to-be prime Minister Sharon totally guilty of its part in this massacre - this is one of your other dismissals out of hand.
The only reason Israel was not condemned as a war criminal by the United Nations was that the US vetoed the motion.
As you rightly say "A denial itself is worth nothing," but the evidence more than proves Israel's guilt and they have provided nothing to counteract that evidence - on the contrary, they elected the leader of the massacre Prime Minister.
This event, the constant seizing of territory, the forcible eviction to a poisonous site of whole communities, the blockading and delaying of food, medical supplies, the bringing about of malnutrition in a significant percentage of Palestinian children, the blocking off of farmers with a Berlin-type wall, the invasions, slaughter of civilians, destruction of hospitals, schools and apartment, the use of chemicals on Palestinians and Bedouins, the segregation of public transport.... are all indications of ethnic cleansing of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, Bedouin.... anybody non-Jewish.
From now on address your explaining of all these crimes to the assembled company and not to me.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Mar 13 - 08:19 AM

This has been proved beyond any shadow of doubt
I refute that Jim.
I have shown how the nurse's, doctor's and journalist's accounts of those events show no such thing.
Nor did the testimony of the soldiers who came forward at the time.

I acknowledge that many claiming to be witnesses came forward long after, but I regard them as unreliable.

There is no evidence that IDF knew what was to happen.
There is no evidence that they observed it, and good evidence that they could not have.
The flares would not have assisted the massacre which would have happened with or without them.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Mar 13 - 08:25 AM

The only independent inquiry to be held over the matter found Israel and particularly later-to-be prime Minister Sharon totally guilty of its part in this massacre - this is one of your other dismissals out of hand.

No.
It decided that Israel was responsible, but only because it was the occupying power at the time.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Mar 13 - 09:12 AM

UN vetos by the US are directly attributable to pressure from AIPAC. That is just another of their ways of circumventing democracy. Any US politician who supports a resolution (by refusing the veto) critical of Israel is toast. You will be briefed against, your enemies will be bankrolled and you may lose funding. AIPAC has a stranglehold on US foreign policy in the middle east, yet no-one ever voted AIPAC in. AIPAC is so powerful in its influence that there is never open debate about Israel in Congress. You're going to tell me that there's nothing to discuss, eh, Keith? Ha bloody ha! To all intents and purposes, AIPAC is, de facto, an agent of the Israeli government.

So you believe in a global Jewish conspiracy of secrecy?

God, how much more disgusting can you get, Keith? Let's clear up one or two things here. If I want to write about Jews, I will use the word Jews. I have already said that AIPAC contains a good proportion of Christian fundamentalists. It is not all Jews. I have also said perfectly clearly that I do not say "Jewish lobby". I have chosen to use the expression "Israel lobby" as I believe that is a fair and accurate way of characterising it. Finally, AIPAC is an American organisation, not a global one. The first letter of the acronym stands for "American", Keith.
   
Is it not a democracy, and the only one in the region?

Why are you asking me? Why don't you ask the imprisoned million and a half Gazans, the families divided by an apartheid wall, the kids with their feet blown off by cluster bomblets in Lebanon, the Arabs kicked off their land for settlements, the Arabs kept needlessly and capriciously at road-blocks for three days preventing them from seeing their families, the ethnically-cleansed Bedouins in the Negev, the parents of kids shot by IDF soldiers for being stupid enough to play near the border? You're asking the wrong man! of course, were you to ask the right people you just might, at long last, start to feel just a tad uncomfortable about the regime you so cosily defend.   

We want to hear the unvarnished truth, and we don't get it.
Have the Jews also silenced The Guardian, the BBC, .....?

This constant reference of yours to "the Jews" marks you out as sick in the head.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Mar 13 - 09:48 AM

AIPAC are not Israelis.
As you say, the A stands for American.
American Jews.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Mar 13 - 09:56 AM

There are millions of people like you the western world over who have been hoodwinked into thinking that Israel is just an ordinary democracy going about things in a decent way, with some troublesome Islamic neighbours getting in the way at times. That is the picture presented by a media that is either biased (aka Murdoch et al.) or suppressed by the Israel lobby. We want to hear the unvarnished truth, and we don't get it

So we are prevented from hearing the "truth."
Who do you blame for that Steve?

Subject: RE: BS: Israel condemned by UN
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 10 Mar 13 - 10:00 AM

""Many many countries more-so that Israel, so why do you and Steve expect to see "substantial criticism" of Israel in the press?""

Because we see substantial coverage of those other countries' bad behaviour, and nothing but support and cover up for everyhing Israel does.

You should know you've been actively involved in doing that for the whole of this and other threaads.

We have to trawl the internet to find out details of Israel's actions.

Don T.