I saw Israel’s ‘final solution to the Palestinian problem’ in Lebanon 41 years ago, and I see it again today by Rev. Dr. Don Wagner

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Israeli General Shromi had been touring the US to offer Israel’s perspective on the Invasion of Lebanon or what the Israelis called “Peace for the Galilee.” He began the interview by stating that Israel was conducting a defensive war with “surgically precise bombings to root out PLO terrorist nests.’”  I challenged his narrative, claiming Israel started the unprovoked war on June 4. I noted that, according to the Red Cross, most of the casualties were civilians. I gave several examples of the casualties,  including the hospital wing hit by Israel on June 4 and the tragic case of the school girls with 19 dead and several wounded on the morning of June 5. The General was clearly upset by my remarks and then he said something that astounded me. “This is our final solution to the Palestinian problem.”

… There is one dimension of what I experienced in Beirut in 1982 that I failed to tell truthfully until I sat down last year to write my memoirGlory to God in the Lowest: Journeys to an Unholy Land. I failed to realize and articulate what now seems to be the obvious lesson from General Shromi and the brutal Sabra and Shatila massacre. That lesson is the central narrative of the Zionist movement from its inception and has been one of the replacement of the Palestinians with Jewish settlers. For this goal to be realized it would necessitate genocide. Today this goal is within reach with the present Israeli government.

… I know this generation understands both the urgency and utter crisis the Sheikh in Sabra and Shatila expressed in the wake of the Sabra/Shatila massacre: “Just  tell the truth.”  The mask is off.  The impotence of the United Nations regarding Palestine has been exposed clearly by legal scholars and historians. The future will not be easy, nor will Palestine be liberated soon.  The future is not with top-down political and military solutions. The future is with a massive grassroots global movement for justice in Palestine.  A new day has already dawned, and the Zionist leadership knows they are losing credibility worldwide. Everyone is needed to join the global grassroots alternative to the Zionist settler colonial project that will continue the daily genocide of Palestinians.

Continue reading at https://mondoweiss.net/2023/06/i-saw-israels-final-solution-to-the-palestinian-problem-in-lebanon-41-years-ago-and-i-see-it-again-today/

Sabra and Shatila massacre: What happened in Lebanon in 1982? on Al-Jazeera

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Between September 16th and 18th, 1982, a campaign of killing took place at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon. What happened was described by the UN as an “act of genocide”. With the backing of invading Israeli forces, a right-winged Lebanese Christain armed group, called the Phalange attacked the Palestinian camps in Beirut. According to multiple reports up to 3500 men, women, and children were killed.

Continue reading at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/16/sabra-and-shatila-massacre-40-years-on-explainer

The unexceptional roots of Zionist fragility by Omar Zahzah

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When revelations of the latest instance of Zionist brutality previously came to dominate the media—such as the exposure of the Israeli Occupation Forces’ involvement in the genocidal Sabra and Shatila camp massacres in Lebanon of 1982, or the grotesquely asymmetrical death toll of assaults upon Palestinians in the Gaza strip such as in the summer of 2014—predictions that we had finally reached the point where the political mainstream must finally set firm limits upon Israeli military and colonial aggression usually proved unfounded.

Continue reading at https://mondoweiss.net/2021/10/the-unexceptional-roots-of-zionist-fragility/

Victims of the Sabra and Shatila massacre remembered on Morning Star

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Fatima,who lost several members of her family during the three-day killing spree, said that the “culture of impunity” that allows Israel to carry out atrocities without recourse must come to an end. She said it was because of this that the genocide of the Palestinian people has continued since around one million people were forced from their homes in the 1948 Nakba, when the state of Israel was created.
… Despite the UN General Assembly stating in December 1982 that the events were a genocide — under opposition from the US, Britain, Canada and others — nobody has been held accountable for the killings.

Continue reading at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/victims-of-the-sabra-and-shatila-massacre-remembered

Sabra and Shatila: memories of a massacre by Steve Sweeney

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The late Robert Fisk, one of the first journalists to enter the camp after the killings, reported: “After three days of rape, fighting and brutal executions, militias finally leave the camps with 1,700 dead.” Others, including the Lebanese Red Cross, numbered the dead at 3,500.

The exact total may never be known as Israeli-supplied bulldozers moved swiftly into the camp, dumping decaying corpses into mass graves that were later hit by bombs.

What isn’t in doubt is that what happened in Shatila and the neighbouring Sabra district over the three days was a genocide — the United Nations general assembly confirmed it as such in December 1982.

Continue reading at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/feature-sabra-and-chatila

Was Sabra and Shatila a genocide? by Donald Wagner

Please TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW and send your letter to the UN Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide and the International Criminal Court Prosecutor.

No Israeli and not a single Lebanese militia leader was tried or convicted for the genocide at Sabra and Shatila and the US escaped accountability for abandoning the Palestinians.

The Sabra and Shatila massacre was a clear case of genocide by any standard of international law, yet the responsible parties escaped prosecution and conviction. Indeed, transcripts of discussions between senior Israeli officials and the Lebanese Forces militia starting in January 1982 reveal the genocidal intent.

The transcripts, published in 2018, include talk of “cleaning out of the [Palestinian] refugee camps” and the need for “several Deir Yassins” – a reference to the notorious April 1948 massacre of Palestinians in a village near Jerusalem during the Nakba. They also contain explicit references to the decimation and expulsion of the Palestinian refugee population from Lebanon so that “Sabra would become a zoo and Shatila Beirut’s parking place.”

While US officials and mainstream media avoid the topic, the pattern of genocide and injustice against Palestinians continues.

Continue reading at https://electronicintifada.net/content/was-sabra-and-shatila-genocide/33941

What is the Sabra and Shatila massacre? by Sofia Aboudari

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38 years ago, Lebanese Phalangist militia stormed the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut, killing an estimated 800-3500 Palestinians and Lebanese civilians, as Israel’s army watched on.

The massacre has been laballed an ‘act of genocide’ by the UN commission

Continue watching at https://www.middleeasteye.net/video/what-sabra-and-shatila-massacre

1982 Beirut massacre still haunts survivors by Seda Sevencan

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Shortly after Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, right-wing Lebanese groups allied with the invaders stormed the camp, killing its inhabitants, raping mothers in front of their families and mutilating pregnant women.
When the incident – which went on for over three days, from Sept. 15 to 18 – was over, some 3,000 Palestinians and Lebanese, mostly Shia, had been murdered.
The night before the massacre, Israel’s then-Defense Minister Ariel Sharon had ordered that the camp be surrounded in advance, effectively paving the way for one of the bloodiest massacres in modern history.After the massacre, on Dec. 16, 1982, the United Nations condemned what happened and declared it an act of genocide. However, there are still no judgments and penalties regarding the massacre.

Continue reading at https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/1982-beirut-massacre-still-haunts-survivors/1975532

Sabra and Shatila, a reminder of Israel’s complicity on New Straits Times

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We call the world not to forget the Sabra and Shatila massacre on the 16th September 1982.
Today is the 38th year of the most horrific genocide by Christian Phalangist militia with the complicit of Israel troops.
We demand, on the commemoration of this day, that its time to end the Israeli culture of impunity that permitted the Sabra and Shatila massacre to happen.

Continue reading at https://www.nst.com.my/opinion/letters/2020/09/624916/sabra-and-shatila-reminder-israels-complicity

Remembering the Qana Massacres by Denijal Jegić

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Israel’s invasion in the summer of 1982 entailed the Siege of Beirut. More than 17,000 civilians were killed and more than 30,000 wounded in ferocious attacks. Israel was also complicit in the Sabra and Shatila genocide
… In her poem “Apologies to All the People in Lebanon,” June Jordan deconstructs the dominant U.S.-Israeli narrative in Lebanon. In dedicating the piece “to the 600,000 Palestinian men, women, and children who lived in Lebanon from 1948-1983,” Jordan implies the continuity of genocide.

Continue reading at https://mondoweiss.net/2020/04/remembering-the-qana-massacres/