Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Sabra & Shatila

I just watched Waltz With Bashir on YouTube. The animated documentary was chosen as one of the "50 Documentaries To See Before You Die" on Current TV. I wanted to watch the film on Netflix, but I couldn't find it there. So I went to YouTube and found it there. It wasn't until half way through the film that I realized the massacre the characters referred to was Sabra & Shatila. I have read a lot about this massacre. This is the first time I have seen a documentary about it, and in this clip there is some gruesome footage that I've never seen before:



"Wain al 3arab" (where are the Arabs?), screams one woman. It's a scream that was no doubt repeated by many Palestinians in the last 60 years. The Arabs were fighting Iran, it turns out.

PS: I just read this in Robert Fisk's "Pity the Nation":

"Pregnant women will give birth to terrorists; the children when they grow up will be terrorists."
--Phalangist involved in the Sabra and Chatila massacre, when questioned by an Israeli tank crew, west Beirut 17 September 1982

"We know, it's not to our liking, and don't interfere."
--Message from an Israeli army battalion commander to his men, on learning that Palestinians were being massacred 17 September 1982

2 comments :

David All said...

Thanks for posting this, Mojo. I remember when the Sabra and Chatila massacres occurred. Was very sickened by the dead, especially the women and children. That message from the Israeli commander is damming evidence of the knowledge by Israeli Army command of what was going on. Tragically, Sabra and Chatila was just one of a set of horrible massacres that occurred in the Lebanese Civil War between the PLO, Lebanese Christian militias like the Phalange, & Lebanese Sunni, Shia, & Druze Miltias. This is not to undercut the Israeli role in letting the Phalange militia into Sabra and Chatila and standing by outside while the Phalangist massacred helpless men, women and children. "Waltzing with Bashir" is an outstanding film and will see both it and "One Day in September".

As for what the Arab nations were doing, along with fighting Iraq, the Assad regime had killed 10,000 to 20,000 Syrians in crushing the Hamma Rebellion led by the Muslim Brotherhood in early 1982. Egypt and Libya were close to war over Egyptian allegations that Qhadaffi had sponsored the assainiation of Sadat in October 1981.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps C.H will notice this and maybe, just maybe, criticize Isra-Hell.