Reply #37: Yassir Arafat personally directed terrorist attacks against civillians.... [View All]

[ashiebr]

......."This is undisputed. He ordered the deaths of hundreds upon hundreds of women and children".

I dispute it. Like many leaders fighting for his people he had to make some diffcult and unpleasant choices. But there is no evidence he targetted "hundreds of women and children". On the contrary, such tactics are generally carried out by Hamas - an organisation he does not control - and which was originally encouraged, supported and funded by israel as a counterweight to Arafat's power and that of the PLO.

A further killing of "hundreds of women and children" - these ones were Palestinian (so perhaps it doesn't count) - occurred in 1982 in the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps once the PLO fighters had left at US behest.

As reports put it:

A day later, the IDF moved into West Beruit in violation of the evacuation agreement. Sharon authorized entry of what were presumed to be members of Gemayel's Lebanese Forces (a Phalangist milita) and Saad Haddad's South Lebanon Army into the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps, home to 30,000 Palestinians. The camps were completely sealed off by Israeli tanks.

For the next 38 hours, aided by Israeli flares at night, the militiamen raped, tortured, mutilated and massacred civilians. IDF personnel, including General Amos Yaron, IDF Commander in Beirut, were stationed on the rooftop of a seven-story building 200 meters from Shatilla, with a clear view of the camps below. Evidence that a massacre was taking place was communicated to Israeli Chief of Staff, Raphael Eitan, but he approved a request that the Phalangists remain in the camps.

Between 2,400 and 3,000 people were killed or unaccounted for. None could be identified as members of any PLO military unit. An Israeli commission of inquiry ridiculed the claim that a massacre was not foreseen by Israeli officials, and concluded that "indirect responsibility" rested on the shoulders of Sharon, Eitan, IDF commanders, Foreign Minister Yitsak Shamir, and Prime Minister Begin. The qualifier "indirect" was based on the assumption that Israeli soldiers did not actually do the killing.

So let's agree the israelis don't target women and children. They just let others do it, make sure they have all the tools they need, and stand by and watch.

Arafat wasn't a saint; wasn't perfect; made mistakes. But he was a great man for the Palestinians. Meanwhile, Sharon, a man who even the israelis found "indirectly" responsible for 3,000 deaths of "women and children" remains Prime Minister of israel and drinks tea with US Presidents.

Go figure.