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31 Aug 2002

Black September Aniversary
 
As you remember terrorist anniversaries--the first anniversary of Sept. 11 and
the 30th anniversary of the murder of the Israeli athletes at the Munich
Olympics--please don’t fail to mention another terrorist anniversary--the 20th
anniversary of the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camp massacres.

From Sept. 16-18, 1982, Israel’s Lebanese Phalangist allies went on a murder
rampage that lasted 40 hours and killed an estimated 2000 Palestinian women,
children and old men in the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps. The Israeli
leadership, including then Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, had full knowledge
of what was going on. The Israeli forces, in fact, surrounded the camps,
prevented victims from escaping, and illuminated the night sky to facilitate
the mass killing.

The UN Security Council called it one of the “most heinous events of the 20th
century.” Although giving Sharon only a slap on the wrist, an Israeli
commission of inquiry said he was “personally responsible” for what happened.
A civil suit in Belgium against Sharon and his associates was recently
dismissed, but the Belgium Parliament is  revising the law to allow the case
to go forward (see Jerusalem Post, Aug 8). 

Please remember that Americans and Israelis aren’t the only ones for whom
September is a “black month.”

Lee Mortimer
Durham, NC

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