An event took place, almost twenty years before 9/11, an event that took more lives, an event that was just as barbaric, but was instantly forgotten, never to take a place in our collective consciousness. A truth which is rarely mentioned in the Septembers of our lives.
For three days in September 1982, Israeli forces in collusion with the Lebanese Militias, slaughtered, raped and maimed thousands of unarmed civilians inside the encircled and sealed Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in Beirut. More than three thousand five hundred innocent men, women and children were massacred.
The figures of those that died are disputed, (The estimate of victims varies between 700 (the official Israeli figure) to 3,500) but it is difficult to tell how many were butchered, their bodies lying tangled, crushed under the concrete rubble of the houses they sought shelter in.
To this day, amidst all the attempts to seek justice, no one has been held accountable for this genocidal act. Yet the warlord Ariel Sharon, who was responsible for this heinous act, was proudly rewarded for his actions with the Premiership of his country, even though the Israeli Kahan Commission found him to “bear personal liability” for the events at Sabra and Shatila.
These September events remain stuck in the memory of our collective horror and guilt. They are remembered by every human being. Unlike any other violent act, the wantonness and scale of large-scale killings of innocents puts the event on a different level altogether, a level shared by other notorious tragedies in modern history: Halabja in Kurdish Iraq in 1988, the killing fields of Cambodia, Srebrenica in Bosnia, Sabra and Shatila, and of course New York
Such atrocities are different from ordinary crimes because of their context and magnitude. By its sheer size, its wantonness, its ferocity, its callousness, its planning, the means used and the thousands of innocent civilians destroyed in a brief lapse of time, the crime then qualifies as a crime against humanity, a category which is well defined in international law and carries the common responsibility of all humankind.
This article in no way, shape or form condones the acts of September 11 2001. In fact when the lives of those in New York were extinguished forever, it was something Muslims the world over could empathise with.
As those responsible for the crimes against humanity perpetrated against the citizens of New York and Washington are being pursued across the world into the tenth year of the ever expanding “war against terror”, one has to ask oneself why is it that “American Imperialism” has been allowed to seek its revenge against the rest of the world, yet no one can be bought to justice over Septembers' other atrocities?
Have we accepted the fact that the appalling deaths of those on September 11 2001, are more morally abhorrent than the 30,000 lives destroyed by Putin when he razed Grozny or the daily atrocities committed in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and Kashmir?
Acceptance of this is totally obscene.
The question we must address is one of law.
Are all human beings subject to the same law, and more importantly, to the same application of the law?
Will all the victims of these devastating September days see those responsible for their suffering appear before a court of law?
The question is as old as history, yet this question has acquired additional meaning in a world after September 11 2001.
ON THIS DAY FOR 3 DAYS PLEASE COPY AND PASTE THIS PRAYER ON YOUR STATUS IN REMEMBERING OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN PALESTINE.
"Our God,
Lord of the two Easts and the two Wests,
Our God,
Lord of the Holy Place (Jerusalem) and the two Sacred places (Makkah/Madinah)
Oh Allah, correct the position of our Ummah...
the Victims of the catastrophe in Palestine
Oh Allah secure their fears
Reward them as you wish
Oh Allah swap their fear for peace,
Oh Allah swap their fear for Peace,
Oh protector of the fearful,
Oh hope of the needy,
Oh Granter of the prayers of the oppressed,
You are the Lord of the weak,
and You are our Lord,
There is NO diety worthy of worship except YOU! "
please view this documentary made by Robert Frisk. :-
An eye witness report from doctor Ang Swee Chai :-
http://www.inminds.com/fro
Al jazeera report :-
http://www.youtube.com/wat
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