http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_4947.shtml
The real tragedy: Who killed Arafat and why?
By Ramzy Baroud
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Jul 27, 2009
Who killed Yasser Arafat? When the Palestinian leader was declared dead in a French hospital on Nov. 11, 2004, there was no way of knowing how questions related to his death should be phrased. Was he killed or did he die from old age? If he was killed, then who killed him and why?
The “mysterious” nature of his symptoms gave birth to a theory that he was poisoned over a period of time, provided enough evidence that foul play was involved, even accusing some of those closest to him. Although the man’s story has been recorded in the ever-growing chronicle of the Palestinian struggle and Palestinians have somehow moved on, recent breaking news has blown his story wide open once again, breeding new controversy and stories of conspiracy.
Nearly five years have passed since Arafat died. During those years, a number of high-ranking Palestinian leaders, especially from the Hamas movement, have been assassinated by Israel in various and consistently gory methods. Among Palestinians, Arafat is referred to, like all those killed by Israel, as a “martyr,” an indication of the widespread belief that his death was hardly the result of natural causes.
If Arafat was indeed killed and since his death was not caused by an Israeli airstrike or an assassin’s bullet, a key question has been lingering, giving rise to all sorts of answers: Who killed Arafat and how?
Israelis made little secret of their desire to see Arafat dead. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon expressed regret in a newspaper interview on Feb. 1, 2002, that he hadn’t killed Arafat decades earlier when he had had the chance. Sharon told the Israeli newspaper Maariv that he should have “eliminated” Arafat during the invasion of Lebanon in 1982. “Do you regret it (not killing Arafat)?” he was asked. “Certainly, yes,” he replied.
On the day of Arafat’s death, BBC news carried comments by then Israeli opposition leader Shimon Peres, saying it is “good that the world is rid of him . . . The sun is shining in the Middle East.” Held hostage in his bullet-riddled West Bank office for years, Arafat represented an international embarrassment for Israel. He was not “moderate” enough to concede all Palestinian rights, but ‘moderate’ enough to maintain an aura of international attention and support among Arab, Muslim, European and other nations.
Still, in the minds of some, Arafat was determined, and often declared to represent an ‘obstacle.’ The PA’s truly “moderate” camp disliked him for his tireless compromises aimed at preventing factional infighting, thus blocking their attempts at dominating Palestinian society. Israel despised him for numerous reasons, not least his refusal to “concede” issues of paramount importance, such as refugees and Jerusalem. The Bush administration took every opportunity to discredit, discount and insult him, constantly propping up an “alternative” leadership, namely, Mahmoud Abbas, Mohammed Dahlan and others.
Strangely enough, even Abbas and other high-ranking PA officials refer to Arafat as a “martyr,” especially whenever they need to capitalize on his legacy among low-ranking Fatah members and ordinary Palestinians. But the story was meant to end here, with Abbas and Dahlan, carrying the torch of Arafat the “martyr” as they continue with their rhetoric-based “revolution” to liberate Palestine. That was the case until the second highest-ranking Fatah member and one of the PLO’s most visible leaders, Farouk Qaddoumi, went public with a document that contained some unanticipated surprises: that Abbas and Dahlan, along with Sharon, US Undersecretary of State William Burns, and others jointly plotted the assassination of Arafat. Qaddoumi’s document contained the minutes of that meeting, in 2004.
Qaddoumi broke the news in a press conference in Amman, Jordan on July 12, 2009, asserting that Arafat had entrusted him with the minutes of that secret meeting involving top Israeli, Palestinian and American leaders and officials. The plot, according to Qaddoumi included the assassination of other Palestinian leaders, some of them have indeed been assassinated since while others are still alive, thanks to the failure of Israeli missiles and car bombs.
Expectedly, the Ramallah-based Fatah leaders launched fierce verbal attacks against Qaddoumi, questioning his objectives, timing and even his sanity. Abbas accused Qaddoumi of wanting to torpedo the Fatah faction’s long-delayed congress, scheduled to convene in Bethlehem on Aug. 4. “He (Qaddoumi) knows full well that this information is false; he has released it to undermine the convention but we are continuing with the preparations,” Abbas said. Qaddoumi had in fact criticized the convention of a supposedly ‘revolutionary’ movement held with Israeli consent, if not support.
The fact is, we may never know the authenticity of Qaddoumi’s report without an independent investigation or irrefutable evidence. However, just as with Arafat’s death, conclusive evidence is not always required for the public to formulate an opinion. Considering Israel’s threats to Arafat, Palestinians have no reason to believe that Israel did not kill him. Similarly, ordinary Palestinians, especially those in Gaza, have little reason to trust that corrupt Palestinians were not involved in Arafat’s death. A clique of the Palestinian elite have made it clear that their personal interests surpass those of the Palestinian people; Dahlan openly advocated the toppling of an elected government in Gaza as the Ramallah-based “revolutionary” movement, was dispatching US-armed and trained Palestinian fighters to crack down on Israel’s enemies in various West Bank towns.
As bizarre as all of this may sound, it is at least enough to explain why Palestinians are willing to believe the recent statements made by Qaddoumi, a respected figure among all Palestinian factions. True, Qaddoumi’s accusations have yet to be authenticated by an independent investigation, but they are made in a fractious, if not peculiar political context that makes them most plausible and, in a sense, that is the real tragedy.
Ramzy Baroud is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers and journals worldwide. His latest book is The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s Struggle (Pluto Press, London,) and his forthcoming book is, “My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza The Untold Story” (Pluto Press, London).
Showing posts with label Lebanon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lebanon. Show all posts
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
We may have to kill war journalists
http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/05/right-wing-military-writer-we-may-have-to-kill-war-journalists/
Right-wing military writer: We may have to kill war journalists
Stephen C. Webster
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009
Former soldier Ralph Peters has carved out quite a niche for himself in the world of publishing. His work regularly lands on the pages of The New York Post and has cropped up in USA Today. He's even a special contributor to Fox News.
But after today's showing, in his latest column for the Journal of International Security Affairs, Mr. Peters seemingly treads very close to finding himself at odds with his journalistic colleagues.
After all, reporters don't really like it when the editorial page calls for consideration of grinding them into bloody chunks as a matter of war policy.
In his latest essay, in a segment titled "The killers without guns," Peters suggests that the media is responsible for "saving" Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, but that media had "failed to defeat" the U.S. government's charge toward Iraq.
"Rejecting the god of their fathers, the neo-pagans who dominate the media serve as lackeys at the terrorists’ bloody altar," he gallingly charges.
It culminates:
Pretending to be impartial, the self-segregating personalities drawn to media careers overwhelmingly take a side, and that side is rarely ours. Although it seems unthinkable now, future wars may require censorship, news blackouts and, ultimately, military attacks on the partisan media. Perceiving themselves as superior beings, journalists have positioned themselves as protected-species combatants. But freedom of the press stops when its abuse kills our soldiers and strengthens our enemies. Such a view arouses disdain today, but a media establishment that has forgotten any sense of sober patriotism may find that it has become tomorrow's conventional wisdom.
Because, of course, in Peters' mind America can do no wrong:
The point of all this is simple: Win. In warfare, nothing else matters. If you cannot win clean, win dirty. But win. Our victories are ultimately in humanity’s interests, while our failures nourish monsters.
Jason Linkins over at Huffington Post evicerates this stunning outpouring of hatred.
I must say, considering the line-up of Neoconservative half-stars that is the Journal of International Security Affairs editorial board, this tripe is not surprising.
This reporter, in a rare editorial capacity, can only personally hope the emergence of such breathtaking savagery disguised as intelligent discourse will serve as an example to other rational thinkers as to how dangerous hyper-militarism and hawkish Neoconservatism really is.
Right-wing military writer: We may have to kill war journalists
Stephen C. Webster
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009
Former soldier Ralph Peters has carved out quite a niche for himself in the world of publishing. His work regularly lands on the pages of The New York Post and has cropped up in USA Today. He's even a special contributor to Fox News.
But after today's showing, in his latest column for the Journal of International Security Affairs, Mr. Peters seemingly treads very close to finding himself at odds with his journalistic colleagues.
After all, reporters don't really like it when the editorial page calls for consideration of grinding them into bloody chunks as a matter of war policy.
In his latest essay, in a segment titled "The killers without guns," Peters suggests that the media is responsible for "saving" Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, but that media had "failed to defeat" the U.S. government's charge toward Iraq.
"Rejecting the god of their fathers, the neo-pagans who dominate the media serve as lackeys at the terrorists’ bloody altar," he gallingly charges.
It culminates:
Pretending to be impartial, the self-segregating personalities drawn to media careers overwhelmingly take a side, and that side is rarely ours. Although it seems unthinkable now, future wars may require censorship, news blackouts and, ultimately, military attacks on the partisan media. Perceiving themselves as superior beings, journalists have positioned themselves as protected-species combatants. But freedom of the press stops when its abuse kills our soldiers and strengthens our enemies. Such a view arouses disdain today, but a media establishment that has forgotten any sense of sober patriotism may find that it has become tomorrow's conventional wisdom.
Because, of course, in Peters' mind America can do no wrong:
The point of all this is simple: Win. In warfare, nothing else matters. If you cannot win clean, win dirty. But win. Our victories are ultimately in humanity’s interests, while our failures nourish monsters.
Jason Linkins over at Huffington Post evicerates this stunning outpouring of hatred.
I must say, considering the line-up of Neoconservative half-stars that is the Journal of International Security Affairs editorial board, this tripe is not surprising.
This reporter, in a rare editorial capacity, can only personally hope the emergence of such breathtaking savagery disguised as intelligent discourse will serve as an example to other rational thinkers as to how dangerous hyper-militarism and hawkish Neoconservatism really is.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Why no neocon assassinations?
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_4324.shtml
Why no neocon assassinations? Because the ‘war on terror’ is a hoax
By Paul Craig Roberts
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Feb 5, 2009
According to US government propaganda, terrorist cells are spread throughout America, making it necessary for the government to spy on all Americans and violate most other constitutional protections. Among President Bush’s last words as he left office was the warning that America would soon be struck again by Muslim terrorists.
If America were infected with terrorists, we would not need the government to tell us. We would know it from events. As there are no events, the US government substitutes warnings in order to keep alive the fear that causes the public to accept pointless wars, the infringement of civil liberty, national ID cards, and inconveniences and harassments when they fly.
The most obvious indication that there are no terrorist cells is that not a single neocon has been assassinated.
I do not approve of assassinations, and am ashamed of my country’s government for engaging in political assassination. The US and Israel have set a very bad example for al Qaeda to follow.
The US deals with al Qaeda and Taliban by assassinating their leaders, and Israel deals with Hamas by assassinating its leaders. It is reasonable to assume that al Qaeda would deal with the instigators and leaders of America’s wars in the Middle East in the same way.
Today every al Qaeda member is aware of the complicity of neoconservatives in the death and devastation inflicted on Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Gaza. Moreover, neocons are highly visible and are soft targets compared to Hamas and Hezbollah leaders.. Neocons have been identified in the media for years, and as everyone knows, multiple listings of their names are available online.
Neocons do not have Secret Service protection. Dreadful to contemplate, but it would be child’s play for al Qaeda to assassinate any and every neocon. Yet, neocons move around freely, a good indication that the US does not have a terrorist problem.
If, as neocons constantly allege, terrorists can smuggle nuclear weapons or dirty bombs into the US with which to wreak havoc upon our cities, terrorists can acquire weapons with which to assassinate any neocon or former government official.
Yet, the neocons, who are the Americans most hated by Muslims, remain unscathed.
The “war on terror” is a hoax that fronts for American control of oil pipelines, the profits of the military-security complex, the assault on civil liberty by fomenters of a police state, and Israel’s territorial expansion.
There were no al Qaeda in Iraq until the Americans brought them there by invading and overthrowing Saddam Hussein, who kept al Qaeda out of Iraq. The Taliban is not a terrorist organization, but a movement attempting to unify Afghanistan under Muslim law.. The only Americans threatened by the Taliban are the Americans Bush sent to Afghanistan to kill Taliban and to impose a puppet state on the Afghan people.
Hamas is the democratically elected government of Palestine, or what little remains of Palestine after Israel’s illegal annexations. Hamas is a terrorist organization in the same sense that the Israeli government and the US government are terrorist organizations. In an effort to bring Hamas under Israeli hegemony, Israel employs terror bombing and assassinations against Palestinians. Hamas replies to the Israeli terror with homemade and ineffectual rockets.
Hezbollah represents the Shi’ites of southern Lebanon, another area in the Middle East that Israel seeks for its territorial expansion.
The US brands Hamas and Hezbollah “terrorist organizations” for no other reason than the US is on Israel’s side of the conflict. There is no objective basis for the US Department of State’s “finding” that Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist organizations. It is merely a propagandistic declaration.
Americans and Israelis do not call their bombings of civilians terror. What Americans and Israelis call terror is the response of oppressed people who are stateless because their countries are ruled by puppets loyal to the oppressors. These people, dispossessed of their own countries, have no State Departments, Defense Departments, seats in the United Nations, or voices in the mainstream media. They can submit to foreign hegemony or resist by the limited means available to them.
The fact that Israel and the United States carry on endless propaganda to prevent this fundamental truth from being realized indicates that it is Israel and the US that are in the wrong and the Palestinians, Lebanese, Iraqis, and Afghans who are being wronged.
The retired American generals who serve as war propagandists for Fox “News” are forever claiming that Iran arms the Iraqi and Afghan insurgents and Hamas. But where are the arms? To deal with American tanks, insurgents have to construct homemade explosive devices out of artillery shells. After six years of conflict, the insurgents still have no weapon against the American helicopter gunships. Contrast this “arming” with the weaponry the US supplied to the Afghans nearly three decades ago when they were fighting to drive out the Soviets.
The films of Israel’s murderous assault on Gaza show large numbers of Gazans fleeing from Israeli bombs or digging out the dead and maimed, and none of these people are armed. A person would think that by now every Palestinian would be armed, every man, woman, and child. Yet, all the films of the Israeli attack show an unarmed population. Hamas has to construct homemade rockets that are little more than a sign of defiance. If Hamas were armed by Iran, Israel’s assault on Gaza would have cost Israel its helicopter gunships, its tanks, and hundreds of lives of its soldiers.
Hamas is a small organization armed with small caliber rifles incapable of penetrating body armor. Hamas is unable to stop small bands of Israeli settlers from descending on West Bank Palestinian villages, driving out the Palestinians, and expropriating their land.
The great mystery is: why after 60 years of oppression are the Palestinians still an unarmed people? Clearly, the Muslim countries are complicit with Israel and the US in keeping the Palestinians unarmed.
The unsupported assertion that Iran supplies sophisticated arms to the Palestinians is like the unsupported assertion that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. These assertions are propagandistic justifications for killing Arab civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure in order to secure US and Israeli hegemony in the Middle East.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He was awarded the Legion of Honor by French President Francois Mitterrand. He is the author of Supply-Side Revolution : An Insider’s Account of Policymaking in Washington; Alienation and the Soviet Economy and Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy, and is the co-author with Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny of Good Intentions: How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice.
Why no neocon assassinations? Because the ‘war on terror’ is a hoax
By Paul Craig Roberts
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Feb 5, 2009
According to US government propaganda, terrorist cells are spread throughout America, making it necessary for the government to spy on all Americans and violate most other constitutional protections. Among President Bush’s last words as he left office was the warning that America would soon be struck again by Muslim terrorists.
If America were infected with terrorists, we would not need the government to tell us. We would know it from events. As there are no events, the US government substitutes warnings in order to keep alive the fear that causes the public to accept pointless wars, the infringement of civil liberty, national ID cards, and inconveniences and harassments when they fly.
The most obvious indication that there are no terrorist cells is that not a single neocon has been assassinated.
I do not approve of assassinations, and am ashamed of my country’s government for engaging in political assassination. The US and Israel have set a very bad example for al Qaeda to follow.
The US deals with al Qaeda and Taliban by assassinating their leaders, and Israel deals with Hamas by assassinating its leaders. It is reasonable to assume that al Qaeda would deal with the instigators and leaders of America’s wars in the Middle East in the same way.
Today every al Qaeda member is aware of the complicity of neoconservatives in the death and devastation inflicted on Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Gaza. Moreover, neocons are highly visible and are soft targets compared to Hamas and Hezbollah leaders.. Neocons have been identified in the media for years, and as everyone knows, multiple listings of their names are available online.
Neocons do not have Secret Service protection. Dreadful to contemplate, but it would be child’s play for al Qaeda to assassinate any and every neocon. Yet, neocons move around freely, a good indication that the US does not have a terrorist problem.
If, as neocons constantly allege, terrorists can smuggle nuclear weapons or dirty bombs into the US with which to wreak havoc upon our cities, terrorists can acquire weapons with which to assassinate any neocon or former government official.
Yet, the neocons, who are the Americans most hated by Muslims, remain unscathed.
The “war on terror” is a hoax that fronts for American control of oil pipelines, the profits of the military-security complex, the assault on civil liberty by fomenters of a police state, and Israel’s territorial expansion.
There were no al Qaeda in Iraq until the Americans brought them there by invading and overthrowing Saddam Hussein, who kept al Qaeda out of Iraq. The Taliban is not a terrorist organization, but a movement attempting to unify Afghanistan under Muslim law.. The only Americans threatened by the Taliban are the Americans Bush sent to Afghanistan to kill Taliban and to impose a puppet state on the Afghan people.
Hamas is the democratically elected government of Palestine, or what little remains of Palestine after Israel’s illegal annexations. Hamas is a terrorist organization in the same sense that the Israeli government and the US government are terrorist organizations. In an effort to bring Hamas under Israeli hegemony, Israel employs terror bombing and assassinations against Palestinians. Hamas replies to the Israeli terror with homemade and ineffectual rockets.
Hezbollah represents the Shi’ites of southern Lebanon, another area in the Middle East that Israel seeks for its territorial expansion.
The US brands Hamas and Hezbollah “terrorist organizations” for no other reason than the US is on Israel’s side of the conflict. There is no objective basis for the US Department of State’s “finding” that Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist organizations. It is merely a propagandistic declaration.
Americans and Israelis do not call their bombings of civilians terror. What Americans and Israelis call terror is the response of oppressed people who are stateless because their countries are ruled by puppets loyal to the oppressors. These people, dispossessed of their own countries, have no State Departments, Defense Departments, seats in the United Nations, or voices in the mainstream media. They can submit to foreign hegemony or resist by the limited means available to them.
The fact that Israel and the United States carry on endless propaganda to prevent this fundamental truth from being realized indicates that it is Israel and the US that are in the wrong and the Palestinians, Lebanese, Iraqis, and Afghans who are being wronged.
The retired American generals who serve as war propagandists for Fox “News” are forever claiming that Iran arms the Iraqi and Afghan insurgents and Hamas. But where are the arms? To deal with American tanks, insurgents have to construct homemade explosive devices out of artillery shells. After six years of conflict, the insurgents still have no weapon against the American helicopter gunships. Contrast this “arming” with the weaponry the US supplied to the Afghans nearly three decades ago when they were fighting to drive out the Soviets.
The films of Israel’s murderous assault on Gaza show large numbers of Gazans fleeing from Israeli bombs or digging out the dead and maimed, and none of these people are armed. A person would think that by now every Palestinian would be armed, every man, woman, and child. Yet, all the films of the Israeli attack show an unarmed population. Hamas has to construct homemade rockets that are little more than a sign of defiance. If Hamas were armed by Iran, Israel’s assault on Gaza would have cost Israel its helicopter gunships, its tanks, and hundreds of lives of its soldiers.
Hamas is a small organization armed with small caliber rifles incapable of penetrating body armor. Hamas is unable to stop small bands of Israeli settlers from descending on West Bank Palestinian villages, driving out the Palestinians, and expropriating their land.
The great mystery is: why after 60 years of oppression are the Palestinians still an unarmed people? Clearly, the Muslim countries are complicit with Israel and the US in keeping the Palestinians unarmed.
The unsupported assertion that Iran supplies sophisticated arms to the Palestinians is like the unsupported assertion that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. These assertions are propagandistic justifications for killing Arab civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure in order to secure US and Israeli hegemony in the Middle East.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He was awarded the Legion of Honor by French President Francois Mitterrand. He is the author of Supply-Side Revolution : An Insider’s Account of Policymaking in Washington; Alienation and the Soviet Economy and Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy, and is the co-author with Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny of Good Intentions: How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Cartoon film stirs Israel's conscience
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/war-death-and-animation-cartoon-film-stirs-israels-conscience-1021732.html
War, death and animation: Cartoon film stirs Israel's conscience
An acclaimed new cartoon film has stirred Israel's conscience about its responsibility for the notorious 1982 massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. Ben Lynfield reports from Jerusalem
Monday, 17 November 2008
Until a matter of months ago, very few Israelis realised that their army fired flares to light up Beirut's Sabra and Shatila refugee camps while Lebanese Christian militiamen committed the notorious massacre of Palestinian civilians there in 1982.
But Ari Folman, who as a 19-year-old soldier fired some of the flares, makes their descent through the sky over Beirut's beachfront one of the recurring images of Waltz With Bashir, his "animated documentary" that premiers in Britain this week.
In Israel, the film has rekindled discussion about the divisive invasion of Lebanon that was initially billed by Ariel Sharon, who was defence minister at the time, as a limited push to halt PLO rocket attacks, and the extent of Israeli responsibility for the Sabra and Shatila massacre where the estimated number of victims ranged from 700 to more than 3,000. Folman has said he had no idea the massacre was being committed when he shot the flares.
The killings by Phalangist militiamen dispatched into the camps by Israel came after their leader, Bashir Gemayel, president-elect of Lebanon, was assassinated in a bombing wrongly blamed on Palestinians. An Israeli state commission of inquiry set up as a result of a tide of public protest in the massacre's wake found that Mr Sharon, today comatose from a stroke nearly three years ago, bore "personal responsibility" for not having foreseen the danger that the Phalangists would commit the slaughter. He was forced to give up the defence portfolio, something that did not prevent him from being elected as premier in 2001 and re-elected in 2003. Lebanon, for its part, has never seriously investigated the massacre.
The film has been widely acclaimed in Israel. One reviewer, Eitan Weitz, writing for the website Parshan (Commentator), termed it "required viewing" for those aged 16 and 17 nearing their mandatory military service, for army reservists in their thirties and for mothers of soldiers. But not everyone is happy about the film's screening abroad. Gerald Steinberg, a political scientist at Bar Ilan University with right-of-centre views, voiced concern even though he has not seen the film. "The Israeli audience knows the atrocities were committed by Lebanese Christian militiamen and can sort out how much responsibility is ours and how much is theirs. Foreign audiences will be blaming Israel for everything and this could reinforce that."
A flaw in the movie is that it gives the impression that the massacre lasted only one night and was stopped the following morning. It began the evening of 16 September 1982 and ended on 18 September. Some Israeli viewers say Folman lets Israel off too easily. "The Israeli soldiers are shown as being good, as being people who are tormented by what is going on," says Ronit Shpiner, 35, a psychologist from Jerusalem. "Ultimately, the moral responsibility is taken off of them even though those who saw the slaughter should have stopped it."
She added: "The movie depicts the soldiers as the victims of the massacre because they were traumatised by it." A bartender, Lidya Ophir, 26, said: "I think the movie is saying that probably the Israeli army is just as responsible as the people with the guns inside the camps."
Folman says the movie aims to dissuade young people from fighting in wars. "I hope that young people, when they watch Waltz With Bashir will see how stupid all wars are, a useless idea, a creation of tiny little leaders with big egos," he wrote in an email response to The Independent. "They will see in Waltz With Bashir that there is no glory in war, no bravery in war, nothing. They will never want to be the guy in the movie. And that is unlike a lot of American anti-war movies, where they show you that war sucks, but the guys in the movie are so cool."
Mr Sharon is shown only briefly in the film, wolfing down steak and eggs, his nose twitching as he talks on the phone to the Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and to a commander in Lebanon.
His former spokesman, Raanan Gissin, takes issue with the depiction. "He never gave orders while eating," he said. Mr Gissin denied Israel had any responsibility in the killings, saying they were "probably a Syrian-instigated plot" and recalled a statement by Mr Sharon that the inquiry's findings put "a mark of Cain" on Israel's forehead.
For many people, the most powerful part of the film is the recollection by an Israeli journalist Ron Ben-Ishai of a conversation he had with Mr Sharon during the massacre. Mr Ben-Ishai, stationed in Beirut as Israel Television's war correspondent, had heard from army officers at a dinner he hosted that a massacre was being committed. Disturbed by the reports, he called Mr Sharon at his ranch in southern Israel but the defence minister showed little interest and did not act to stop it. Regarding Israel's degree of responsibility, Mr Ben-Ishai says: "It is like the Allies in the Second World War who could have stopped the slaughter in the death camps but didn't."
For the Israeli historian Gershom Gorenberg, the movie brought back memories of the protest in which he participated to press Mr Begin to implement the inquiry commission's findings. "The fact that under public pressure Israel created a commission of inquiry and Sharon was dismissed indicates there was a significant degree of a country insisting on an accounting," Mr Gorenberg said. "The movie raises for us the question of whether that accounting went far enough."
War, death and animation: Cartoon film stirs Israel's conscience
An acclaimed new cartoon film has stirred Israel's conscience about its responsibility for the notorious 1982 massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. Ben Lynfield reports from Jerusalem
Monday, 17 November 2008
Until a matter of months ago, very few Israelis realised that their army fired flares to light up Beirut's Sabra and Shatila refugee camps while Lebanese Christian militiamen committed the notorious massacre of Palestinian civilians there in 1982.
But Ari Folman, who as a 19-year-old soldier fired some of the flares, makes their descent through the sky over Beirut's beachfront one of the recurring images of Waltz With Bashir, his "animated documentary" that premiers in Britain this week.
In Israel, the film has rekindled discussion about the divisive invasion of Lebanon that was initially billed by Ariel Sharon, who was defence minister at the time, as a limited push to halt PLO rocket attacks, and the extent of Israeli responsibility for the Sabra and Shatila massacre where the estimated number of victims ranged from 700 to more than 3,000. Folman has said he had no idea the massacre was being committed when he shot the flares.
The killings by Phalangist militiamen dispatched into the camps by Israel came after their leader, Bashir Gemayel, president-elect of Lebanon, was assassinated in a bombing wrongly blamed on Palestinians. An Israeli state commission of inquiry set up as a result of a tide of public protest in the massacre's wake found that Mr Sharon, today comatose from a stroke nearly three years ago, bore "personal responsibility" for not having foreseen the danger that the Phalangists would commit the slaughter. He was forced to give up the defence portfolio, something that did not prevent him from being elected as premier in 2001 and re-elected in 2003. Lebanon, for its part, has never seriously investigated the massacre.
The film has been widely acclaimed in Israel. One reviewer, Eitan Weitz, writing for the website Parshan (Commentator), termed it "required viewing" for those aged 16 and 17 nearing their mandatory military service, for army reservists in their thirties and for mothers of soldiers. But not everyone is happy about the film's screening abroad. Gerald Steinberg, a political scientist at Bar Ilan University with right-of-centre views, voiced concern even though he has not seen the film. "The Israeli audience knows the atrocities were committed by Lebanese Christian militiamen and can sort out how much responsibility is ours and how much is theirs. Foreign audiences will be blaming Israel for everything and this could reinforce that."
A flaw in the movie is that it gives the impression that the massacre lasted only one night and was stopped the following morning. It began the evening of 16 September 1982 and ended on 18 September. Some Israeli viewers say Folman lets Israel off too easily. "The Israeli soldiers are shown as being good, as being people who are tormented by what is going on," says Ronit Shpiner, 35, a psychologist from Jerusalem. "Ultimately, the moral responsibility is taken off of them even though those who saw the slaughter should have stopped it."
She added: "The movie depicts the soldiers as the victims of the massacre because they were traumatised by it." A bartender, Lidya Ophir, 26, said: "I think the movie is saying that probably the Israeli army is just as responsible as the people with the guns inside the camps."
Folman says the movie aims to dissuade young people from fighting in wars. "I hope that young people, when they watch Waltz With Bashir will see how stupid all wars are, a useless idea, a creation of tiny little leaders with big egos," he wrote in an email response to The Independent. "They will see in Waltz With Bashir that there is no glory in war, no bravery in war, nothing. They will never want to be the guy in the movie. And that is unlike a lot of American anti-war movies, where they show you that war sucks, but the guys in the movie are so cool."
Mr Sharon is shown only briefly in the film, wolfing down steak and eggs, his nose twitching as he talks on the phone to the Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and to a commander in Lebanon.
His former spokesman, Raanan Gissin, takes issue with the depiction. "He never gave orders while eating," he said. Mr Gissin denied Israel had any responsibility in the killings, saying they were "probably a Syrian-instigated plot" and recalled a statement by Mr Sharon that the inquiry's findings put "a mark of Cain" on Israel's forehead.
For many people, the most powerful part of the film is the recollection by an Israeli journalist Ron Ben-Ishai of a conversation he had with Mr Sharon during the massacre. Mr Ben-Ishai, stationed in Beirut as Israel Television's war correspondent, had heard from army officers at a dinner he hosted that a massacre was being committed. Disturbed by the reports, he called Mr Sharon at his ranch in southern Israel but the defence minister showed little interest and did not act to stop it. Regarding Israel's degree of responsibility, Mr Ben-Ishai says: "It is like the Allies in the Second World War who could have stopped the slaughter in the death camps but didn't."
For the Israeli historian Gershom Gorenberg, the movie brought back memories of the protest in which he participated to press Mr Begin to implement the inquiry commission's findings. "The fact that under public pressure Israel created a commission of inquiry and Sharon was dismissed indicates there was a significant degree of a country insisting on an accounting," Mr Gorenberg said. "The movie raises for us the question of whether that accounting went far enough."
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