This letter is in response to Vlad Pogre’s letter “Don’t scapegoat Israel for violence” in the Daily on March 25. I am concerned by the part related to Lebanon in which Mr. Pogre made the following statements: “Ariel Sharon (…) has never intentionally targeted civilians for any reason. The killing of Palestinians in Lebanon (…) were actually carried out by their fellow Arabs — namely a Lebanese militia led by Elie Hobeika. What Sharon was found guilty of by the Israeli government was not massacring Palestinians, but of not anticipating the possibility of violence against the Palestinians by the Lebanese.”

Mr. Pogre, where were you on September 16-18, 1982? Maybe you were not yet born, but at that time I was a teenager in Beirut, under Israeli siege. I recall very well those three days of killings, when 2,000 civilians were massacred.

I was living very close to the Palestinian camps of Sabra and Chatilla. We could hear the nonstop shootings and see the flares over the camps at night. We couldn’t believe a massacre was being committed and nothing was being done to stop it. I need to correct your statement, because I haven’t forgotten these events, even 22 years later.

It is true that the massacres were led by the Phalangists, a Lebanese militia, but that’s only part of the story. What you need to know is that the Palestinian camps were sealed by the Israeli army at that time.

No one could enter these camps except by going through the Israeli checkpoints. On Sept. 15, 1982, a day before the massacres started, the Israeli army violated the Habib Agreements (also signed by the United States), entered Beirut again, and surrounded the Palestinian camps.

In 1983, the Israeli Kahan Commission asserted that “Israel had indirect responsibility for the massacre since its army held the area,” and Ariel Sharon was found “responsible for ignoring the danger of bloodshed and revenge when he approved the entry of the Phalangists into the camps as well as not taking appropriate measures to prevent bloodshed.”

The Commission recommended the Defense Minister resign, the Director of Military Intelligence not continue in his post and other senior officers be removed. The Israeli army had all the power to stop this three-day massacre because the area was under its control.

Under the law code, this inaction is called non-assistance to persons in danger. In 2001, Human Rights Watch asked for a criminal investigation for “war crimes and crimes against humanity” into Sharon’s role.

You also stated that “Sharon (…) has never intentionally targeted civilians for any reason.” If you had been in Beirut in the summer of 1982, with the scared innocent civilians hiding in a shelter, you might then reconsider your statement. More than 7,000 civilians died. The international press nicknamed Sharon “bulldozer” for his brutality.

I am not a fan of any extremist party, and I do not support the killing of civilians for any reason. I am looking forward to peace in the Middle East. I only want the whole truth known, in order to honor the memory of the innocent civilians who were massacred in Lebanon.

Jean-Pierre Taoutel

Lecturer in French

Instructor in Arabic

Foreign Languages and Literatures