dave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman) (10/03/83)
=============================================================================== From: swatt@ittvax.UUCP (Alan S. Watt) >>>If you're going to quote from an Israeli publication, you ought to at >>>least indicate whether you have any independent substantiation of it. May I point out that the quotes I gave contained SPECIFIC REFERENCES and quoted SPECIFIC NAMES. A team of retired U.S. generals, including the former head of the Army Readiness Command. The police inspector of Tyre. The regional governor of Nabatiye. Dr. Dahar, who runs a medical centre in Sidon. Dr. Hamoud, owner-director of the largest of Sidon's hospitals. Sidon lawyer M.A. Jouazi. The Washington Post. The New York Times. The London Times. Named reporters. I CONSIDER THAT TO BE MUCH BETTER SUBSTANTIATED THAN MOST OF THE INFORMATION WHICH I HAVE SEEN ON THE NET ON THIS ISSUE. Yes, I am quoting from a book pubished in Israel. It is not an Israeli government publication, however, but a publication of the WZO, which I believe is the World Zionist Organization. If you still have doubts as to the conduct of the PLO in Lebanon, I will be happy to post some of the more revolting reports of torture and rape - again with NAMES, PLACES and DATES. A well-known and highly respected Toronto lawyer named Donald Carr made a trip to Israel and Lebanon last year, specifically to investigate allegations of Israeli mistreatment of prisoners and other actions in Lebanon. After interviewing dozens of witnesses, he produced a lengthy report on the situation which was published in the media. I will try to get a copy and put some excerpts on the net, if anyone is interested. Unfortunately, that is all the literature I have on the present war. For a good analysis and history of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and the events leading up to it, I recommend "O Jerusalem", by Larry Collins and Domonique Lapierre, both non-Jewish journalists. =============================================================================== From: swatt@ittvax.UUCP (Alan S. Watt) >>>Early in the war, the Israelis were also putting about the story that >>>they had captured a PLO armory in Beruit with enough arms to "equip a >>>million men", which is pure moonshine. >>>...... >>>I suspect the Isreali military command started the story inside the >>>army units knowing that once it was repeated enough it would seem to >>>have the status of general knowledge. My Middle East geography is >>>rusty, but I believe a soldier stationed in the Bekaa Valley is in a >>>much better position to hear scuttlebut than to observe events >>>in Beruit directly. The information in "PLO: now the story can be told" states: "We found in South Lebanon 10 times as many arms as we had expected", Israel's Prime Minister Menachem Begin disclosed in June 1982 in Jerusalem. The PLO had enough weapons to equip and army of 100,000 or six times its estimated total strength. Some 150 heavy truckloads of this booty came each day for nearly two months to Israel and there was still more to come as new caches were uncovered. No further sources are given for this information. =============================================================================== From: morgan@uicsl.UUCP >>>I'm not sure I understand the relevance of this stuff, even if >>>it turns out to be true (it's certainly plausible). Are you >>>saying that it's ok to bomb hospitals, schools, etc. full of >>>innocent civilians if there's also a PLO soldier in there? >>>Or does it take two PLO? More? How many? I'm saying nothing of the sort. The situation is one in which the PLO soldier is shooting at you. Obviously, Israel does its utmost to avoid killing innocent civilians. But when the choice is between Israeli civilians being shelled by PLO, and Lebanese civilians behind whom the PLO are hiding, one must look out for one's own first. Following its tradition of hijacking planes and buses, the PLO in Lebanon hijacked entire cities, hiding behind the civilians when shooting, and holding entire cities hostage. I blame the PLO and its tactics for the deaths of Lebanese civilians. I deplore the fact that civilians have died. But put the thing into context, please. Approximately 100,000 Lebanese civilians have died in the civil war, at the hands of Syrians, PLO, Druze, Phalangists and others. The number killed by Israeli forces is relatively small. (Many of the initial figures as to civilian casualties of the Israeli invasion were supplied by the Palestinian Red Crescent, which just happens to be run by Dr. Fahti Arafat, brother of guess who. The figures were later found to have been grossly inflated.) =============================================================================== From: mjk@tty3b.UUCP >>>Since Israel is the third most powerful military nation in the world, >>>according to the Stockholm Peace Institute, I hope the PLO has a large >>>arms stockpile. They're going to need it. Why? So they can fulfill their clearly stated and often repeated objective of destroying Israel? Isn't that wonderful. Israel has no objective of killing Palestinians, or of anything like the PLO's designs for the Jews of Israel. The Camp David agreements propose Palestinian autonomy, within the context of security for Israel. The PLO have totally rejected this. Well, that's their problem. Israel just isn't going to go away. =============================================================================== Dave Sherman Toronto -- {cornell,decvax,ihnp4,linus,utzoo,uw-beaver}!utcsrgv!lsuc!dave
leichter@yale-com.UUCP (Jerry Leichter) (10/04/83)
Just a side note: The New York Times correspondent in Israel for a couple of years has been a reporter by the name of David Shipler. (He seems to have been replaced, and moved on; I haven't noticed his byline recently.) Like many American reporters, Shipler wrote quite noticably anti-Israeli, pro-Palestinian articles. (If you don't believe me, all you have to do is look them up and read them.) The reasons for this apparent bias have been discussed in many places, and I'm not going to go into the details here; but, to put the best light on the matter, the current view in American journalism is that one should take any government statement with many grains of salt, and be skeptical about any information you get that might be government -"inspired". Since Israeli society and government are open and democratic, while most Arab societies are closed dictatorships, this produces the paradoxical result that less is "believable" in Israel than in Arab states. Anyway... Shipler did a very impressive reporting job on what was to be found in the portions of Lebanon that Israel captured. It took up about two full Times pages. I remember being really astounded to see an article state such terrible things about the PLO and such good things about the Israeli troops. My first thought was that the Times had sent in a new reporter; but, no, there was Shipler's byline at the top. Finding and "objective" evaluation of what happened in Lebanon is difficult. Everyone approaches the situation with some biases. However, if you want to see how the reality "on the ground" affected one person's ideas, go to the library and start reading Shipler's stories, beginning perhaps a month or so before the invasion, and continuing through his big article on his travels through southern Lebanon. It might give you some facts to think about, instead of sitting there and attacking everything as "Israeli propaganda". -- Jerry decvax!yale-comix!leichter leichter@yale
velu@umcp-cs.UUCP (10/05/83)
Regarding Dave Sherman's message of 2 Oct 83 (dave@utcsrgv):
Yes, dave@utcsrgv, you have given us NAMES, PLACES, and DATES of
the acts which you so vividly described. But, where you there?
I was not. I only know for sure what I can infer after listening to the
same report of the same act from many different sources.
All of the reports which you have publicized are more than likely
accurate. But then, still, what is the purpose behind all of this?
Both the US and Israel in their show of we won't go down to the level
of the Terrorists - PLO - and refuse to negotiate with them - has not
helped matters any.
At one point during this last offensive by the Israeli's (You cannot
call going deep into the heart of a country a defensive act! At the
least, it was a psuedo-defensive act... ) Arrafat (sp?) was ready to
negotiate - but no one would speak to him.
What needs to be realized is that the PLO has two parts - the
government, and the fighting arm. The Government arm of the PLO has
some of the brightest minds in both economics and politics, as well as
eminent doctors and scientists. This ruling body is ready to talk, but
becuase of the **TERRORIST** label which has been pinned on them,
people refuses to talk to them.
The most important thing however is to realize that the tactics and the
policies which the PLO has right now are almost identical to the to
those of the Israeli/Zionist Nationalists before the formation of
Israel. Now, the PLO is ready and willing to talk, but the US and
Israel are ignoring the problem.
What would you like to see as a possible solution to the problem?
I think that the qualifications of the solution are as follows:
1. Israel Remains where it is - not the annexed borders,
but the borders as set out by the UN.
2. PLO have autonomous rule over the area set aside for them
by the UN.
3. All hostilities in that area cease.
(what a wishlist, right...)
Oh yeah - regarding ''ALL THAT LAND'' which Israel returned to Egypt...
I think that 'ALL THAT LAND' is the least that Israel can do for Egypt.
Egypt has stayed out of all middle-east conflicts since that time. I
think that the Israeli's got more than their share of the deal. Egypt
has done more for peace in that part of the world than any other
country. I truly believe that Sadat was (I was truly saddened when he
died!!!) the best statesman of the latter half of this century - if
not of the entire century... No offence to Carter + Begin, but Sadat
really had guts...
Oh well, I hope that this was not too
off on a tangent..
- Velu
--
Velu Sinha
UUCP: {seismo,allegra,brl-bmd}!umcp-cs!velu
CSNet: velu@umcp-cs ARPA: velu.umcp-cs@UDel-Relayneal@denelcor.UUCP (Neal Weidenhofer) (11/07/83)
I need to reply to some of your replies--I know none of the replies were to me since I'm new to the net but I didn't see anyone bring up some of the points I am. >What needs to be realized is that the PLO has two parts - the >government, and the fighting arm. The Government arm of the PLO has >some of the brightest minds in both economics and politics, as well as >eminent doctors and scientists. This ruling body is ready to talk, but >becuase of the **TERRORIST** label which has been pinned on them, >people refuses to talk to them. As long as the Government arm of the PLO is willing to benefit by the terrorist (fighting) arm, I find this distinction pretty artificial--like not holding the government of Israel responsible for the Army's behavior. N.B.: I am aware that you could claim that the government arm of the PLO doesn't CONTROL the fighting arm--even if you did make that claim, I would be very reluctant to take your unsupported word for it. >The most important thing however is to realize that the tactics and the >policies which the PLO has right now are almost identical to the to >those of the Israeli/Zionist Nationalists before the formation of >Israel. Now, the PLO is ready and willing to talk, but the US and >Israel are ignoring the problem. With the exception that the Israelis went after military rather than civilian targets (with possibly one exception) while the PLO seems actually to prefer civilian targets. > 1. Israel Remains where it is - not the annexed borders, > but the borders as set out by the UN. The indefensibility of the U.N. established borders was a major factor in the problems we are seeing now. Regards, Neal Weidenhofer Denelcor, Inc. <hao|csu-cs|brl-bmd>!denelcor!neal