26th Anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila

This week marks the 26th anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacre, one of the bloodiest events of the second half of the twentieth century. A Google search for recent news reports on this year's commemoration of the atrocity, however, brought up very little. Yes, there were some emotional blog posts, as well as a link to the BBC's "On this Day" page, featuring quick facts and figures about the massacre, alongside an archival, and iconic, photograph of twisted corpses lying in a heap next to a cinderblock wall, the victims of an execution-style killing.

It has been more than a quarter of a century since more than 1,000 unarmed men, women, and children were raped, maimed and slaughtered. The massacre occurred at the dividing point of the 1975-1990 Lebanese war. Some might say that the killings were the marker or the catalyst of the war's horrible turning point. Before the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and siege of Beirut in the summer of 1982, the Lebanese civil war had taken many lives and introduced new images and phrases into the Arabic and English languages. The Lebanese war involved many players and funders, not all of them local. But with the entry of the Israeli army and air force, Lebanon witnessed more death and destruction in three months than it had suffered during the previous seven years. Sabra and Shatila, a Palestinian refugee camp on the outskirts of Beirut, marked the site of the Israeli-Palestinian and the internal Lebanese conflicts' intersection. The front lines of these conflicts slashed through the refugee camps for three dark days and three eerily bright nights illuminated by flares that the surrounding Israeli army fired over the camps to assist their Lebanese client militia, the Phalange, in their gruesome tasks.

The Butcher of Sabra and Shatila.

Where were the murderers? Or to use the Israelis' vocabulary, where were the "terrorists"?

In 2001 lawyers attempted to have Ariel Sharon (Israel's defence minister at the time) tried for the massacre under Belgian legislation, which grants its courts "universal jurisdiction" for war crimes.

There had been great enthusiasm about the case in the camps. Mr Sharon, after all, had already been found to bear "personal responsibility" in the massacres by an Israeli commission of inquiry (which concluded he shouldn't hold public office again).

But the all hopes were dashed again in June 2002, when the Belgian judges ruled that the case was inadmissible.

The fact that Mr Sharon had got off on a technicality (thanks to his absence from Belgium) is of little comfort to people who have spent every day of the last 26 years living with the consequences of the massacres.

Read further the following articles.

The Massacre
After 25 years, who remembers?, Franklin Lamb (14 September 2007)
Book Review: Sabra and Shatila 1982, Victor Kattan (21 May 2005)
Remembering Sabra and Shatila -- and Atoning, Ellen Siegel (4 October 2003)
Massacres Don't "Just Happen", Laurie King-Irani (18 September 2002) 

The Legal Case
2003: A year of US and Israeli defiance of International Law, Laurie King-Irani (2 January 2004)
Belgian court to rule whether Sabra and Shatila plaintiffs can proceed, Nicholas Blanford (17 September 2003)
On learning lessons: Belgium's universal jurisdiction law under threat, Laurie King-Irani (24 June 2003)
The Sabra and Shatila Case in Belgium: A Guide for the Perplexed, Laurie King-Irani (16 June 2003)
Sharon Trial: 12 February 2003 decision of Belgian Supreme Court explained (19 February 2003)
Putting Sharon on Trial: Why Belgium is doing the right thing, Ali Abunimah (14 February 2003)
Open letter to Netanyahu from massacre survivors' legal team (13 February 2003)
International justice for Sabra and Chatila victims, Amnesty International (25 September 2002)
Dismay at Sharon case decision, Amnesty International (26 June 2002)
Prevent another Massacre: End Ariel Sharon's Impunity for War Crimes Now, Laurie King-Irani (12 March 2002)