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Re: Republicanism still an ...

Conrad Dunkerson
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SubjectRe: Republicanism still an offence in England? (wasRe: Queen mother (of
FromConrad Dunkerson
Date2002-04-13 19:22 (2002-04-13 19:22)
Message-ID<HPZt8.21725$Rw2.1743513@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>
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Newsgroupsalt.fan.tolkien
FollowsRuss
FollowupsRuss (1h & 21m) > Conrad Dunkerson
"Russ" <mcresq@aol.com>wrote in message news:20020413114753.21870.00005348@mb-ch.aol.com...

Russ
He was Israeli Defense minister. Lebanese Phalangist militiamen committed the massacres.

Lebanese Phalangist militiamen... whom Sharon personally ordered the IDF to turn the camps over to. Just after the assassination of the Lebanese president.

Conrad Dunkerson
Thousands of Palestinian civillians systematically massacred?

Russ
UN Observers put the figure at 7-800.

Setting aside the whole question of why the murder of 700 people would not STILL be a heinous crime... the 700-800 figure came from Israeli intelligence Russ. Not the UN. The UN was never allowed in to fully investigate the matter. The International Committee of the Red Cross (which was there at the time) on the other hand put the count in the thousands.

Conrad Dunkerson
Sharon found responsible even by Israel?

Russ
The Kahan Commission said he was 'indirectly responsible' and more specifically, "the Defence Minister made a grave mistake when he ignored the danger of acts of revenge and bloodshed by the Phalangists against the population in the refugee camps. These blunders constitute non-fulfilment of a duty with which [he] was charged"

As I said. He was found responsible even by Israel. Other reviews of the situation put his involvement in an even more damning light. The fact that he unquestionably knew about the massacre by the evening of the first day (if not from the start) and did nothing to stop it also goes a long way towards explaining just WHY the Palestinians were outraged by the election of this butcher. The smaller massacres at Qibya and other locations under his PERSONAL command prior to that didn't help either.

The Kahane Commission further found no evidecne of a conspriacy between the Phalangists on theone hand and the IDF and Israeli police on the other.

The Kahane Commission found a number of things which are demonstrably false. That is one of them. The IDF were right on top of the camps. They sent the Phalangists in. They intervened to stop the execution of a medical team that had been working in the camps. They had lookout towers from which the piles of bodies could be clearly seen. They had to let the trucks carrying people away pass. They knew perfectly well what was going on and allowed it to happen for three DAYS. That an Israeli goverment report found (mostly) otherwise just makes that report false.

BTW, your prior assertions about the Time Magazine suit were incorrect. The jury did in fact find that the Time Magazine article was false and careless and negligent. However, under U.S. law for a public figure to win a libel suit he must prove what is called 'actual malice'. The jury found Time did not act with actual malice.

You are obviously mis-remembering. None of the above contradicts what I had previously said;

"The libel suit against Time did not address the massacre at all (though that was the main point of the article). What Sharon objected to was a single paragraph stating that 'Time had learned that the Israeli report censoring Sharon for the massacre had included a note indicating that Sharon had visited the family of the former president of Lebanon and suggested that they seek revenge on the Palestinians for his assassination'. However, Sharon didn't get a penny. The article was found to be in error (there was no such note in the Israeli report), but not libelous."

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Russ (1h & 21m) > Conrad Dunkerson