La fonte più importante e dettagliata resta il sito: http://www.israeltodamascus.com/index.htm

 Il libro: http://www.israeltodamascus.com/thebook.htm

 Per altre risorse vedi giù un capitolo del libro:

…”The assassination of Bashir Gemayel destroyed the Christians ultimate dream. It sullied Israel’s honor, undermined American credibility and above all, ushered to an era of bloody inter-Christian feuds, treason and battles that led to the collapse of the power of the Lebanese Christian people who were burnt down by the leaders who took over.

CHAPTER 8

On the morning of Wednesday, September 15, 1982, the Lebanese forces met at the Gemayel house in Bickfaya.  The house was crammed with mourners, and the attendees decided to run Amin, Bashir’s brother, for the president.  While all of Lebanon’s religious, political, military and civilian leaders and Minister Sharon and the Head of the Mossad passed through the room where condolences were extended, an invasion of West Beirut was being planned. It went off 12 hours later.
 In the afternoon of Wednesday September 15, 1982,  Bashir’s military and Intelligence lieutenants met with the Israeli chief of Staff Lieutenant General Rafael Eitan, and Major General Amir Drori, in charge of the Lebanese operation.
I was later told by Hobeika that there were about 2,000 PLO «terrorists» still hiding in the Sabra and Chatilla camps.  Hobeika advised me that he was in charge of the organization of an operation to clear them out.  He also disclosed that the Israeli forces had taken up positions in West Beirut and expected us to supervise the evacuation of the Palestinians from the camp.  We were to sort out the armed terrorists and hand them over to the Israeli troops at the Cite Sportive,  Al Madina Al Ryadieh, cleaned up and fixed to serve as a rally point.  Meanwhile, the whole country stood breathless and at a standstill, half of it drowned in deep despair, and the other half paralyzed with fear.   So ominous was the tragedy.
Hobeika had 24 hours to prepare his elite key force composed of 200 men.  The men were allotted in several units respectively under the command of Joseph Asmar, Michel Zouein, G. Melco, and Maroun Mashaalani. General Shar¿on besieged the camps and the Cite Sportive.
By noon on Thursday, September 16, 1982, the «Shababs» started advancing through the Beirut Airport Road. By 4:30 p.m., the Lebanese Forces had crossed the Israeli lines surrounding the camps. Sharon had given strict orders to Hobeika to guard against any desperate move, should his men run amuck. They were to behave like a real dignified, regular army not like «chocolate soldiers» and coordinate with the Israeli command. Their mission was to exert pressure an the Palestinians to drive them all out of the camp, and pick out the PLO agents left behind after the evacuation of the Palestinians in August, 1982.  They were rallied at the Cite Sportive and held prisoners. After inspection the civilians would be sent back to their homes.  However, Hobeika gave his own instructions to his men: «Total extermination ... camps wiped out.»
It was Maroun Mashaalani’s men, undaunted by their regular and immoderate use of heroine and cocaine who perpetrated the most ghastly slaughters in the camp bordering Ghaza Hospital at the entrance of Sabra. That is where foreign nurses and doctors were shot down in cold blood. The minute General Ariel Sharon had been informed that something odd and unwanted was going on, he summoned his commanding officers and Hobeika.
At 7:30 p.m. on September 16, 1982, Hobeika and I arrived at General Ariel Sharon’s Headquarters.  We climbed up to the terrace of the tall building next to the Kuweity Embassy.  From there we could plunge right into the camp and have an overhead view. Besides the Israeli officers, Assaad Shaftari, Michel Zouein, Elie Hobeika «H.K.» and myself were poised and ready.
The Israeli officers were jealous and filled with rage, blaming Hobeika for actually ordering the massacre of Palestinian civilians. Hobeika coldly retorted that it was because of the darkness he could not tell who they were. General Sharon, being too fat to climb up the flight of stairs, waited on the second floor to see Hobeika and have it out with him personally. The minute he saw him he roared out: «You were not supposed to do this. I didn’t ask you to commit massacres. If I wanted, I would have done so with my tanks. You’ll pay dearly for this blunder!» Hobeika replied that he would handle it with his men. Hobeika and I went back on the terrace.  Hobeika got a walkie talkie message from a guy called «Paul» saying, «There are women and children, what should we do?» Hobeika answered,  «It’s your lookout and don’t call me back again, you shit.»
Hobeika, Zouein, Shaftari and I ran back down to the second story where an Israeli officer drew a map of the site with a piece of chalk on the floor, pointing to where the massacres were taking place. That is when we had confirmation that it was Maroun Machaalani’s unit which was involved at the entrance of Sabra Camp.
Hobeika went back to report to General Sharon his account of events.   General Sharon ordered his men to fire flares from that moment on until 4:00 a.m. to avoid a further blunder.  It was too late.  The harm was done.  All the victims were civilians killed with grenades, hatchets, assault rifles, knives.  Some of the corpses were even boobie-trapped.
At around 6:00 a.m., the Lebanese Forces, arrived to inspect the butchery. Fadi Frem, Fuad Abou Nader, Steve Nakkour, Elie Hobeika and I inspected the premises. Hobeika  instructed Nakkour, who was in charge of Logistics, to send tractors to clean up the camps and leave no traces of the massacres, wiping out incriminating evidence.
 The Israeli officers prevented the Lebanese Forces from getting into the camps with their chiefs.  At 9:00 a.m., artillery fighting broke out between Maroun Mashaalani’s men and gunmen from Moslem shia Mekdad family members.  The Mekdad families came to inquire about their relatives who were among the camp inhabitants. A Lebanese army officer ordered Mashaalani to get off to stop the skirmish.  He complied.
By now, news accounts of the massacres had leaked out.  The reports became amplified, confused, and mixed-up. Some witnesses claimed that it was actually Major Saad Haddad’s men who had perpetrated the slaughter because of the South Lebanon accent.  Not one single man from Saad Haddad’s Free Lebanon Army took part in the operation. The Christian militia was unchained and blinded by rage after the assassination of  their Chief, President and martyr.
Once again, the mastermind, Hobeika had toyed with the lives of young patriots, committing them to carry out reprehensible actions which could serve only Syria’s interests!  It was the Syrians not the PLO who had never accepted Bashir’s election. It was later discovered and proven that Bashir’s  actual assassin, Habib Tanios Shartuni, was a secret member of the pro-Syrian, anti-Kataeb Party, Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SNSP).  The SNSP was represented by Assaad Hardane via Nabil Al Allam Chief of Intelligence and Security of the SNSP.  Syrian Army Intelligence «conducted» by Ali Douba assisted Shartuni in providing and stashing the bomb.  How could Hobeika claim that he had received orders to massacre the Palestinians from the Israelis?  I did not know where his two ultra secret meetings with Abdul Halim Khaddam during the first half of 1982 fit in.
I was Hobeika’s field man always present on the premises with my chief wherever he went.   I can state under oath, that General Sharon would never have lit up the area the way he did had he planned for any butchery. He would not have cleaned up the Cite Sportive to house all the Palestinians pending their return to their homes after verification. He would not have placed his tanks and armored cars all around the camps to capture the remaining armed Palestinian agents. One thing was certain, the Syrians had their men within the ranks of Lebanese Forces leaders.
Reflecting back on the events of my life, all the facts led me to believe that Hobeika was the man, who in 1982, provoked the Sabra and Chatilla massacres.    This is my own assumption of what was behind it because there are no real facts to support my claim.  After killing Bashir Gemayel, in secret coordination with the SNSP and Syria, I also suspected Hobeika was instrumental in the fall of the Likoud Government.  Prime Minister Begin and General Sharon resigned, allowing the Labor Party in Israel to come to power.  This rise reversed the process and destroyed everything the Likoud Government had worked to establish with the Lebanese Christians.
Bashir’s death and the massacres were pivotal in the fall of the Likoud Government.  It is alleged that  Hobeika contributed to the destruction of the Likoud Government plan for Israel and Lebanon because of his participation in the events.  While Syria was working for a new consensus with the United States, Hobeika became a pro-Syrian and a Hafez Assad hero.  Hafez Assad personally placed a protective umbrella over Hobeika’s head to avert any assassination attempts on Hobeika’s life following the massacres of the Sabra and Chatilla camps.
The assassination of Bashir and the attacks on Sabra and Chatilla also led to the fall of power for General Sharon and Prime Minister Begin.  Hobeika’s actions changed the course of events.  Israel lost power and Syria gained it.  It was the same mechanism that destroyed the courageous Israeli Government’s plan to save Lebanon and restore peace through a solid and strong Christian state.  Following Bashir’s death and the failed Likoud/Israeli plan, the United States then entered the Middle-East conflict with a new consensus and perspective different from the original Israeli perspective.  The Labor Party took control of the Israel government and compromised the Lebanese Christians with Syria.  Rabin stated many times, he would not mind for Syria to stay in Lebanon should Syria sign the peace treaty with Israel.  When Netanyahu took office, the whole middle eastern peace plan changed.
Five years after Hafez Assad kidnapped the American and western hostages through the Hizballah in Beirut, and released them later in Damascus.  He did so to gain the blessings of the United States political power.  The United States attempted to a deal with the Labor Party, headed by Rabin in Israel, Assad released 5,000 Syrians Jews from Damascus and authorized them to leave Syria and travel to the United States.  The United States was blessing a naive peace between Rabin’s Israel and Syria.  The Labor Party leaders believed this naive peace with Syria.  Rabin backed by United States support sought a peaceful resolution to the Middle-East conflicts. What Hafez Assad  and Syria wanted was the return of the Golan and Lebanon and to be in a position of strength in the balance of power in the Middle East.
Assad was loosing time.  The United States Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, traveled numerous times to the bargaining table to resolve the terms of the agreement, but was unsuccessful in his diplomatic attempts.   He failed because Syria never believed in Israel.  Assad was counting on a change that might occur with the New World Order, perhaps a new revolution with Russia that would topple the pro-United States regime and establish the Old Soviet Union, thus returning to the Cold War.  Assad could then take a power position in the Arab-Israeli conflict.  This never happened.  The Labor Party failed to understand the ideology that prevailed in Damascus, a denial of Israel to «exist» as a Nation in the Middle-East.  Therefore, the only peace that could dominate in the region was the peace through strength.  Hobeika succeeded in playing Syria’s political game and Syria was fooling the United States of signing a peace treaty with Israel. The political perception of President Reagan for the Middle East was the best.  Peace through strength. What Syria really wanted to do was waste time and swallow Lebanon for its own.  By doing so, Syria gained economic and political strength in the region.
On October 2, 1982, 17 days after the assassination of President Bashir Gemayel,  the Kataeb Party Radio Voice of Lebanon announced that the man who perpetrated the outrage, the assassin, Habib Tanios Shartuni, age 26, was captured. Strange coincidence indeed, Shartuni, his sister and grandparents occupied the top floor of the small three-story building which accommodated the Kataeb Party’s Ashrafieh headquarters. A friend of mine, then in West Beirut, overheard  two SNSP party leaders commenting that one of the greatest assets Hobeika gave to the Syrians was the Bashir story.  One can only infer that Hobeika was behind Bashir’s assassination.
Speculation of Hobeika’s participation in Bashir’s assassination was wide spread.  Hobeika had been Syria’s man inside the Lebanese Forces.  Hobeika had travel numerous times with Bashir.  Hobeika made many contacts there, but it was speculated that he was secretly working for the Syrian interests.  The last trip Bashir made to discuss the treaty, Bashir got into a verbal conflict with Prime Minister Begin.  What followed was the Syrian leader’s plan to assassinate Bashir with the help of the SNSP.  After the success of the operation, the leaders then devised a cover for the operation.  It is reported that the Syrian Moukhabarat began circulating news that the Israelis had killed Bashir because he had gotten into a conflict with the Prime Minister Begin during their last visit in Naharia.  The plan was to remove suspicion from the Syrians and color the Israelis with the crime.
Many in Lebanon do not understand why Israel would kill a man they had devoted and invested so much time and energy into gaining peace for their country.  The whole Israeli project was built on Bashir.  When Syria succeeded in eliminating Bashir, the whole Israel plan for Lebanon was lost.  There was no leader to fill Bashir’s place. Hobeika took advantage of the situation by averting the attention from the Bashir assassination to the massacres at Sabra and Chatilla.  Everyone forgot the crime against Bashir and focused their attention on the camp massacres.  It was well planned and successfully carried out.  Following these events, the Likoud Government collapsed, Prime Minister Begin and General Sharon resigned.  Alexander Haig, now the United States Secretary of State, was the man who gave his blessing to the «Peace Accord», who went home without any success.  Everything in Israel collapsed and Syria was getting out of the game victorious following Bashir’s death.
If Bashir had continued forward with his plans in Israel, Lebanon would have been the second State in the Middle East to sign the peace treaty with Israel after Egypt. This move would have ensured a friendly government to Israel in Lebanon. The Lebanese Forces were considered the Israeli mechanism in Lebanon, with the tripartite agreement and the Intifadas, Hobeika sliced the Lebanese Forces into two pieces and took the half of it to the Syrian side when he went to Zahleh.  He converted them working for the Moukhabarat Sourieh sending car bombs and executing assassinations in the Christian enclave for Syria’s interest.  Assad himself placed a protective umbrella over Hobeika because the Palestinians wanted to kill him and gave him a residence in Damascus and protection for the «favors» he did for Syria.

CHAPTER 9

Since 1977, Habib Tanios Shartuni, a Maronite, was an active member of the Syrian Socialist National Party, «SNSP».   Shartuni was a strong and indelible ally of the Syrians.  He was just a puppet, but a very useful one. The whole hierarchy pulled the strings with complete confidence, knowing that Shartuni would abide and no questions asked.
Stating with no regrets or fear, the 26-year-old  Habib T. Shartuni confessed at a press conference before being handed over to the Lebanese Justice by the Lebanese Forces.  Shartuni confessed, «I was given the explosives and the fancy long-range electronic detonator in West Beirut’s Ras Beirut neighborhood by Nabil El Alam, Chief intelligence of the Party.»   Alam had close ties to the Syrian Intelligence Services and right after the assassination fled to Syria and vanished into thin air, the Syrians would operated with the Secret Services of an eastern country.  It was speculated that this eastern country was the Soviet Union with its potent and powerful ambassador Alexander Soldatov who, some believe, engineered part,  if not all of the war in Lebanon.
Shartuni advised that on the night of September 13, 1982, he sneaked onto the second floor of the building housing the Kataeb Party Office in Ashrafieh. His behavior did not arose suspicion because he lived on the third floor with his sister and grandparents. He got into the room right above the platform on which Bashir and his companions would be seated and stashed about 40 to 50 kgs of high explosives.
 The next afternoon Shartuni stuck around the place until he made sure Bashir arrived, and walked out of the building.  Shartuni ran to the sector of Nasra with the detonator. Right after the blast Shartuni walked back to the premises to check the result.
Hardly three months after being handed over to Gemayel, Habib Sharttini’s mother, father and uncle, on his father’s side, were assassinated on Hobeika’s  personal orders. Their  murderer was a relative of theirs, Elias Shartuni, a close friend and benefactor of H.K.  They were immediately buried in the Nahr sector known as Sa’et el Abed between Nahr and Furn El Shebbak.  Elias Shartuni was not just a Lebanese Forces Commander, he was a good friend to all.  He was lavish, had plenty of money and knew how to spend it thriftlessly.   Easy come, easy go, he used to say, and always had his hand in his pocket with us.
Shartuni started to call on the Lebanese Forces Security Council members, namely Butros Khawand, Fuad Abu Nader, Elias el Zayek, Fady Frem and told them how he had been generous with H.K. and how, in return, he had bound him to bump off Habib’s folks.  Hobeika having ears everywhere heard about Shartuni’s brash talk and foamed with rage. To Hobeika,  E. Shartuni was getting too dangerous to his liking. He had to be wiped out.  It was true Shartuni was very useful to him in every way, but the odds were against him.
When H.K decided to eliminate E. Shartuni, he asked me to plan and carry out his assassination.  I kept putting off the execution order because Shartuni was a friend of mine.  I just could not get myself to do it and I could not help recalling how this man I was asked to shoot used to offer me and the boys of H.K’s close protection team, large tips, and expensive leather jackets. It was true that he made a fortune with drugs, getting commissions from all drugs smuggled out of Lebanon.  For the first time, I stalled and overlooked Hobeika’s orders.
In the end, Hobeika gave up nagging me and sent Joseph El Asmar to shoot Shartuni.  Asmar did shoot Shartuni down in broad daylight as he was stepping out of the Barber’s shop in Mar Yuhanna, Ashrafieh.
Habib Tanios Shartuni never knew that his parents had been killed in cold blood, for no reason except that they had a criminal son, and without even an elementary burial, by Elias Shartuni, a kin, the bodies were dumped under a tree.
Now that Bashir’s murderer was in the Lebanese Justice hands, Amin Gemayel had scored a victory against the Lebanese Forces War Council.  The Lebanese Forces adamantly refused to hand him over.  Amin was elected president six days after Bashir’s death and two days after the massacres of Sabra and Chatilla.   With Israeli backing, Amin knew that the honeymoon between him and the Lebanese Forces was over and that he would have to cross swords with them over major issues. Both sides had too much at stake. Rivalry and betrayal set in. Bashir’s death had triggered renewed intercommunal strife for power and money!
No sooner was Bashir buried, than his lieutenants, free from his control, began vieing for political position and power, planning, shifting alliances, never true to themselves or to each other. Their actions and options were dictated by a frantic race for power, unconcerned about their Christian community.
Fadi Frem, Fuad Abou Nader, Elie Hobeika, Samir Geagea and Karim Pakradouni, «Mr. Manipulator», were now focused on striking secret alliances and scheming against each other.  All of these leaders, except Pakradouni, were trained in Israel and had good friends and strong links there. Frem and Abou Nader had no elbow room with regard to their connection with President Amin Gemayel.  Paralyzed by family ties, Hobeika, Geagea and Pakradouni soon became the «intifadists», the future mutineers.  Each was different in age, education and temper, but they were united by their common dislike and conflict with the President and the Kataeb Party. The stronger bind was their momentary need for each other to build their position and power.
Hobeika considered Samir Geagea a tough highlander without a shred of political sense and no real ambitions except military capability.   Hobeika placed Geagea as the taxi-levier at the Barbara checkpoint to gain his favor.
Like Bashir, Hobeika had always had a cynical and contemptuous view of his own militia men and the Christian citizens.  Unlike Bashir, Hobeika was more subtle, and subversive in his approach than others.  After the Sabra and Chatilla massacres, the division between General Ariel Sharon and Hobeika was consummated.  Hobeika did not seem concerned. He made a complete reversal without compunction. He thought he had a stronger and better paying ally.
Like Bashir after the «Safra Operation», Hobeika after Sabra and Chatilla and his break off with Ariel Sharon, backed by the Syrians and their «Man in Lebanon» Assaad Hardane, set out to burn Lebanon and crush the Christians. Hobeika’s attributed role was to knock the Christians down on their knees. From the start, the motto Hobeika and the other leaders instilled into us was, «we’ll never ever kneel down»….

As-salamu `alaykum wa rahmat-Ullahi wa barakatuH.

Carissimi Fratelli e Sorelle di Islamsunnita,

Un articolo (segue) del genere mostra in modo molto esplicito come la CNN (in cui - guarda caso - sono massicciamente investiti i capitali del famigerato principe saudita Abdullah) manipoli l'informazione sin dai titoli delle notizie, al punto da definire Elie Hobeika "ex capo di una milizia filoisraeliana".

Che questo "filo-israeliano" fosse già un agente siriano nel periodo in cui i Falangisti erano teoricamente "alleati" di Israele, che a guerra finita abbia trovato rifugio e protezione a Damasco (non in Israele!) e che successivamente sia addirittura stato ricompensato dai Siriani (non da Israele!) con la nomina a ministro nel governo-fantoccio che la Siria ha imposto al Libano occupato ovviamente è di secondaria importanza........
All'opinione pubblica mopndiale deve continuare ad essere somministrata l'inverosimile balla secondo cui il massacro di Sabra e Chatila, compiuto dagli uomini di Hobeika per ordine dei Siriani proprio al fine di screditare Sharon, deve comunque ed in ogni caso essere attribuito agli Israeliani, anzi a Sharon in prima persona. Che si sia trattato di una strage compiuta da libanesi contro "palestinesi", da arabi contro altri arabi, e che sia stata anche compiuta come ritorsione per l'omicidio Gemayel e per i massacri compiuti dagli uomini di Arafat ai danni dei villaggi libanesi da loro occupati va invece assolutamente occultato. Gli impotenti fruitori di media debbono subire un continuo e sistematico lavaggio del cervello, debbono ignorare la verità dei fatti, e convincersi  che Sharon è "l'uomo del massacro di Sabra e Chatila" (come ripetono i bonzi della disinformazione di destra e di sinistra), massacro ordinato dai Siriani proprio al fine di sabotare la sua carriera politica. Quando poi Sharon sta per la seconda volta mettendo con le spalle al muro il terrorista Yasser Arafat e le sue bande criminali, quando per la seconda volta sta liberando il Medio Oriente da un'organizzazione mafioso-banditesca come l'OLP, allora questa forsennata e sistematica  campagna di revisionismo storico deve riprendere a tutti i costi, ed il Belgio - paese che ha scandalosamente finanziato il terrorismo dell'OLP e pagato persino i costi delle scuole in cui i bambini "palestinesi" vengono educati al genocidio degli ebrei ed al terrorismo suicida - oggi pretende di interferire nuovamente nelle vicende mediorientali, ed addirittura di "processare Sharon", in barba al diritto internazionale ed al principio di giurisdizione.

L'aspetto veramente paradossale è che a pretendere di processare Sharon è la magistratura belga (che è in condizioni di degrado forse ancora peggiori di quella italiana). Questa stessa magistratura non è stata ancora in gradodi spiegare quali siano state le connivenze che hanno permesso al pedofilo-assassino Dutroux di agire indisturbato, non è stata in grado di accertare quali siano stati i solidissimi legami fra il pedofilo, i politici, gli ufficiali di polizia e persino i membri della famiglia reale belga. Ciononostante, un paese che affonda nel marcio fino al midollo, un paese in cui la verità sui legami fra il "mostro" e la "crema della società" viene insabbiata nell'indifferenza generale e che non riesce (o non vuole) fare i conti con le reti criminali che ha in casa propria, pretende di processare un primo ministro di uno stato estero democraticamente eletto, e per giunta per supposti crimini commessi per ordine dei suoi nemici.

Ci sono prove indubitabili che attestano che Hobeika era a capo dei miliziani drogati che sono entrati nei campi di Sabra e Chatila, che ha personalmente ordinato il massacro, ma  - sorpresa - quello stesso demenziale tribunale belga che pretende di processare Sharon non ha mai iscritto il suo nome di Hobeika nel registro degli indagati, anzi non ha neppure pensato di chiamarlo a testimoniare. Il suo palese crimine contro l'umanità non conta nulla, del resto era un'agente del regime siriano, buon amico sia del Belgio che della Francia. Chi deve essere "condannato come criminale" è già stato deciso in anticipo (proprio come nei processi milanesi contro Berlusconi!): il "cattivo" Sharon. Come a Milano i magistrati stalinisti vogliono a tutti i costi far pagare a Berlusconi il "crimine" di avere democraticamente vinto le elezioni, così a Bruxelles altri magistrati filo-OLP e filo-siriani vogliono frar pagare a Sharon non solo la "colpa" di aver vinto democraticamente le elezioni (con i voti tanto degli ebrei, che con quelli dei cristiani e dei musulmani) ma soprattutto la "colpa" - ben più grave - di avere finalmente posto Arafat ed i suoi banditi in condizioni di non nuocere.
Wa-s-salamu `alaykum wa rahmat-Ullahi wa barakatuH.

Istituto Culturale della Comunità Islamica Italiana
 
24 gennaio 2002
Articolo messo in Rete alle 18:58 ora italiana (17:58 GMT)

Ministro libanese accusa Israele, Peres nega.

BEIRUT (CNN) -- L'ex ministro libanese Elie Hobeika, che fu capo di una milizia cristiana filoisraeliana, è morto in un'esplosione fuori dalla sua casa alla periferia di Beirut.

Nello scoppio hanno perso la vita anche tre guardie del corpo di Hobeika e altre persone sono rimaste ferite, alcune in modo serio.
Fonti governative hanno riferito che l'auto di Hobeika è saltata in aria quando l'uomo ha girato la chiave dell'accensione. Ma le forze di sicurezza non sono sicure che ad esplodere sia stata la sua vettura: l'attentato potrebbe essere stato compiuto con un altro veicolo. Erano otto anni che in Libano non si verificavano fatti di questo genere. Per le autorità di Beirut, si è trattato di un "assassinio mirato".
Il ministro per i rifugiati libanese Marwan Hamadeh ha accusato Israele di essere coinvolto nell'assassinio di Hobeika, ma il ministro degli Esteri Shimon Peres ha smentito categoricamente. "E' un'accusa priva di ogni fondamento. Abbiamo lasciato il territorio libanese", ha detto Peres in risposta alle accuse di Hamadeh. Intanto, agli uffici di Reuters a Cipro è giunto un volantino che rivendicava l'attentato, a firma di un gruppo libanese anti-siriano. Il volantino, scritto in arabo, attribuisce l'uccisione al gruppo "Libanesi per una terra libera", ed accusa Hobeika di avere tradito il Paese e di essere un agente siriano.
Hobeika, 45 anni, fu molto attivo nei quindici anni di guerra civili libanese. La sua milizia - Forze Libanesi, a maggioranza cristiana - fu accusata di aver partecipato ai massacri di Sabra e Shatila, nei quali un anno dopo l'invasione israeliana del Libano del 1982 furono uccisi centinaia di profughi palestinesi. All'epoca l'attuale premier israeliano Ariel Sharon era ministro della Difesa.
Un gruppo di palestinesi sopravvissuti ai massacri sta cercando di far incriminare Sharon per crimini contro l'umanità. In giugno ha presentato un'istanza alla magistratura belga, sulla base di una legge di quel Paese che consente di processare stranieri per questo genere di reati, anche se commessi in altri stati. Nella denuncia non c'è alcun riferimento al ruolo di Hobeika.
Una corte belga dovrebbe stabilire il 6 marzo se Sharon debba essere processato.
Nella sua ultima apparizione in pubblico, alla fine dello scorso anno, l'ex capo di Forze libanesi aveva dichiarato che avrebbe "detto la verità" sul suo ruolo nei massacri e aveva ribadito la sua innocenza.
La tesi di chi accusa Forze libanesi di aver partecipato alla strage è che i militari israeliani fecero da scudo ai miliziani cristiani che uccisero centinaia di palestinesi, un'operazione giustificata con la necessità di eliminare i terroristi.
Dopo la fine della guerra in Libano, Hobeika fu ministro dell'energia, fino al 1998.

The latest issue of of Middle East Intelligence Bulletin is now accessible online at http://www.meib.org/issues/0201.htm

TABLE OF CONTENTS [all articles can be freely accessed at the above url]

LEBANON
  Special Report: The Assassination of Elie Hobeika
   Hezbollah's Global Finance Network:

The Triple Frontier File:

Syrian Military Intelligence Officers in Lebanon

 Intelligence Briefs
SYRIA
   Intelligence Briefs
IRAQ
   Interview: Abdulaziz Ta'ib Ahmed

-------------------------------------------------------------------

An Open Letter to Human Rights Watch

We Have Hundreds of Eye Witnesses to the Events at Sabra and Chatilla, Will You Call Them?


Mr Hanny Megally
Human Rights Watch 350
Fifth Avenue, 34th Floor New York,
New York, 10118 USA
Telephone: (212) 216 1230
Facsimile: (212) 736 1300

Dear Mr Megally,

I feel it's my moral obligation to address your latest remarks on the Sabra & Chatilla affair asking President Bush to urge Prime Minister Sharon to cooperate with any investigation against him. I must take issue with your accusations that there is abundant evidence that war crimes and that crimes against humanity were committed at the Sabra and Chatilla Palestinian camps. You should know better, for as one of Egyptian origin who is expert in Arabic you realize the problem within the Islamic world of the problem in seeing events, truths, that have no significance to Islam and of the Islamic world ignoring other crimes of larger gravity that are not significant to the Muslim world.
Did you really assume that the Palestinians were attacked for no reason or that groups of civilian Christians suddenly developed a blood lust for Palestinians? Why did the Christians attack only Palestinians and not the Lebanese Muslims with whom they lived peaceably for centuries? The Christians have historically been a peaceful people who preferred to live in Lebanon in a historical balance with their Muslim neighbors, a friendly and respectable balance that existed until Yasir Arafat and his killers entered Lebanon.

Your myopic vision of the Sabra and Chatilla massacres ignores the massacres perpetrated by Yasser Arafat and his murderers against the Christian Lebanese. Let me remind you of some of Arafat's actions (I am an eye witness):

- The distribution of arms and money to the Islamists in Lebanon for the express purpose of subjecting the Christian Lebanese to ethnic cleansing.

- The massacre of the town of Chekka, in northern Lebanon, by Arafat forces, dozens of civilians, mostly Christians, were murdered and tortured by Arafat's hoodlums.

- In the massacre of the town of Damour, South of Beirut, dozens of Christians civilians were slaughtered, along with numerous rapes of young girls, were done by forces that came from those same Palestinian camps that you are defending.

- The massacre of the towns of Aintoura and Mtein, where groups of Palestinians murdered innocent Christian civilians solely because they were Christians .

- The daily assaults by the PLO forces against the Christian towns of Hadath, Ain-el Remmaneh, Jisr el Bacha, Dekaouneh, Beirut, and the Southern Metn, that resulted in hundred of Christian casualties murdered for defending their hometowns and existence. This was at a time when the Lebanese Government was paralyzed and could not send the Lebanese Army to halt the Palestinian atrocities due to Arab intervention in internal Lebanese affairs by the "Cairo" accords.

No, Mr Megally, Palestine's path to the submission of Lebanon does not begin at the Lebanese Christian Port of Junieh as stated in the famous phrase of Abu Ayad, Yasser Arafat second in command. There were no Israelis in Mount Lebanon to murder, they were all innocent Christian civilians massacred in hundreds of low intensity incidents (as in Israel today) just because they were Christians. The barbarism in Lebanon was an Arafat speciality. Christians were decapitated, girls were raped, parents and kids were murdered in the streets due to Palestinian military attacks against the Christians areas, as they refused to distinguish between adult men and women and children. All Christians, despite age or sex, were Palestinian targets. These were the same Palestinians we welcomed with open arms in 1948 with charity and our reward was death and torture.

Sabra and Chatilla was not a peaceful area where strangers entered for no reason and murdered innocent civilians. Sabra and Chatilla were one of the largest training centers for international terrorism. Most of the terrorists of the world visited the Sabra and Chatilla Camps in Beirut, received extensive training in terrorism, ranging from the use of plastic explosives to booby trapping cars, and special, assassination techniques given by well experienced followers of Yasser Arafat.

For example, the terrorist Red Brigades from Italy trained there, the terrorist Basque ETA movement, Carlos, Islamist mercenaries from Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Egypt, all came to those camps to be taught how to hijack planes, prepare bombs for use in Europe and elsewhere against US and Israeli embassies and missions. Sabra and Chatilla became known as the terror center in Beirut, whose mission was to export terror and subversion to the world. Many Lebanese were kidnapped to these camps and never returned alive.
The Christian Kataeb militias are no murderers Mr. Megally. They realized that the destruction of Lebanon by Palestinian hands could not continue and Lebanon could not be a training ground for international terror and murder.
There was no proportionality in the two events as Sabra & Chatilla experienced about 800 executions, yet the Palestinians murdered 200,000 Lebanese on different occasions and places. Could you help open an investigation into the matter? Lebanese families, eye witnesses, will thank you and are eager to get their rights back in court from Arafat murderers if they have the chance. Can you arrange in the interests of justice to hear in the court in Belgium from hundreds of cases of Lebanese victims of Palestinian terrorism? Will you call as a witness Elias Hobeika a known Lebanese traitor and Syrian operative who incited the event without the knowledge or consent of Ariel Sharon in order to embarrass and blacken Ariel's Sharon's name?

Additional information you should be aware of is that sensitive information from Lebanese intelligence army sources show that Brigadier General Ghazy Khanon, head of the Syrian Secret Service in Lebanon, (SSNP) is now pursuing a path of intimidation and threats through many channels against former Lebanese forces leaders to force them to testify in Lebanese courts against Ariel Sharon so as to relieve the pressure on Elias Hobeika.

No Christian Lebanese will apologize for the deaths of assassins and murders as their continued existence was at stake, and the Palestinian executions occurred with a deep revulsion for the taking of lives; however, these Palestinians were the victims of Yasir Arafat who precipitated the killings by supporting an existential evil that threatened the world. No Palestinian ever apologized for the destruction of Lebanon a country that hosted them with a friendly and open hands.
Sabra and Chatilla was no mistake, it was the Christian Community's inability to continue to suffer their extinction and their planned genocide that forced them to decide to halt once and for all Palestinian terrorism in Lebanon, a country that has suffered terribly from PLO terror while the world ignored us, making them willing accomplices. Don't blame the Christians or General Sharon.  The Palestinians under Yasir Arafat and Elias Hobeika are responsible as well as a world that doesn't care.

Sabra and Chatilla is a nothing more than a political attempt by Yasser Arafat, backed by Hosni Mubarak and Saudi Arabia, to undermine and weaken Israel's Prime Minister Sharon. By doing so, they hope to force Israel to return to the concessions given by former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, an inexperienced, political player as compared to Prime Minister Sharon. This is a failed tactic that will lead nowhere as Sharon's political position is to encourage a meaningful peace in the Middle East and is much stronger than these failed maneuvers and lost attempts.

Mr Megally, your call to President Bush was inappropriate, as you failed to present the full picture of the past events by inappropriately judging one side and disregarding the offenses of the other party involved in the events, not to mention that Arafat who succeeded through the weakness of the Israeli left to import the chaos and revolution from his Tunisian exile to the heart of Israel.

Thank you,

Nagi N. Najjar
Director of the Lebanon Foundation for Peace
Email: najjar@free-lebanon.com

Belgium's Dangerous Interference

by Nagi N. Najjar
Director, Lebanon Foundation for Peace


By taking side in a case like Sabra & Chatilla, Belgium is playing with fire by allowing this affair to take place on its soil and blaming Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. It is important for all to understand that if Belgium is opening this effort for political purposes, and is making a dangerous move at a wrong time of history, at the wrong place, with the wrong victim.

Yes, a massacre took place in 1982, and it is a matter of public record who were the instigators and perpetrators. This was not the first massacre in Lebanon and probably not the last.
That same Palestinian side that filed a complaint against Ariel Sharon in a Belgium Court is to blame for murders, distortion, and massacres, in Lebanon. A Lebanon that welcomed the Palestinians with open arms ended up a victim of the Palestinian gun and Palestinian terror.
It is the PLO, and all the Palestinians armed gangs that started the killings in Lebanon, establishing roadblocks, killing Christians during confession in Beirut, raping young girls in the fallen Christian town of Damour, Beirut, and Mount Lebanon. Where was the Belgium Court then? Why was the BBC not covering  Arafat and his murderers slaughtering Lebanese Christians, women and children? The whole world was silent in witnessing the massacre of the Christians in Lebanon. No one stood with them, not France, not the Vatican, not even Israel in general; however, the late Menachem  Begin and Ariel Sharon did so on a personal, courageous base. The Christian Lebanese are not murderers, they reacted to extreme violence perpetrated upon them by the Palestinians, supposedly peaceful guests in a country that welcomed them in 1948. This was a time when the Christian militias acted independently of the Lebanese State in order to protect the existence of the Christian community in Lebanon. Why did the Belgium Court not defend the Christian community in Lebanon from Palestinian gangsterism?

Publicizing the name of Ariel Sharon in such an affair is nothing more than political blackmail from a respected country in Europe. For a man who fought and won brave wars in the Middle East defending Israel and the other minorities of the region, Ariel Sharon is not terrorist nor evil. He is not Yasser Arafat who ordered the slaughter of the American diplomats in Khartoum, or the shootings at Italy's Airport, or the Achile Lauro affair, to the various bombing in Paris, and the assassination policies in London.
The Palestinian terrorist list is very long, ranging from Leila Khaled, to Okamoto in Lod, to Carlos in Beirut and Damascus, and many others areas.

Sabra and Shatilla was instigated and perpetrated by Elias Hobeika, a ruthless murderer working for Syrian Intelligence. Today his profession is giving Scuba lessons in a little seaport called Dbayeh 20 miles north of Beirut. If the Palestinians really want to see justice, the road within Lebanon is a much shorter road than the one of Brussel's. Hobeika is responsible for a long list of massacres and murders against the Christians in Lebanon, the Muslims, the Druze and the Palestinians included. Yet, he does not fear justice as he is under the protection of his Syrian friends. The Kahane Report details his involvement.
The History of the Middle East was filled by massacres, and either you bring all those cases to justice or you bring none. Start with Saddam Husayn murdering and gassing Iraqi Kurds, to the perpetrators of the massacre of Hama by Syria in 1982, to the massacres of Black September in Jordan.
Taking issue with one massacre that took place in Lebanon at the expense of another is a dishonest action and is a dangerous political stand for Belgium, with dangerous consequences and repercussions that might precipitate unpredictable, negative reactions. Before indicting a brave General defending the only democracy in the Middle East, facing a fundamentalist Islamic enemy striking out at the West with no mercy, indict the ruthless Islamic despots that are using terrorism as an effective diplomatic action against the West and America. These Islamists use the same traits of Yasser Arafat that made him a famous man of "peace" by torching Embassies in the world, targeting US, Israeli, and foreign diplomats, destroying and hijacking airplanes, and planting terrorism as a daily seed of life. These are de facto policies today in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and the PLO.
Mixing apples and oranges in politics is a fatal mistake, do not mix Africa nor Europe with the Middle East. Africa is Africa, Europe is Europe, and the Middle East is the Middle East, and history is still in the making.

--------------------------
 February 2, 2002
Please find as per below the January Report of the US Committee for a Free Lebanon (USCFL) http://www.freelebanon.org/ the premier Lebanese American lobbying organization in the world.
You can access all articles by going to our Home Page at http://www.freelebanon.org/
Not to be repetitive, we hold that the United States has vital interests in the Middle East and see the region, with its profusion of dictatorships, radical ideologies, existential conflicts, border disagreements, political violence, and weapons of mass destruction as a major source of problems for the Free World.
Toward this end, we seek to help shape the intellectual climate in which U.S.foreign policy is made by addressing key issues regarding the region in an accessible way and for a sophisticated public.
We also function as a resource for individuals and institutions seeking not only accurate and reliable information, but also new and fresh perspectives,  combined with innovative and effective solutions, for Lebanon and the Lebanese people.
Consequently, we serve as a vehicle to disseminate information on such humanrights abuses to institutions and policymakers in the United States and abroad that are capable of exercising political, economic, military or spiritual leverage to bring these abuses to an end and hold those responsible to account.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Informazioni dettagliate:
http://www.meib.org/articles/0201_l1.htm

Wednesday, February 7, 2001

Letter to the Editor correcting history of Sharon and Sabra/Shatila

Letter to the Editor correcting history of Sharon and Sabra/Shatila

Regarding ("An open letter to Ariel Sharon" by Muhammed Muslih, Ha'aretz Feb.7,2001 reproduced below:

With moral indignation Professor Muslih says Sharon is an "Arab-hater and apostle of violence who collaborated with the Lebanese Phalangist killers in the Sabra and Shatila massacres..." .That's not what the Kahane Commission found: "We have no doubt that no conspiracy or plot was entered into between anyone from the Israeli political echelon or from the military  echelon in the I.D.F. and the Phalangists with the aim of perpetrating atrocities in the camps ... We assert that in having the Phalangists enter the camps, no intention existed on the part of anyone who acted on behalf of Israel to harm the non-combatant population, and that the events that followed did not have the concurrence or assent of anyone from the political
or civilian echelon who was active regarding the Phalangists' entry into the camps. . . . the direct responsibility for the perpetration of the acts of slaughter rests on the Phalangist forces " Source: The Beirut Massacre - The Complete Kahan Commission Report (authorized translation} Karz-Cohl Publishing,Inc.1983 {pp.54-55)

The Commission found Sharon carried an "indirect responsibility" for the killings because he was not sufficiently aware of what should have been expected from the Lebanese Phalangists and did not take actions to prevent them.

Did the Kahan Commission shelter Sharon in its Report's secret appendix?
Almost coincidental with the Kahan Commission Report's release TIME magazine further electrifiedthe world with the claim that the Report's `secret annex' said that Sharon, before the funeral of asssassinated president elect Bashi Gemayal, discussed with Pierre and Amin Gemayal "the need for the Phalangists to take revenge for the assassination". Sharon sued TIME in New
York. The jury found the TIME article false and defamitory. The jury declared "certain TIME employees had acted negligently and carelessly". But, since maliciousness had not been proven, it was not considered libel.

Professor Muslih's description of Sharon's relationship to the massacre is more emphatic than the phoney accusation TIME published. Furthermore, in the professor's case the malice is self evident. Of course, P.M. Sharon may well be far to busy to sue. The serious question is the propriety of a person who makes such an erroneous statement in a malicious setting serving as a professor of Political Science at Long Island University and as an associate member of Columbia University's Middle East Seminar.

Professor Muslihi's moral indignation regarding the massacres is limited to Sharon. I am unaware of any published concern on his part that Lebanon hasn't undertaken any investigation of its citizens whom the Kahane Commission concluded had direct responsibility for the massacres. It is strange that Arab activist groups ranging from the Arab League to American Arab organizations also haven't raised the issue. Also, no particular attention has been given to the massacre survivors. Instead, they are among the refugees who have received the harshest treatment in Arab host countries. What an exhibition of corrupt moral indignation.

Dr. Joseph Lerner
Phone:(02) 625 3048
e-mail: lernerjs@netvision.net.il