"[The
Sabra and Shatilla killings was a] ‘horrendous massacre’ that
showed humanity had sunk to an excess of barbarism. There are
reports of hundreds and hundreds of victims, babies, women and
old people, put to death in a pitiless way. There are no words
adequate to condemn such crimes that shock the human and Christian
conscience."
-- Pope John Paul II (New
York Times, September 27, 1982)
"I’m crushed and terrified by the massacre and
I think all of us have bloody hands. It is a time for repentance
perhaps even before political solutions are possible. It’s Babi
Yar all over again and this time we’re not innocent. We Jews are
not innocent. Israel and the Begin Government . . . they are collaborators
with terrorists."
-- Rabbi Arnold
Wolf KAM Isaiah Israel Congregation, Chicago
former Jewish chaplan at Yale. (New York Times, September 22,
1982)
''The man[Ariel Sharon], by his own confession
in the Knesset last Wednesday, is an accessory to a crime and
should be prosecuted,. . . A man who puts a snake into a child's
bed and says: 'I'm sorry. I told the snake not to bite. I didn't
know snakes were so dangerous.' It's impossible to understand.
This man's a war criminal.''
-- Amos Elon
Israeli journalist and author, The New York Times, Monday September
27, 1982 (Late City Final Edition, Section A; Page 6, Column 1)
READ THE FULL TEXT OF THE ARTICLE
"It
is ... clear that the events in Shatila and Sabra took place within
the view of one of the main Israeli observation posts in west
Beirut, and the Christian militiamen entered the area of the camps
and left the area of the camps by passing through Israeli lines.
Throughout the night, witnesses said, the Israelis provided light
from flares over the refugee camps while the Christian militiamen
were inside."
-- Thomas Friedman,
special to the New York Times, Monday, September 20, 1982, (Late
City Final Edition; Section A; Page 1, Column 5)
READ THE FULL TEXT OF THE ARTICLE
"The
Massacre was done by us. The Phalangists are our mercenaries,
exactly as the Ukrainians and the Croatians and the Slovakians
were the mercenaries of Hitler, who organized them as soldiers
to do the work for him. Even so have we organized the assassins
in Lebanon in order to murder the Palestinians."
-- Prof. Yeshayahu
Leibovitz (deceased) Lecturer at Hebrew University
and editor of Encyclopedia Hebraica
"Using
the Phalange in West Beirut could have horrible results."
"You
must stop the massacres. They are obscene. I have an officer in
the camp counting the bodies. You ought to be ashamed. The situation
is rotten and terrible. They are killing children. You are in
absolute control of the area and you are therefore responsible
for that area."
-- Morris Draper,
U.S. Diplomat in East Beirut speaking to Bruce Kashdan, Israeli
Foreign Ministry Official Friday, September 17 and Saturday, September
18, 1982