August 12th- Tel al-Zaatar massacre occurred on this date in 1976, one of the bloodiest events in the Lebanese Civil War whereby somewhere in the region of 3000 Palestinians were murdered during the attack by varying right-wing ultra nationalist Lebanese groups backed by the Israeli and Syrian armies. It was in retaliation to massacres committed against Lebanese christians by the PLO. This event also marked one of the many controversial moments in the career of Yasser Arafat or as the esteemed journalist Robert Fisk said on the matter "Arafat is a very immoral person, or maybe very amoral. A very cynical man. I remember when the Tal-al-Zaatar refugee camp in Beirut had to surrender to Christian forces in the very brutal Lebanese civil war. They were given permission to surrender with a cease-fire. But at the last moment, Arafat told his men to open fire on the Christian forces who were coming to accept the surrender. I think Arafat wanted more Palestinian "martyrs" in order to publicize the Palestinian position in the war."
Posted on: Mon, 12 Aug 2013 00:52:17 +0000