A massacre in Lebanon
The following account is not suitable for children or for the faint of heart:
“An entire family had been killed, the Can'an family, four children all dead, and the mother, the father, and the grandfather. The mother was still hugging one of the children. And she was pregnant. The eyes of the children were gone and their limbs were cut off. No legs and no arms.

[…]

Many of the bodies had been dismembered, so they had to count the heads to number the dead. Three of the men they found had had their genitals cut off and stuffed into their mouths.

The horror did not end there, the old … cemetery was also destroyed, coffins were dug up, the dead robbed, vaults opened, and bodies and skeletons thrown across the grave yard”.

Sabra and Shatila, September 1982?

Not quite.

Actually it’s part of Father Mansour Labaky’s eyewitness account of the Damour Massacre, perpetrated by Yasser Arafat’s PLO in the January of 1976. Following the massacre the town was ruined, and was turned into a Fatah and PFLP terrorist stronghold, the local church serving as a repair garage for PLO vehicles and also as a range for shooting-practice. According to Father Labaky, who went back with the Red Cross to bury the dead, 582 were killed.

Some apologists for the Palestinians give the number of 200 dead. Noam Chomsky, an American linguist, who, strangely enough, seems to think his views on subjects unrelated to linguistics are of value, apparently believes that Damour was an example of Israeli propaganda. He is sceptical as to estimates of those killed, and claims, surprise surprise, that the massacre was taken out of context.

But a search via Yahoo reveals that Father Labaky is a highly respected Maronite priest and writer who went on to look after Lebanese war orphans, and has published a collection of hymns and other books.

At the beginning of the massacre Father Labaky tells of frantically phoning influential people to try and stop it: “Then he telephoned Kamal Jumblatt, in whose parliamentary constituency Damour lay. 'Father,' Jumblatt said, 'I can do nothing for you, because it depends on Yasser Arafat.' He gave Arafat's phone number to the priest.

An aide answered, and when he would not call Arafat himself, Father Labaky told him, ‘The Palestinians are shelling and shooting at my town. I can assure you as a religious leader, we do not want the war, we do not believe in violence.' He added that nearly half the people of Damour had voted for Kamal Jumblatt, 'who is backing you,' he reminded the PLO man. The reply was, 'Father, don't worry. We don't want to harm you. If we are destroying you it is for strategical reasons’.”

So Arafat had the power to stop the carnage, but chose not to.

This January was the 27th anniversary of the Damour massacre. I don’t remember reading any commemorative articles.

My Bish has done some research:
“A Google search for: Damour and massacre finds 525 results.
A Google search for: Shatila and massacre finds 9040 results.
A Google search for: Damour and massacre and Shatila finds 118 results.
That means that there are approximately 407 pages on the Damour Massacre, 8922 pages on the Sabra & Shatila Massacre, and 118 on both”.

He wonders why some massacres get more PR than others.

”It cannot be because in one massacre Muslims slaughtered Christians and in the other Christians slaughtered Muslims, can it? Most of the Internet users are Christians not Muslims.

I’ll have to guess then that only one of them can be pinned on the bloody Jews!”