MID-EAST REALITIES © - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 4/18/01: It was five years ago today that hundreds of civilians under U.N. protection in southern Lebanon were brutally killed or maimed by the Israeli Army. With Shimon Peres then Prime Minister after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the Israelis desperately tried to cover it all up and pretend it was just a mistake of war. But thanks to the great efforts of journalist Robert Fisk and the courage of a few unnamed U.N. personnel that terrible lie was revealed to the world, though so many others go unexposed. On the first anniversary of the Qana massacre the following Press Release was sent out by The Committee on the Middle East (COME), which unfortunately has not been able to be active for the past three years. What happened at Qana should be a reminder to all of the even greater dangers facing the region today as Israeli militarism and the neo-apartheid conditions created by Israel, all with the ongoing help of the United States and connivance of the Arab "client regimes", are allowed to continue and escalate.

P R E S S R E L E A S E: 16 April 1997

Press Contact: 202 362-5266
Email: COME@MiddleEast.Org / Fax 202 362-6965

The "Qana Massacre" took place on 18 April of last year, this Friday.

The absolutely grizly scenes of tremendous carnage were broadcast throughout the world. But that in itself has happened before in various ways, in various places, with various perpetrators.

In the case of Qana, however, there are some unprecedented aspects which make this particular massacre stand out differently from others.

For the first time in the Middle East a large number of civilians specifically under United Nations protection were specifically targeted.

For the first time investigations by the United Nations, as well as independent organizations such as Amnesty International, uncovered not only that the attack was on purpose, but that a massive international cover-up then resulted, one in which the government of the United States participated.

For the first time well-established journalists were able to document the details of the massacre cover-up including that the shelling followed a specific pattern that could not have been accidential and that an Israeli drone spotter plane was actually overflying Qana at the time!

And for the first time a Secretary-General of the U.N. was threatened that he must not endorse or release the U.N. report about Qana or he would not be supported for a second term in office -- which in fact did come to pass.

What the Israelis did at Qana, and how they then attempted to lie and deceive in front of the entire world, is a particular gruesome example of how the Israelis have killed tens of thousands of civilians since the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948. Moreover, that the government of the United States accepts such behavior, often actually condoning it and helping the Israelis in their coverup attempts, only makes the situation even more intolerable.

For further details of past Israeli massacres and coverups see: http://www.MiddleEast.Org

On this one-year anniversary of Qana massacre, we certainly hope those in the media will appreciate that this is an event, and a coverup, that should not be forgotten.

------------------------------------- COME ADVISORY COMMITTEE: Professor Jane Adas - Rutgers University (NJ); Professor Faris Albermani - University of Queensland (Australia); Professor Jabbar Alwan, DePaul University (Chicago); Professor Alex Alland, Columbia University (New York); Professor Abbas Alnasrawi - University of Vermont; Dr. Munawar A. Anees - Editor-in-Chief, Periodica Islamica (Malaysia); Professor Michael Astour - University of Southern Illinois; Professor Howard Baumgartel - Emeritus, University of Kansas; Professor Charles Black - Emeritus Yale University Law School; Professor Francis O. Boyle, University of Illinois Law School (Champlain); Mark Bruzonsky - COME Chairperson (Washington); Linda Brayer - Ex. Dir., Society of St. Ives (Jerusalem); Professor Noam Chomsky - Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge); Ramsey Clark, Former U.S. Attorney General (New York); John Cooley, Author, Cyprus; Professor Mustafah Dhada - School of International Affairs, Clark Atlanta University; Professor Mohamed El-Hodiri, University of Kansas; Professor Richard Falk - Princeton University; Professor Ali Fatemi - American University, Paris; Michai Freeman - Berkeley; Professor Deborah Gerner - University of Kansas; Professor Sherna Gluck - California State University (Long Beach); Nader Hashemi - Ottawa, Canada; Professor Clement Henry, Univ of TX (Austin); Professor Herbert Hill - University of Wisconsin (Madison); Professor George Irani - Lebanese American University (Beirut); David Jones - Editor, New Dawn Magazine, Australia; Professor Elie Katz - Sonoma State University, CA; Professor George Kent, University of Hawaii; John F. Kennedy - Attorney at Law, Washington; Samaneh Khader - Graduate Student in Theology, University of Helsinki; Professor Ebrahim Khoda - University of Western Australia; Reverend Labib Kobti - San Francisco; Guida Leicester, San Francisco; Jeremy Levin - Former CNN Beirut Bureau Chief, Journalist, Portland; Professor Seymour Melman, Columbia University; Dr. Avi Melzer, Frankfurt; Professor Alan Meyers, Boston University; Kamram Mofrad, Idaho; Professor Peter Pellett - University of Massachussetts (Amherst); Professor Tanya Reinhart, Tel Aviv University; Professor Masud Salimian - Morgan State University (Baltimore); Professor Mohamed Salmassi, University of Massachusetts; Qais Saleh - Graduate Student, International University (Japan); Ali Saidi, J.D. candidate in international law, Berkeley; Dr. Eyad Sarraj - Gaza, Occupied Palestine; Henry Schwarzschild - New York (original founder - deceased); Professor Herbert Schiller - University of California (San Diego); Dr. Manjra Shuaib - CapeTown (South Africa); Professor J. David Singer - University of Michigan (Ann Arbor); Steven Sosseby, Cleveland; Professor Majid Tehranian - Director Toda Institute for Global Peace and Policy (University of Hawaii).

Mid-East Realities

www.middleeast.org

Source: http://www.middleeast.org/articles/2001/4/160.htm