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pitted Maronite Christians, Druze militias, Christian militias, Shia and Sunni militias and Palestinian refugees in an internecine feud over the Christian right to hold the Lebanese Presidency. Beirut was once the financial capital of the Middle East.

The 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon cost the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) c.600 fatalities. Defence Minister, Ariel Sharon, masterminded this disaster, recruiting Christian Phalangists to enter and kill Palestinian refugees in the Shabra-Shatila refugee camps south of Beirut. This is a well documented massacre. Sharon did not face criminal charges but he had to face up to the poor performance of IDF personnel. The much vaunted fighting qualities if the IDF were lacklustre. In one incident, a Merkava Main Battle Tank was captured intact and used by Palestinians against the invaders.

The 2006 destruction of Lebanon by Israel due to Hezbollah (the Party of God) shelling northern Israel flew in the face of international law. This same Hezbollah roundly defeated the IDF in the year 2000 forcing their retreat from illegally occupied South Lebanon. Israel targeted Lebanese infrastructure and spent 34 days bombing Lebanon into the stone age. Israel lost many friends as a result of this vicious onslaught. The UK could have halted the unwonted destruction of Lebanon. Former UK P.M. Tony Blair was appointed EU peace envoy to the Middle East in 2007. Does his partiality in 2006 work against him?

Lebanon is a mixture of many culture. The Palestinian issue is an anomaly. The Lebanese Army cannot enter Palestinian refugee camps according to statute law. The Fatah-al-Islam bank robbers were an exception, they entered a Palestinian refugee camp, Nahr-el Bared, in 2007. The Lebanese army laid siege to the refugee camp in the suburbs of Beirut and finally destroyed an armed Palestinian threat after three months hard fighting. The US is supplying Lebanon with military hardware. This US alliance is the kiss of death for Lebanese President
Siniora.

The reference to Lebanon's 'Palestinian issue' ignores Deir Yassin {1948}, [Givat Shaul, 2008], West Jerusalem when on 9th April 1948, 130 Palestinians were massacred by two Jewish militias, the Irgun Zvai Leumi and the Stern Gang, as the Jews of Palestine fought for the independence of a state called Israel. This slaughter, so terrified tens of thousands of Palestinian Arabs, that they fled their homes en mass, thereby creating the Palestinian refugee crisis throughout the Middle East.

Zionist propaganda is active, highly organised and widespread; the western world Press is highly amenable to it in the English speaking world.

Arab propaganda is primitive and less successful; Arabs lack the skills or multi-lingual ubiquity or financial resources which make Jewish propaganda so effective.

The world examines and reasons Palestinians through Zionist perspectives.

The Oslo Peace Accords, 1993 will never be honoured by Israel. Israel steals Palestinian land (their legitimate owners languishing in refugee camps in Lebanon) for illegal settlements in Judea and Samarra {The West Bank, CisJordanie). The violence continues unabated.

References: Fisk, Robert, Pity the Nation,; Sunday Times articles; Chomsky, Noam The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the Palestinians Pluto Press 1983; Said, Edward the Politics of Dispossession: The Struggle for Palestinian Self-Determination 1969-1994.

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