[van-announce] Rally on 25 Anniversary of Sabra and Shatila Massacre

[Mike Krebs]

**please forward**

NO MORE MASSACRES!
END ISRAELI APARTHEID!

Rally to Mark the 25 Year Anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila Massacre

Sunday September 16th 2007 @ 1 pm
Vancouver Art Gallery


On September 16th, 1982 the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and
Shatila were occupied and invaded under the direction of the Israeli
military. For three days, unarmed Palestinian refugees were raped,
slaughtered and buried in mass graves by Lebanese Phalangist militias
acting under the orders of the Israeli military. Over 2,000 people were
killed, the vast majority of whom were women, children and the elderly,
in one of the most brutal massacres in recent history.

Sabra and Shatila takes its place in a long history of crimes against
the Palestinian people that began with the ethnic cleansing of 800,000
refugees from Palestine in 1948, and continues with the massacres in
Gaza today. The refugees of Sabra and Shatila, who were forcefully
expelled from their homes in 1948, remain in the camps to this day,
denied their inaliable right to return to the homes from which they were
expelled.

Join us to mark the 25 year anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila
Massacre, and to call for an end to Israeli colonization and occupation.

Organized by the Boycott Israeli Apartheid Campaign
For more information, please contact boycottapartheid at gmail.com

**BACKGROUND**

The Sabra and Shatila massacre took place during the 1982 Israeli
invasion of Lebanon, a military operation that aimed to crush the
Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) that was then largely based in
the refugee camps of Lebanon. Over 18,000 people were killed in the
summer of 1982, including those massacred at Shabra and Shatila.

The scale and brutality of the massacre came as no surprise to Israeli
military officers, who had been training the Phalangist militias for the
previous six years. Two weeks before the massacre, the army newspaper
wrote:  "A senior Israeli officer heard the following from the lips of a
Phalagist: the question we are putting to ourselves is - how to begin,
by raping or killing? You have no idea the slaughter that will befall
the Palestinians, civilians or terrorists, who remain in the city... The
sword and the gun of the Christian fighters will pursue them everywhere
and exterminate them once and for all."

An Israeli government commission determined that then Defense Minister
Ariel Sharon bore "personal responsibility" for Israel's role in the
Sabra and Shatila massacre, which included securing military control of
the camp; facilitating the access of Lebanese militias; preventing
Palestinian refugees from fleeing the massacre by sealing all exits to
the camps with military checkpoints; and illuminating the night sky with
a continuous serious of flares as the killings continued.

Israel did not retreat from Lebanon until 2000, with the exception of
the Shebaa Farms of south Lebanon, which remain occupied to this day.

**BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT AND SANCTIONS**

Despite the facade of "peace negotiations", Israel continues to entrench
a system of apartheid in Palestine characterized by densely-populated
ghettos encircled by concrete walls, sniper towers and military
checkpoints. In many areas, Palestinians are prohibited from owning
land, obtaining building permits, or traveling on highways based purely
on their race. According to South African law professor John Dugard, the
special rapporteur for the United Nations on the human rights in the
Palestinian territories, the apartheid regime in Palestine is "worse
than the one that existed in South Africa."

In 2005, 170 grassroots organizations in Palestinian joined in a call
for an international campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions
against apartheid Israel. Since then, the campaign has continued to gain
momentum across the globe, with a wide variety of initiatives undertaken
in academic, religious, medical, labour, cultural and grassroots
organizations.

For information about getting involved in this campaign locally in
Vancouver, please contact the Boycott Israeli Apartheid Campaign at
boycottapartheid at gmail.com