APROPOS the article ‘Of Sabra-Shatila’ (Oct 19), it is a detailed account of the heart-wrenching event of the 1982 massacre of Palestinians in the two refugee camps in Beirut.
An abhorrent fact of this tragedy is that Arab Lebanese Phalangists killed hapless refugees with the active support of the enemy. Recent Arab history is replete with inter-Arab intrigues and its resultant tragedies.
What intrigues many is the Syrian role in this episode. While Beirut came under Israeli control briefly at that point in time, Syrian forces were also present in the rest of Lebanon. Why did the Syrian force not resist the Israeli onslaught? They looked on passively while the Palestinian camps were burnt and people were killed. This is a sad event in recent Arab history.
Javed Hafiz
Islamabad
Published in Dawn, October 30th, 2020
