Thursday, April 20, 2006

Have you heard anything?

I heard on the evening news on Future tv that, for the first time, Israel was finally indicted of 'war crimes' for the genocide that took place in Qana in April 1996 by the UN. I thought not that it matters but at least people would hear the story and know what happened.

Headline news: The Tel-aviv bombing: Teenage bomber who shook the Middle East (the times, the independent, le monde and our papers)

Nothing about Qana though! Maybe i'll find something online. it's too early to be online. I'll look anyway. Maybe i mispelled it. Qana, Quana, Kana... Nothing the next day either.

Anybody heard anything?

and so we'll always remember,
http://members.tripod.com/~Bregava/qana.html
http://tyros.leb.net/kana/index.html

22 comments:

Ghassan said...

even the US is indicted of war crime (as per Chomsky).
but what does it mean...
no mention of your quana story anywhere in the RSS feeds (not even the mention of the word 'liban')... sorry :(

Unknown said...

of course the us is indicted.
of course non of it means anything.
it would just be nice for people to know about it

Dry Gin Martini said...

We should all take a moment of silence and contemplation out of respect for the dead. I remember Qana very well although I wasn't in Leb at the time. It was near the end of my finals in my first year as an undergrad, and we were furious on campus. Unfortunately, history dictates that our blood is not precious enough for an accountability act.

Unknown said...

we were there and we were as voiceless as people abroad. i remember collecting contributions with the red cross back then and being shocked at lebanese people who didn't care to help and some who didn't know what we were talking about.
so, it does start with us. we sold our blood cheap.

Laila K said...

how can we forget?! 10 years and still as if it's yesterday, the horror and the pictures carved forever in my memory

Hashem said...

Who can forget?
........

Anonymous said...

I am glad that some people still remember what happened on that day. Today I was reading other Lebanese posts about Qana. Some of them were close to blame the victims for being there. They are taking the israeli side of the story. I was disgusted and felt really bad.

It is pathatic that even in death there is sectarianism . Thank you Mirvat. You made my day. Wallah.

Dry Gin Martini said...

have you forgotten that Sabra and Shatila were carried out by Lebanese people? why does that surprise you so much?

Unknown said...

i agree with LC on this one. that does not surprise me samer. thank you for your comment

Anonymous said...

Whoever was behind Sabra and Shatila can't admit that they did it becasue of obvious reasons. But when it comes to Qana, even when the criminal is obvious still they want to blame the victim. Or come up with excuses of why the massacre took place from the begining. There is no political or social consequences in saying the truth there!I am not surprised, but rather digusted.

Unknown said...

samer, what's the link of the blog you read. now i'm very interested in reading what they had to say. i can't think of any excuse this blogger is coming up with or think of any political justification for what happened. even back then, Sharon justified the act as a big 'accident'.

Anonymous said...

It is not a blog or some anonymous comment in particular, but it is the sense you get that some try to justify what happened only for politcal reasons.

rouba said...

thanks for reminding me i had forgotten but now i remember the horror vividly like it was yesterday
ironic that in another time it was the place of a holy wedding and a happy day where water turned into wine..

raed said...

I think people tend to be selective with that they wanna hear (or what they want to believe maybe?) which leads to the media being selective in what they publish as well (its also vice versa i think).

It’s a fact that at that day it was the UN compound that was bombed (this is too shocking by itself to be publicized and stressed on). No one wants to hear about israel killing more than a hundred civilian hiding in the UN base! Can you imagine the impact of this on the public and the embaressment of UN and western officials who will be morally obliged to take sides (publicly!)against israel! (who wants such an awkward and distracting situation… and it would be very harmful to their propaganda system as well).

Ofcourse the Qana story is always mentioned in Arabic media, but then again "they" can use the same argument that Arabs want to hear what they wanna hear. (maybe I shouldn’t be playing devil’s advocate here...)

raed said...

Thought of sharing these with you... made by 2 friends of mine (long time back):

Qana
Qana2

Unknown said...

that's right, and the Arabs don't want to hear about it either. i can't even remember where the egyptian government or the saudis stood from all this back then. nobody wants to take an apparent stand of course and so the public opinion shouldn't know about this.

raed, i couldn't open the link, can you please send it again?
and thank you for your comments.

Roubs, sorry babe for this. it's just that i feel people should still be crying and still be mourning and still be talking about it.

Ghassan said...

it's about the 'ostrich' and the arab world.
it would be a nice fable de la Fontaine (L'otruche et le monde arab)
don't you think?

raed said...

here are the URLs...

http://www.r-aed.com/blog/qana.exe
http://www.r-aed.com/blog/qana2.exe

rouba said...

no i was not being facetious i'm glad u reminded me; it's definitely something we should not forget!

Anonymous said...

Beautiful Raed. Too bad the sudden patriots of these days don't see what you see.

Unknown said...

well, i know i should only expect biased pro-israel news but i never expected it to be to this extent. lets' just say that i'm always surprised by the media and i'm shocked by how much people don't know or don't care to know.

i personally would say it and i could never be called an anti-semite...i'm an arab. we're expected to defend ourselves from the "governments" that are attacking us and occupying us. it's never against people and individuals as i hope people understand.

Anonymous said...

The Innocent Lebanese Civilians were killed at Qana by using MK-84 Laser Guided Bombs (LGB) with BSU-37/B (Bomb Stabilization Units). These Bombs are Precision-Guided Munition (PGM) and were manufactured by the U.S. Company Raytheon for the U.S. Navy and Air Force.
The MK-84 LGB, which weights 2000 lbs (907 kg) and has 948 lbs (430 kg) explosive power, features accuracy, reliability and cost-effectiveness previously unobtainable in conventional weapons.

Qana Massacre #2:
http://tyros.leb.net/qana2

Qana Massacre #1:
http://tyros.leb.net/qana