The Lebanese are forced to share their country: around 400,000 Palestinians also live in Lebanon but it’s not their home. Home for them is in a country called Palestine to which they cannot return despite the PLO/Israeli accord. Robert Fisk, From Beirut to Bosnia II: The Road to Palestine
Someone had to eliminate them [dogs] or all of our people would be dead. Twenty-six dogs and I remember every one of them. Ari Folman, Waltz with Bashir, 2008
Even now I escape into sleep and hallucinate. ibid.
I just can’t seem to remember anything from my time in the Lebanon war. ibid.
We were shooting everywhere [and] at everything until nightfall. That evening when we finally stopped an officer said to me: ‘You, load up the dead and wounded, load them and dispose of the bodies.’ ibid.
This is the story of how the world’s most powerful man [Ronald Reagan] declared war on terrorism in the Lebanon, fought it with words and lost. States of Terror: Men of God, BBC 1993
Lebanon: One images still haunts America: the ruins of its embassy shattered by a suicide-bomber. ibid.
Sorrow and anger were to cloud his judgment was the tragedy unfolded … humiliated in the Lebanon by a handful of fanatics driving trucks. ibid.
Lebanon was at one time known as a nation that rose above sectarian hatred; Beirut was known as the Paris of the Middle East. All of that was blown apart by senseless religious wars, financed and exploited in part by those who sought power and wealth. If women had been in charge, would they have been more sensible? It’s a theory. Roger Ebert
Israel was now determined to finally destroy the power of the Palestinians. And in 1982 they sent a massive army to encircle the Palestinian camps in the Lebanon. Two months later thousands of Palestinians were massacred in the camps. It horrified the world … Israel had allowed it to happen. Adam Curtis, HyperNormalisation, 2016
President Reagan withdrew all the American troops from the Lebanon. Secretary of State George Shultz explained: ‘We became paralysed by the complexity we faced.’ So the Americans turned and left. ibid.
Brian Keenan, seized 11th April 1986 on the streets of Beirut, a hostage for 1,316 days. World in Action: A Thousand Nights in Beirut, ITV 1989
John McCarthy, seized 17th April 1986 on his way to Beirut Airport, a hostage for 1,310 days. ibid.
Terry Waite, disappeared 20th January 1987 in the southern suburbs of Beirut, a hostage for 1,022 days. ibid.
Britain is not alone is suffering the emotional pain and political humiliation of seeing its citizens seized and held hostage in Beirut. ibid.
Only Britain has failed to bring out a single hostage alive ... Britain’s refusal to negotiate has left three men in prison for a thousand nights in Beirut. ibid.