| New
Zealand Herald Wednesday, November 24, 2004
Former Israeli
army chief Rafael Eitan drowns JERUSALEM: Rafael Eitan,
the former Israeli army chief officially
reprimanded for not preventing the 1982 massacre of
Palestinian refugees in Lebanon by Israeli-allied
militiamen, has drowned. He was 75. Eitan, who became an outspoken rightist
politician who once said Arabs should be placed in
a bottle like drugged cockroaches,
was swept into stormy seas at the Ashdod port
yesterday where he was working as an adviser to a
construction company. Helicopters and rescue ships launched a search
and he was found after two hours, but medics were
unable to resuscitate him, emergency officials
said. "He was a brave commander
and a brave soldier," said centre-left
politician Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, a former
chief of staff. A veteran of all of Israel's wars, Eitan
commanded the Jewish state's armed forces during
the invasion of Lebanon in 1982. But he served out his
term in disgrace after an official commission of
inquiry faulted him for failing to prevent the
massacre of hundreds of Palestinians by
Israeli-allied Christian militiamen at Lebanon's
Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in 1982. The same inquiry found Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon, defence minister at the time,
indirectly responsible and he was forced to resign.
[Website: Yes, whatever
happened to Ariel Sharon after
that?] Eitan later entered politics where he formed two
right-wing parties called Tehiya and Tzomet, which
joined the coalition governments of former prime
ministers Yitzhak Shamir and Benjamin
Netanyahu in 1988 and 1996. Nicknamed "Raful", Eitan earned notoriety for
outspoken comments about Arabs and opposed interim
peace deals with the Palestinians in the
mid-1990s. Eitan served as Agriculture Minister and
Environment Minister in the Netanyahu government
and was appointed to the post of deputy prime
minister. His party failed to win support in a
general election in 1999 and he left political
life. At the age of 16, Eitan joined the Palmach, an
elite fighting force, whose members became the
founding fathers of the Israel Defence Forces. He fought in the campaign to break a siege on
Jerusalem and was wounded in the 1948 Arab-Israeli
war over the founding of the Jewish state. Eitan later commanded paratroopers on a mission
to parachute behind Egyptian lines in the Sinai
Peninsula during the 1956 Sinai campaign, which was
backed by Britain and France. Eitan was wounded again in the 1967 Arab-Israeli
war when Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza
Strip and he was appointed army chief in 1978. He was an olive farmer who said he was happiest
working on the land. He also established programmes
to help disadvantaged youth including by
integrating them in the military. 
Rafi
Eitan famously described the Palestinians as
"drugged cockroaches"-
Eitan, "a
brave commander and a brave soldier." Pictures
of his bravery at Sabra and Chatila
-
Israeli and
Jewish outrage at opinion piece, 'Palestine: The
Assault on Health and Other War Crimes,' by
British professor Derek Summerfield in
British Medical Journal
-
Ha'aretz
(Israel): Killing children is no longer a big
deal
-
Some
British doctors doubt the suicide of Dr. David
Kelly (Guardian)
 -
Abu Ghraib American
doctors collaborated with interrogators in the
torture of Iraq prisoners
-
Israel
"harvests" the vital organs of Palestinian
children killed by their Army
- Israeli
medical association: OK to break fingers of
Palestinian prisoners during
interrogation
-
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