Quotation from Mordechai Gur “Q—Without ... distinctions between civilians and non-civilians? A—What distinction?” — May 10 1978

General, Chief of Staff of the Army from 1974 to 1978, justifying state terrorism without hesitation.

Author : Thematics :
" « Q—Is is true (during the March 1978 Israeli invasion of Lebanon) that you bombarded agglomerations [of people] without distinction?
A—I am not one of those people who have a selective memory. Do you think that I pretend not to know what we have done all these years? What did we do the entire length of the Suez Canal? A million and a half refugees! Really: where do you live?... We bombarded Ismalia, Suez, Port-Said, and Port Fouad. A million and a half refugees. ... Since when has the population of South Lebanon become so sacred? They knew pcrfectly well what the terrorists were doing. After the massacre at Avivim, I had four villages in South Lebanon bombed without authorization.
Q—Without making distinctions between civilians and non-civilians?
A—What distinction? What had the inhabitants of Irbid (a large town in North Jordan, principally Palestinian in population) done to deserve bombing by us?
Q—But military communiques always spoke of returning fire and of counter-strikes against terrorist objectives?
A—Please be serious. Did you not know that the entire valley of the Jordan had been emptied of its inhabitants as a resuit of the war of attrition?
Q—Then you claim that the population ought to be punished?
A—Of course, and I have never had any doubt about that. When I authorized Yanouch [diminutive name of the Commander of the Northern Front, responsible for the Lebanese opération] to use aviation, artillery and tanks [in the invasion) I knew exactly what I was doing. It has now been thirty years, from the time of our Independence War until now, that we have been fighting against the civilian [ Arab] population which inhabited the villages and towns, and every time that we do it, the same question gets asked: should we or should we not strike at civilians? » "

Al-Hamishmar, May 10, 1978, quoted by Edward Said, Zionism from the standpoint of victims , Vintage, 1979, p.55.

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