Thread by @RBrulin

10/01/1981: 40 years ago TODAY: Massive car bomb explodes in front of PLO offices in Beirut. 83 are killed. The street is mangled with body parts. Other bombs are defused. A mysterious group called the Front for the Liberation of Lebanon from Foreigners claims responsibility 1/

This is just the latest in series of extraordinarily deadly car bombings that started 2 weeks earlier. Hundreds of Palestinian & Lebanese civilians are killed. At the time, it is the deadliest car bombing campaign in history. All are claimed by that mysterious group, the FLLF 2/

At the time, Palestinians & many Lebanese people insist that Israel is behind FLLF, that it is a fictitious group created by Israel to hide its role in this #terrorist campaign. Media often report these accusations. Israel insists this is a form fo "Arab on Arab" violence 3/

In 2018, @ronenbergman publishes "Rise & Kill First." There, he reveals that Palestinians were right all along: senior Israeli officials did indeed create the FLLF to "sow chaos" in Lebanon. And Def Min Ariel Sharon personally conducted the Sept-Oct 1981 car bombing campaign! 4/

Remarkably, since 2018 not a single US media outlet has reported on Bergman's revelations. Not a single US media outlet has considered revelations that very senior Israeli officials conducted a terrorist car bombing campaign that killed hundreds of civilians to be newsworthy 5/

At the time of the FLLF car bombing campaign, Israeli officials repeatedly insisted that they were at war with the "evil Palestinian terrorists." Begin, Sharon & others would justify the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 as justified self defense vs the "evil Palestinian terrorists" 6/

In 1981, 2 Israeli journalists investigated & found out that senior IDF officers were behind the FLLF bombings. The Israeli military censor killed their story. And the bombs continued to kill. This, too, has been deemed NOT newsworthy by the US media:

And so, the 40th Anniversary of Ariel Sharon's / the FLLF's #terrorist car bombing campaign is not marked in the US. It is not commemorated. Rather, it has been systematically erased. "We" are never terrorists. Only "they" can be

A few months after he personally conducted this terrorist campaign, Ariel Sharon wrote a whole Opinion piece for the @nytimes devoted to contrasting the inhuman, savage Palestinian terrorists & Israel's "moral conduct" in Lebanon. Just incredible...:

Between the Sept-Oct 1981 terrorist campaign and the invasion of Lebanon, Sharon also planned to use the FLLF to bomb Beirut's stadium. This plan was canceled at the last minute. But the FLLF would continue to bomb, kill & maim for many more months:

As several media outlets noted at the time, in 1980 the FLLF claimed responsibility for assassination attempt v Gunther Dean, US Ambassador to Lebanon. Dean believed that Israel was behind this attempt on his life. We now know that Israel created the FLLF:

In the 1980s, @tomfriedman covered several FLLF car bombings. And yet since 2018 he has remained SILENT about Bergman (his colleague at the Times!) 's revelations that Israel was behind these terrorist bombings:

This matters so much because calling someone a terrorist means that we grant ourselves the right to kill him, bomb him, surveil him, torture him. But of course we would NEVER accept this logic if it were applied to us, to "our terrorists":

I have also written about this In French, with translations into Arabic, here: orientxxi.info/magazine/le-re…
And here: orientxxi.info/lu-vu-entendu/…

One last point: Bergman's book was reviewed everywhere. It is an international bestseller. He works for Yediot & the Times. Yet media has remained silent about his revelations, which come from Israeli officials who were involved in or knew about the FLLF operation at the time

When I write about this, I am often accused of antisemitism. When I point out that these revelations come directly from Bergman, I am told that it doesn't matter because I chose to publish my articles in @Mondoweiss , which is supposedly an anti-semitic publication

But of course, only @mondoweiss ( and @OrientXXI in France) was willing to publish my articles about this Israeli campaign of terrorism. And that's precisely the point! This topic is one that other media outlets simply will. Not. Touch. See:

Note: Riedel, former CIA, has this interesting piece today about how the assassination of Sadat, making Mubarak president, convinced Sharon that Egypt would not react if Israel invaded Lebanon... brookings.edu/blog/order-fro…

In that article, word "terrorist" is used to talk about those ("Islamist terrorists") who assassinated Sadat. Of course Riedel is fully SILENT about Sharon's role, exactly at the same time, in the FLLF car bombing campaign that killed hundreds of civilians in Lebanon. Typical...

Again: The discourse on terrorism has NOTHING to do with terrorism. Nothing to do with the kind of methods specific actors use. The rule is simple: "we" are NEVER terrorists: even when we use car bombs that kill hundreds of civilians. Only "they" can be terrorists.

On Wednesday Bergman will be interviewed by @KimZetter about Rise & Kill First. Kim asked for questions people would like her to ask Bergman. I suggested she asks about the FLLF. If she does, she will be FIRST to do so since book was published in 2018:

A few days ago @benjaminwittes for @lawfareblog
interviewed Bergman & unsurprisingly "forgot" (like every journalist since 2018) to ask Bergman about revelations on FLLF & focusing instead on assassinations of nuclear scientists & other such actions: lawfareblog.com/lawfare-podcas…

This interview took place on the 40th Anniversary of the car bombing terrorist campaign conducted by Sharon!!! And yet, NOT A WORD about these revelations in the podcast, a podcast where Wittes claims to ask prodding questions about international law....

Discussion of Rise & Kill First starts at minute 27. Wittes sounds like he is asking "tough questions," pointing out that assassinations of nuclear scientists might be international crimes. But why the silence about the FLLF, a clearcut case of terrorism? play.acast.com/s/lawfare/rone…

More news coverage of the FLLF / Ariel Sharon's car bombing terrorist campaign: UPI and the New York Times (on its Front Page!!!) on October 2, 1981, 40 years ago today:

Note: Since I wrote for first time about media silence about Bergman's revelations in 2018, I have kept a record of the journalists, "terrorism experts" or guys working at think tanks who I told about the FLLF here on Twitter & their (very rare) answers:

An important point about that first question: Bergman should be commended for the revelations he published in his books. But he himself has been absolutely silent about them whenever he has talked about the book when on his book tours, whenever he was interviewed about it, etc...

This matters because many of these talks/interviews have dealt w/ issues of morality & legality. But they have focused only on "targeted killings" by Israel: NOT on the FLLF case, a clearcut case of terrorism, of the use of force vs purely civilian targets for political purposes

Interviewers have religiously avoided the issue, EVEN those who mentioned the invasion of Lebanon, or mentioned the Begin years, or mentioned Sharon. Bergman has religiously avoided the issue in his answers. Without a SINGLE exception. And for over 3 years now. Truly remarkable.

And of course: every single one of those discussions have been about Israel's "fight v terrorism" & about the morality of the means it uses "in its fight v terrorism." The ASSUMPTION is that ISR fights terrorism even when book itself reveals it ENGAGED in terrorism on huge scale

Note also: this absolute media silence about Bergman's (highly credible) revelations is also dangerous because it only serves to give fuel to those who tend to/ want to believe in the absolute worst kinds of "conspiracy theories" (such as antisemitism) :

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