And they murdered all the men in the delegation. I was the only one to survive. There was no doubt that the Israelis could see what the Lebanese Christian Phalange were doing. Up to 2,000 Palestinians were murdered two mass graves remain unexhumed in Beirut and Sharon's reputation, already besmirched by the much earlier slaughter of more than 50 Palestinian civilians by his Commando Unit 101, seemed as buried as the Palestinian victims. But like the garbage that has collected over the only known mass grave, the historical narrative save for that of the survivors has become overgrown.
History moves on.
And the new leader of Israel is, within hours, likely to be the man who allowed the killers into the Beirut camps more than 18 years ago. With power, of course, comes respect. If Sharon is elected, the whole peace process falls by the wayside because he doesn't want peace. It's a relief to recall that up to a million Israelis demonstrated their moral integrity in 1982 by protesting in Tel Aviv against the massacre. And equally chilling to reflect that some of those one million if the polls are accurate may well be voting for Mr Sharon today.