Bertrand Russell Calls for Banning of Napalm

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The following statement by Lord Russell was issued to the press on June 27th. There is now extensive evidence that Israel used large quantities of napalm in its recent blitzkrieg against its Arab neighbours, U Thant announced on June 9 that the United Nations! representatives on the spot had reported to him that Israeli aircraft were "continuously bombing, napalming and strafing" Syrian positions. The Washington Post has reported Syrian hills "covered with burned and blackened fields, silent testimony to the liberal use of napalm." The Beirut correspondent of the Economist has reported that in Jordan the informed estimate is "between 14,000 and 18,000 people killed, of whom maybe almost half were civilian. The main cause of death was napalm bombing. lEye-witness reports from Lebanese doctors speak of continuous napalm bombing of roads where civilians were fleeing from the West Bank, Ambulances and medical units were bombed, Three hospitals were totally destroyed. Refugees in and around Amman are estimated by UNWRA (the UN relief and works agency) and others at 100,000, of whom 60,000 were already refugees living in the camps near Jericho which were bombed....The estimates of Egyptian casualties are still very rough. It is feared that there may be as many as 20,000, some of them military..." The Times published a report from Cairo on June 19 of its correspondent's visit to victims of napalm in hospital. Napalm causes third degree burns which destroy the whole thickness of the skin, and frequently destroy the underlying muscles and even the bones. If the wounds remain open for long, keloids (or hypertrophic scars) occur on the scars, There is also the danger of fibrosis and contraction of the scars which usually leads to pronounced disability and disfigurement, The keloid formations can become cancerous. It is abundantly clear that napalm is an anti-personnel weapon which has no place in any civilised community. Whether it is used in Syria or Vietnam, the Andes or Iraq, it is intolerable in its fiendishness. Napalm must be banned in the same way as dum dum bullets and gas chambers.