A tenth anniversary is shortly about to be reached.

It was the day of those of unprecedented attacks on the United States of America by terrorists.

That year was of course 2001 and the date September eleventh.

Almost three thousand human beings perished as eighteen highly determined young men converted airliners into human bombs and shocked the world.

For many Muslims of course there is also another date, or more precisely dates, that shaped our awareness of the world.

The year was 1982, the dates September 16 to 18.

Over those three days some three thousand defenceless civilians were massacred by Christian Phalange militia in the refugee camps of Sabra and shatila in Southern Lebanon.

The people who were killed in the most appalling way were the Palestinians, who were meant to be protected by the Israeli army who had just invaded Lebanon to destroy the Palestinian Liberation Organisation.

The Israeli army simply floodlit the camps at night so their allies could have a clearer view, as they pursued their murderous path.

It is often said that the world changed after the events of 2001 – that is clearer the case.

Things changed after Sabra and Shatila, also.

For the Israeli army succeeded in destroying the PLO, however, in their place came first Hezbollah and then later Hamas, and just as importantly Muslims around the world began to look at the Palestinians as unquely theirs, something that was tapped into by Saddam Hussein and later by Osama bin Laden, the man blamed for launching those attacks on America on September 11, 2001.