Fateful Triangle
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8.2 Solving the Problem The “image problem” was a rather serious one in the United States, naturally enough, given Israel’s dependence on the U.S. for financing its settlement activities in the occupied territories and its selfless efforts to liberate its neighbors. The measures that were taken to deal with the problem are of some interest. We conclude this discussion of Operation “Peace for Galilee” by reviewing several of them.
8.2.1 Extraordinary Humanitarian Efforts From the beginning of the war, occasional concerns were voiced in the U.S. over Israel’s harsh treatment of the population that was theoretically being “liberated.” In the first few days of the war, the press reported that “Israeli military authorities have ordered the United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon to stop donating and delivering food to Lebanese civilians caught in the fighting.” “From Sunday to Tuesday, the Israeli Army refused to allow any United Nations relief convoys to cross the border into Lebanon, and the civilians’ situation became desperate, according to United Nations officials.” The UN stated that “Unifil [UN peacekeeping forces, largely West European] teams trying to help and assess the needs of victims were told to pull out, and that all humanitarian questions would be handled by Israel.” UN observers “provided detailed accounts of civilians, including small babies, stranded without food and water.” “One reason for the Israeli decision to bar the United Nations appeared to have been to prevent reports of the situation from getting out,” including reports of “the immense suffering that appears to have been inflicted on the Lebanese population.”273 As to how Israel handled the “humanitarian questions” in south Lebanon, we have seen the reports of Col. Dov Yirmiah, who served with the military force responsible for the civilian population (see section 5.3). The image problem only became worse as the war went on, particularly with the siege of Beirut, where too many journalists were present for the facts to be controlled by hasbara.
One of the devices used to deal with this problem was to focus attention on the efforts organized within Israel to respond to the needs of war victims in Lebanon. As noted, the Anti-Defamation League objected to the failure of the TV networks to give proper attention to these “extraordinary” efforts. Letters also appeared in the press objecting to the failure of the media to report them: “little has been noted about Israel’s humanitarian efforts for the Lebanese people,” the National President of “the largest volunteer women’s organization in Israel” wrote in several newspapers. Describing these efforts, she wrote that “there is no greater demonstration of Israel’s eagerness to live in peace with its neighbors than this ‘people to people’ effort to help repair the ravages of war.”274
It is quite true that little was reported about these programs. For example, I noticed no report here that the Israeli army had blocked distribution of supplies collected by humanitarian groups in Israel (see the testimony of Col. Dov Yirmiah, section 5.3). There was also no notice of the fact that Kibbutz Dalya sent a parcel of clothing and household items to Tova Neta, a Jewish woman who was discovered in the destroyed Rashidiyeh camp, after the Israeli press had published “the story of Tova and her husband Abdullah, who had lost all their belongings and the roof over their head when their home was destroyed in the war” (by some unknown hand), a package received “with joy and excitement,” the left-wing Israeli press informs us.275
There was, however, occasional notice. A dispatch from Haifa reported that ten 10-ton trucks set out in a convoy on June 16 to distribute blankets and clothing for refugees, returning the same night “after a mixed reception.” “In the Rashadiya refugee camp [the first target of Israel’s assault], the distribution was disrupted by women whose relatives had been detained by the Israelis as suspected terrorists. ‘We don’t want your clothes,’ they screamed. ‘We want our sons.’ The mission left the camp with the rest of its stock and turned it over to a welfare agency and two orphanages in Tyre and Sidon for distribution.”276 Nothing is said about the reaction of Tova Neta and her Arab husband.
Turning to the Hebrew press, we find a somewhat fuller account of this episode, under the title “the Jewish heart functioned without common sense.”277 This humanitarian endeavor of the Magen David Adom (the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross) suffered numerous “disappointments.”
The first disappointment awaited us a few kilometers south of Tyre, in the Rashidiyeh refugee camp. There was no intention to stop in this camp [since it contained the remnants of a Palestinian community, not Lebanese, and it was not yet known that there was a Jewish woman there], but after we met a foreign television crew across the border, it was decided that it would be a good idea if TV would film the distribution of supplies in a refugee camp.
In the camp, where “purification from terrorists lasted four days,” the IDF was preventing the refugees from returning to their homes (or what was left of them). Almost all the men had been taken to Israel for “interrogation and identification,” and the women and children who remained lived in a nearby orchard—from which they were later driven when the army became concerned that they were being filmed by TV crews, as Col. Yirmiah reported. (See section 5.3). Refugees approached the convoy, leading to the first of many “scenes that put us to shame.” The refugees refused to permit the Israelis to distribute supplies even when the Magen David Adom’s own TV cameraman asked them “to open at least one package.” “Then began the tumult. Women gathered around and began to shriek and to curse: ‘We do not want your supplies, take them back, we do not need anything, we only want our husbands and brothers back’.” “With much embarrassment, the representatives of the Magen David Adom decided to depart from this place, leaving a few packages of clothes.” One person whispered to the journalist that they would sell the clothes to buy food, which they badly needed. The embarrassment, of course, was caused by the presence of the foreign TV crew for whom this humanitarian effort was staged.
A few kilometers away, the head of the convoy decided to stop at a Magen David Adom installation. At that point a little girl about five years of age appeared among the trucks. Soldiers said that she shows up now and then to beg for military rations:
“Who knows, perhaps even in Sidon they will refuse to accept the packages, so we had better film the little girl with the clothes so that there will at least be pictures,” the Magen David Adom people say, and do so. First, they look for a suitable place for the picture. Dan Arnon [head of the International Office of the Magen David Adom] requests that the picture be taken against the background of an ambulance that was a gift from England, so that it will be possible to send them the picture. They take a large box from the trucks and the photographers move the girl into every possible position to record the historic moment for eternity. They load her up with clothes until they cover her face, though the package that was opened includes womens’ clothes, slips, dresses and bathing suits. But what will one not do for a good picture!
The child seemed amused at the symbolic role that was assigned to her, but soon she ran away carrying the large pile of clothes, dropping them one by one along the road. It occurred to no one to pick them up, but in a few minutes three other children came by and the picture repeated. The representatives of the Magen David Adom said, perhaps seriously or perhaps as a joke: “We already have pictures. Now we can return to Tel Aviv.”
The picture of the little girl holding the clothes appears along with the article, under the heading: “The little girl who served as an ‘example’ and held clothes for the purposes of a picture.”
A picture of one of the children holding the clothes appears in the Jerusalem Post, but with no account of the actual events.278 This, of course, is an English-language journal, which will be reach an international audience. As we have seen several times, it is not uncommon for the Post to present a sanitized version of what is reported in the Hebrew press, and in fact in its Jubilee edition the Post observes that this was its earlier practice (see chapter 4, section 5.3). Much the same, incidentally, is true of the documentary record published i
n Hebrew. The Diaries of Prime Minister Moshe Sharett, cited several times above, are one example; there was concern in Israel when it was learned that these were to appear in English, since there are many unpleasant revelations, but the concern was misplaced, since their contents have been suppressed in American journalism and scholarship with the single exception of the 1955 proposal by Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan (in accordance with Ben-Gurion’s ideas) to create a “Haddad” as a device to take over southern Lebanon and establish a Christian protectorate in what remains—too good to overlook, apparently. Similarly, the important study by Ehud Ya’ari, Egypt and the Fedayeen, based on captured Egyptian documents that reveal Egypt’s efforts to avert the impending Israeli attack in 1956 by keeping the border quiet, has been loyally disregarded by American scholars. The same is true of official military histories and much else.279
The practice is common elsewhere as well, of course. Consider, for example, the fate of the Pentagon Papers,280 an unusually revealing record of high-level government planning, therefore largely ignored in respectable scholarship, except for its bearing on tactical questions of limited significance.*
Returning to the mission of mercy, after the somewhat unfortunate efforts to impress the foreign TV crew near Rashidiyeh, the convoy went on to Tyre (the Jerusalem Post reports that “the closer the convoy got to the city of Tyre, the more impressive the destruction grew. Everything along the road had been burned, wrecked, crumpled, blown to pieces”).
* The Beacon press edition of the 4 volume Gravel edition is the only readibly accessible source for something close to the full record (plus some additional material). It contains an index volume (volume 5, with critical essays and an index), which is obviously indispensable for anyone expecting to use the documents. By the end of 1982, 2700 copies of this volume had been sold, many, presumably, to people who were interested in the analytic articles by American, Vietnamese and French scholars and journalists. The conclusion is that even universities, let alone others, do not intend to have the material available for research. Quite apart from its insight into Vietnam war planning, this material is quite unusual for what it tells about the workings of government and long-term strategic planning. Material of this sort is rarely available until many years have passed or at all, apart from captured enemy archives.
But they found no recipients, so Arnon instructed that packages be left in the center of Tyre “in some ruin.” The convoy went on to Sidon. In the light of the earlier “bitter experience,” Arnon decided to avoid the refugee camps. Eight trucks were still full, and he announced that “we will not return with them to Tel Aviv.” It was finally decided to distribute the supplies at an orphanage. At one, no clothes were needed but they were left anyway. At the second, the orphans said “Who needs clothes? We need food.” So the mission ended.
It is true that this impressive story was not properly reported by the American media, another indication of their anti-Israel bias, or perhaps their control by Wafa and the International Communist Conspiracy.
8.2.2 Flowers and Rice Another contribution to the “image problem” was the story, widely reported and generally accepted at face value in the United States, that the Lebanese greeted their Israeli liberators with warmth and enthusiasm. In continental Europe, which has some experiences of its own, reactions were often a bit different. In Copenhagen, for example, Knesset Member Yosef Rom told a television audience “that Israeli soldiers were greeted in Lebanon with flowers and rice.” The interviewer interrupted him with the following words: “Do not tell us in Denmark about flowers and rice. Nazi Germany also had pictures of how the Danish people greated the April 1940 conquest with flowers...”281 (See also end of section 5.2).
The story was also regarded with some skepticism in Israel. Soldiers described the Lebanese villagers who waved to them “with a frozen expression.” One was reminded of a scene from Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 where an old man says that he is not interested in politics: “He is willing to become a Communist, a Fascist or a Capitalist, as long as his life is not in danger,” the soldier said, “and those villagers are the same.”282 Colonel Dov Yirmiah, reporting his experiences travelling through the streets of Beirut in June, writes that “the looks that accompany us are not particularly friendly, [but are] indifferent or hostile, only the Phalangists wearing IDF uniforms play the game of faithful collaborators. My impression is becoming stronger that all the talk and our propaganda about the enthusiasm of the Lebanese for our presence in their land and about the ‘liberation’ that we brought are only our own heart’s desire.”* One of the rare skeptics to be published in the United States was Jacobo Timerman, who describes his tour through Tyre with the Israel military escort provided to all visitors in these terms:
Those of us who have been in prison know how to speak with our eyes so that we can be understood when forced to talk in the presence of guards. This is how I know that what a cordial and pleasant Lebanese is saying is contradicted by what I see expressed in his eyes. His English is clumsy, his phrases stereotyped. Whoever has been a prisoner or been forced to surrender knows how degrading this moment can be.
Describing the scene of people who “greet us with shouts of ‘Shalom’ in * See his War Diary, cited in note 164. Recall that Yirmiah wanted very much to believe this story. He reports the complaint of Lebanese who were initially cooperative that “you are destroying all of our goodwill, why?”—and asks himself: “What can I answer? That we have become animals?” This was on June 23, in a discussion about the brutal treatment of prisoners who were Lebanese, not Palestinian.
Hebrew,” Timerman writes: Throughout the ages, how many times have people learned the language of the conquerors, imitated their gestures, and tried to divine their intentions and moods? How many times must the Jews have done this?…I do not fraternize with those I have subdued by force.283
These are the remarks that were described by Conor Cruise O’Brien in his New Republic review cited above as “faintly nauseating” and “stuff and nonsense,” in contrast to Timerman’s impressive insights about PLO sympathizers in the United States. O’Brien’s own conclusion is that “most Lebanese—including Muslims and Druses, as well as Christians— were glad that Israel invaded Lebanon,” and regarded “the damage and loss of life incurred” as “unavoidable”—“most people did not refer to these at all,” presumably regarding them as a small price to pay for the pleasure of being attacked by Israel. In his “Lebanon Eyewitness,” Martin Peretz asserts that “everyone I did meet [including no one rich] was relieved that the Israelis had lifted from them the burden of the PLO.” That everyone he met expressed gratitude to Israel is quite possibly true—perhaps a tribute to the “spectacular” effectiveness of the public relations stunt that was the “showpiece” of the hasbara campaign; see section 7.2. That the attitudes expressed to Peretz and O’Brien are in fact the attitudes of the Lebanese they spoke to (let alone “most Lebanese”) would seem perhaps questionable, though again one should not underestimate the effectiveness of the means used to achieve Abba Eban’s “rational prospect” as well as other factors we have reviewed.
As for the true attitudes of Lebanese approached by Westerners— especially those whose passionate pro-Israel sentiments were surely not difficult to discern—who arrived with an Israeli military escort in a country under Israeli military occupation, we can only speculate. Evidently, the difference in the perceptions of Timerman and the Israeli soldiers cited on the one hand, and O’Brien and Peretz on the other, are uncertain matters of judgment; a person who describes a perception different from his own on this matter as “faintly nauseating” and “stuff and nonsense” simply expresses thereby his intent to disqualify himself as a serious commentator, given the nature of the evidence, the circumstances, and the ratio of fact to interpretation.* It might be true that those who have undergone the experiences of the war are pleased that Israel invaded, or perhaps they feel that it would be best, under military occupation, to say one thing with the voice and ano
ther with the eyes, when confronted by a Peretz or an O’Brien. It may be that the attitudes articulated over a broad range of Lebanese opinion, as reviewed in section 6.2, do not reflect the real feelings of many Lebanese; or one may draw a different conclusion.
I once spent many hours interviewing refugees in Laos who had just been flown by the CIA to a miserable refugee camp near Vientiane after a CIA mercenary army had overrun the Plain of Jars, where they had
* O’Brien’s clinching argument to prove that most Lebanese welcomed the Israeli invasion is a statement by a British journalist that the invasion brought peace to Beirut by ending the civil war, though “in the thankless manner of human beings, few Lebanese want the Israelis to reap the political prize of a Lebanon under Israeli influence,” an unfortunate character flaw. From this we are to conclude, apparently, that the Muslims of West Beirut are delighted that Israel destroyed their homes, killing and maiming thousands and placing power in the hands of their bitter enemies who proceeded at once to acts of kindness to which we return. Recall the assessment of the Time bureau chief on the scene that “all over Beirut” Lebanese “want to see Israel defeated.” See section 6.2.
“lived,” if that is the correct word. There were few young men among them, presumably because most were with the Pathet Lao guerrillas. They had been subjected to years of “secret” American bombing (“secret,” in that it had been concealed by the U.S. press despite ample evidence) so intensive that they were unable to leave their caves and holes in the ground to farm, except sometimes at night. Everything in the area had been destroyed by the time it was overrun. Virtually every refugee told me that they hated the Pathet Lao, who were oppressive, for no reason, perhaps because “they are just crazy.” Some said that they did not mind the bombing at all, even when their homes were destroyed and their children killed. They also assumed that I was an American soldier in civilian clothes.284 Perhaps they really did hate the Pathet Lao and enjoyed being plastered with bombs and rockets, or perhaps something else was in their minds. Again, it is a matter of perception and judgment; in Laos, in Lebanon, in Afghanistan, in the Russian Gulag, and many other places where very much the same differences of perception may be found among foreign observers, including those who feel entitled to determine what is best for the natives by invading their country and leaving a trail of ruin and destruction with tens of thousands killed and wounded, all for their own good.