by Noam Chomsky
On September 2, Lebanese national police had taken control of most of West Beirut peaceably as leftist militiamen voluntarily withdrew. “Lebanese forces rumbled through the bombed-out streets in trucks, collecting ammunition and weapons from Palestine Liberation Organization depots,” now abandoned, though some had been turned over to the Lebanese Muslim Mourabitoun militia. The commander of the Mourabitoun, Ibrahim Koleilat, said he had “agreed to withdraw and ‘dilute our military appearance’ in an attempt to give national reconciliation a chance,” though his men would not turn in their weapons until Israel pulled out of Lebanon.33 As was soon to be learned, the Israeli penetration beyond the cease-fire lines was not an innocent one. It was largely ignored at the time, and also in the reconstruction of events after the subsequent massacres; it is, for example, not mentioned in the Israeli government Kahan Commission Report, to which we return.
Israel was not satisfied with the new arrangements in West Beirut: Israeli officials have said that the Mourabitoun, the largest Moslem paramilitary organization here, must leave the Lebanese capital because it is the P.L.O’s staunchest Lebanese ally... Moslems were outraged by the Israeli demand and rallied to the Mourabitoun’s side. Moslem leaders, including moderates such as former Prime Minister Saeb Salam, said Israel wanted to empty Lebanon of its Moslem inhabitants.34
Salam’s reported comment is too strong, but its general import was to the point. What Israel wanted was to leave the “terrorists”—a term now extended to Palestinians and all Lebanese who were allied with them— under the domination of its Lebanese clients, the murderous Phalange, Haddadists, Guards of the Cedars, and Chamounist forces. With the PLO gone and the balance of force that had been achieved broken, the Muslim population was now to be at their mercy, in the New Order. Israel’s insistence on disarming the last remaining paramilitary force of the “terrorists” would remove the final obstacle to a renewal of massacres such as those at Karantina and Tel al-Zaatar in 1976, or Khiyam in 1978, the last directly under Israeli military occupation. The demand that PLO “allies” leave Beirut simply reflected Israel’s not-sohidden agenda in Lebanon: to ensure the rule of minority Christian groups allied with Israel, a goal that dates back to the first days of the establishment of the state, indeed before, as we have seen.
The significance of Israel’s moves was well-understood by the potential victims. The Sunni-dominated Muslim “National Movement” held that its weapons were needed “for the struggle to end Israeli occupation here.” The “leading Shiite Moslems have expressed a similar settlement,” Hijazi adds. Nabih Beri, head of the Shiite militia Amal that fought alongside the PLO, “has said that if the Israelis do not leave ‘we would become the new Palestinians who will fight them’.” “A genuine Lebanese is the one who fights Israel,” he added, warning that a peace treaty signed under Israeli guns would “lead to partitioning Lebanon.” And the spiritual head of the Shiites, the largest of Lebanon’s religious groups, “issued a religious edict declaring that collaboration with Israel is a sacrilege.” Once again, the people who had just been liberated were failing to express their gratitude for their salvation, though as we have seen, true believers here continued to uphold staunchly the doctrines of the faith, as convinced about what they had seen on their guided tours as were earlier visitors observing happy peasants in the Gulag. See chapter 5, section 8.2.2.
3.3 Ungrateful Clients Meanwhile, things were not going well between Israel and its chosen candidate for President, Bashir Gemayel. Whatever else Gemayel may have been, he was a Lebanese nationalist and intended to maintain Lebanon’s position within the Arab world. There had long been a split within the Lebanese Maronite community over the question of alliance with the Zionist movement against the local Muslim majority, dating back 40 years, as we have seen. The split appears to have re-emerged in August 1982. Although the Phalange had welcomed the Israeli invasion, they had held back from direct participation in it. There were two probable reasons. The first is that it was much more convenient, and safer, to rely on their Israeli “mercenaries” (in Ze’ev Schiffs phrase) with their overwhelming firepower rather than to face Palestinian fighters directly; their courage could be manifested later after the fighting forces had departed. The second reason is that Gemayel probably did intend, as he asserted, to unify Lebanon with Muslim support. Israel had assumed that Gemayel, whom they had placed in power, would be “their man.” By early September, however, only a few days after his election as President, “disappointment was increasing in Jerusalem” concerning Gemayel, the Israeli press reported, for several reasons: he had refused to sign an imposed peace treaty and had threatened to bring Major Saad Haddad, Israel’s puppet in the south, to trial on charges of desertion from the Lebanese army.35
Citing “informed security sources,” Ze’ev Schiff reported that “the threat of the new Lebanese government to bring Major Haddad to trial is a hint to Israel that the new regime under Bashir Gemayel strongly opposes Israel’s plans to establish a military presence in southern Lebanon in the future or to extend the Haddad enclaves, over which Israel rules indirectly.” Phalangist sources alleged that Israel had caused the rift with the Phalange by its insistence on extending “the area of [Haddad’s] rule in southern Lebanon and preventing Phalangist forces from penetrating the south.” Official sources indicated that Gemayel’s “new government, which includes Muslim and Druze elements of various circles, is unwilling to accept a definite Israeli presence in southern Lebanon as it had been in the Haddad enclaves.” They also reject “imposed security arrangements.” Israel’s assessment is that Gemayel will not refrain from a conflict over this matter, which will “strengthen his position among Muslim circles in Lebanon and with the moderate Arab governments.”36
Government officials in Jerusalem stated that a “harsh” discussion had taken place between Begin and Gemayel, the central issue being “the Lebanese refusal to sign a peace treaty in the near future and primarily, their refusal to permit the establishment of a security zone ruled by Saad Haddad in southern Lebanon in a 40-50 kilometer strip.” Begin made clear that Israel would not permit Haddad to be removed from “the Lebanese stage” after his “significant activities.” The same sources stated that “Israel’s intention is to keep the [southern] region under the arrangements that prevailed before Operation Peace for Galilee, that is, under the control of Saad Haddad’s forces, with Israeli direction and support but not direct Israeli command, without deployment of major [Israeli] forces in the region.”37 These are essentially the arrangements that the Lebanese government was compelled to accept a few months later; see section 8.
As for the “harsh” discussion, this took place in Nahariya in northern Israel according to Israeli radio. It appears that Gemayel was summoned to the meeting, and that the fact was then leaked to cause him embarrassment (he denied that the meeting had taken place) after his refusal to go along with the demands of the new overlords. A further sign of Israel’s displeasure with its ungrateful client was the banning by Israeli authorities of a rally of Christian followers of President-elect Gemayel in Sidon “after they refused to come out publicly in favor of a peace treaty with Israel. The rally had been called to celebrate the PLO’s evacuation from Lebanon.” A Phalangist official interviewed on Israeli TV in Sidon “said the Israelis pressured the Christians to include words of thanks to the Israeli army, in their speeches, for driving the PLO out of the city, and to call for a peace treaty with Israel,” but the official stated that “Peace is not something that can be forced on the Lebanese people.” Further evidence of Phalange ingratitude was the failure of President-elect Amin Gemayel to invite IDF personnel to a celebration to mark the unification of Beirut after the Israeli soldiers withdrew. “Invited were the U.S. Marines, the French and Italian army personnel, everyone, in fact, with the exception of the army that had paid such a heavy price in blood in the Lebanon war, the Israeli army,” so the American Jewish press lamented, clinging to the official doctrine of Israeli liberation and unconscion
able Lebanese ingratitude.38
Shortly after his election, Bashir Gemayel had had a “historic” and apparently successful meeting with the leader of the Muslim coalition, former Prime Minister Saeb Salam, and “the Muslims rebuked and virtually disowned former President Suleiman Franjieh and former Prime Minister Rashid Karami* for their outright rejection of the new regime.”39
“In the three weeks between his election and his murder [Bashir Gemayel] managed to persuade many Moslem leaders, notably the former prime minister, Saeb Salam, leader of West Beirut’s mainstream Moslem politicians, to accept the Phalangist victory for the sake of Lebanon.”40 In short, in Lebanon too the grand design was beginning to crumble. We have already cited the subsequent reporting in Israel indicating that Bashir Gemayel was no friend of Israel, contrary to what had been hoped, and perhaps was “no better” than his brother Amin, who replaced him after the assassination (see chapter 5, section 3.2).
No doubt in response to these developments, Sharon announced on September 4 that Israel might establish a “special status” security zone in southern Lebanon if Gemayel refused to sign a peace treaty. Shortly
*Franjieh and Karami are allied to Syria, whose army controls their domains in north Lebanon. after, Major Haddad stated “that his Israeli-backed militia intends to control a 30-mile-deep strip of territory north of the Israeli border until the Beirut government signs a peace treaty with Israel,” adding that “there are no regular Lebanese army units allowed in this area,” and no members of the Phalangist militia.41
These arrangements had in fact been evident during the fighting itself. By mid-July, it was announced that Haddad’s forces would rule the area up to the Awali river just north of Sidon, 55 km. north of the Israeli border. Haddad had already established his office in the rooms of the former Lebanese authorities for the Sidon region. A few weeks later, Yehuda Tsur reported in Al Hamishmar that Israel is not only helping him to take control of this area but is “preventing the Phalangists from penetrating the region under [Haddad’s] control” as part of “the struggle for the establishment of a new order in Lebanon” (even here, in the journal of the dovish-left of the Labor Alignment, the term is used without comment or embarrassment). Tsur adds that the Haddad forces are the only Lebanese elements to have cooperated with Israel in the fighting. “It should be noted that in the early days of the Beirut siege the Phalangists attempted to attack a terrorist position, but were driven back and in the battle a number of Gemayel’s soldiers were killed. From then on they refused any involvement in active fighting.”42 Their turn would come later.
In short, during the fighting Major Haddad had already been established as “overlord of all southern Lebanon south of the Awali river, which runs just north of Sidon.” He is “Israel’s creation, entirely dependent and therefore entirely dependable.” Israel had permitted the civilian Lebanese administration to remain in Haddad’s territory “because it barely functions,” but “to ensure Major Haddad’s authority, Lebanese army troops have been ordered out of their barracks in southern towns, disarmed and replaced by the Haddad militia.” Israel was thus acting to ensure that no central Lebanese authority could exist except under its control, a crucial aspect of the liberation. Small wonder, then, that “there are strains between the president-elect [Bashir Gemayel] and his Israeli sponsor.”43
4. The Invasion of West Beirut 4.1 The Gemayel Assassination
O
n Saturday September 11, the last units of the force of U.S. marines that was to guarantee the safety of the Palestinians after the departure of the PLO were withdrawn (the decision to withdraw the marines led to the departure of the rest of the
international force), two weeks before its 30-day mandate had expired. On Tuesday September 14, Bashir Gemayel was assassinated by a bomb that demolished the central Phalange headquarters. Muslim leaders denied any part in the assassination, as did his known Maronite enemies. The Economist reported that the building was “the most heavily, and until now the most efficiently, guarded place in all Beirut,” so that “the assassins needed the support of an insider.” There was also a heavy Israeli troop presence visibly nearby. The Economist speculated that some Maronite group, perhaps a group within the Phalange that is more pro-Israeli than Gemayel, might have planted the bomb. Helena Cobban reported that others also suggested that Phalangists close to “the Israeli-Haddad-Chamoun axis” may have been responsible. Numerous other suspicions have been voiced. The Phalangists subsequently announced that the assassin had confessed; he is reported to have “unspecified foreign connections,” possibly Syrian, Palestinian, Libyan or Soviet, while other reports allege that he was in the Phalangist security apparatus. The Phalange appear to have settled on the conclusion that he was under Syrian direction. The Phalange investigation was carried out by Elie Hobeika, who Israel identified as the officer responsible for the Beirut massacre.44 Existing evidence is too untrustworthy to hazard any judgment. The truth will probably never be known.
4.2 “To Prevent Bloodshed and Acts of Revenge” At about 10:30 PM on Tuesday, Israel received confirmation that Bashir Gemayel had died, after a 5PM report of the explosion. According to testimony presented before the official Israeli inquiry, the Kahan Commission, Begin at once advised that the IDF should enter West Beirut “in order to prevent acts of revenge by the Christians against the Palestinians.” Defense Minister Sharon informed Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan that evening that the Phalange would enter the Palestinian refugee camps, not the IDF. At 3:30 AM on Wednesday the 15th, Eitan informed the Phalangists of the invasion plans and their intended role. At 5AM the Israeli invasion began. At 8AM Sharon gave the orders to send the Phalangists into the camps. At 9:30 AM, Prime Minister Begin informed U.S. envoy Morris Draper about the Israeli move, undertaken “in order to prevent bloodshed and acts of revenge,” in his words. At 10PM General Drori, the senior commander in Lebanon, met with the Phalangist leaders to arrange final plans. He stated to the official inquiry that “he warned them to act humanely, and not to harm women, children and old people.”45
We return to what happened, merely noting now the precise character of the story that was finally settled on after numerous trial balloons: Israel entered West Beirut to prevent acts of violence by the Phalange against the Palestinians, and therefore decided from the first moment to send Phalange troops into the Palestinian camps, now defenseless. Even the governor of Bessarabia and the Czar were not that brazen—but then, they could not count on their supporters abroad to applaud on command, whatever story they might concoct.
The official Israeli justification for the invasion, issued on Thursday September 16, was that Israeli forces entered West Beirut “in order to prevent the danger of violence, bloodshed and anarchy.”46 Up to that point, there had been no violence, bloodshed, anarchy, or even disorder, and the Lebanese government expressed its firm belief that peace could be maintained under the control of the Lebanese army, which, according to Sharon, was under orders from the Lebanese Prime Minister “to open fire on Israeli soldiers entering west Beirut.”47 The Lebanese army did not do so, for obvious reasons. As an Israeli colonel stated, “If they [the Lebanese army] shoot at us, we will kill them.”48 Another phase of the liberation begins.
“Beirut’s moderate Moslems pleaded for some response from Washington.” The Prime Minister said: “We are waiting, the whole world is waiting.” “The Moslem leadership was infuriated... Saeb Salaam, the elder statesman who had worked closely with the United States on the plan that led to the PLO’s evacuation from Beirut, sent President Ronald Reagan a personal letter, saying, ‘We urge you to halt the Israeli army and to protect the population of Beirut’.” Both Salam and Prime Minister Wazzan stated that Washington had assured them “that Israel would not invade West Beirut and would not bother Palestinians in the refugee camps once Yasser Arafat and his forces had left Beirut,”49 assurances that they apparently believed, with startling naivete. Recall the assurances of the governor of Bessarabia.
Given
the speed with which explanations replaced one another in the face of international reaction to what happened next, it is useful to recall that in announcing its original intention to enter West Beirut, the Israeli government added emphatically that the military thrust was aimed solely at maintaining order following the Gemayel assassination. “This has nothing to do with the terrorists still there,” a Government official stated: “…as far as Israel is concerned the evacuation ended with the departure of the last boat.”50 The “terrorists still there” were an alleged 2000 PLO guerrillas who have cropped up repeatedly in Israeli hasbara, but have not been discovered elsewhere.
This story was abandoned in the flurry of attempts at self-justification and evasion of responsibility after the subsequent massacres. Sharon referred to the official government statement, cited above, as “a camouflage for something else,” insisting that “Our entry into West Beirut was in order to make war against the infrastructure left by the terrorists” (i.e., the remnants of the Palestinian community and their Lebanese Muslim allies, one must assume). Sharon’s admission caused a furor in Israel and “is regarded as having embarrassed the Government,” not because it is false, but because it is undiplomatic to expose such truths.51 The same explanation of the decision to invade West Beirut was repeated matter-of-factly by the military command itself, e.g., by Maj. Gen. Amir Drori, the senior Israeli commander in Lebanon.52
The IDF quickly conquered the area, killing or scattering the lightly-armed largely teen-aged defenders, leaving 88 killed and 254 wounded according to the independent Lebanese journal An-nahar, an estimate supported by a New York Times survey.53 Its instructions were clear enough; in the words of Chief of Staff Eitan, already quoted: “What must be destroyed—we will destroy. Whoever must be imprisoned—we will imprison.”54
