Two days in September

Alexander Chancellor

Jerusalem

It was at a Cabinet meeting on the evening of Thursday 16 September last year, about one and a half hours after the first Phalangist soldiers entered the Palesti- nian refugee camps in West Beirut, that the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Begin, and most of his government colleagues first learnt of the decision to let them go in. Israeli forces had occupied West Beirut the day before, following the assassination of Lebanon's president-elect, Bashir Gemayel. Mr Begin had already explained to the outraged Americans, at a meeting with the US am- bassador, that the Israelis had entered West Beirut for the purpose of avoiding blood- shed. There were fears, he said, that chaos would follow Gemayel's death, that there might be pogroms. The Prime Minister had already been informed by his Defence Minister, Ariel Sharon, that the Israeli oc- cupation had gone smoothly. 'Everything is calm and quiet ... all the key points are in our hands. Everything's over.'

At the Cabinet meeting the news that 150 Phalangists had been authorised to enter the Palestinian camps of Sabra and Chatila was dropped almost casually into the discussion by Mr Sharon and his Chief -of Staff, Lieutenant-General Rafael Eitan. The only person, however, on whom it made any impression was the Deputy Prime Minister, David Levy who — according to the Cabinet minutes — prophetically declared: 'We could come out with no credibility when I hear that the Phalangists

are already entering a certain neighbourhood — and I know what the meaning of revenge is for them, what kind of slaughter. Then no one will believe we went in to create order there, and we will bear the blame.' But no one took any notice of Mr Levy.

Sharon and his Chief of Staff had authorised entry of the Phalangists into the camps for a number of reasons. There were known to be PLO terrorists in the camps, for Israeli forces had come under fire from their direction and the Phalangists were considered more expert than the Israelis at telling a terrorist from a civilian. Further- more, they were eager to keep Israeli casualties to a minimum; and there was the additional factor of Israeli public opinion which felt that the Phalangists had not con- tributed enough to the war effort. Why should only Israeli soldiers die for a cause — the expulsion of the Palestinians from Lebanon — which was as much in the in- terests of the Christian Phalangists as it was of the Israelis? In their subsequent evidence to the Commission of Inquiry, established under duress by Mr Begin's government, Sharon and his military commanders all maintained that they had had no reason to suspect that the Phalangists would perpetrate a massacre (a massacre which, by Israeli army estimates, resulted in the deaths of some 700 or 800 people). They argued that in joint operations during the Israeli occupation of Lebanon, the Phalangists had shown themselves to be an .efficient military force with a disciplined command structure. This was a defence which the Commission categorically re- jected, deciding that anyone with any knowledge of the situation in Lebanon would have appreciated the risk of a slaughter.

The Commission firmly condemned Sharon and his Chief of Staff for sending the Phalangists into the Palestinian camps, and also condemned the indifference shown by Israeli military commanders and even- tually by ministers to reports of outrages from within the camps. It accepted that the Israelis at their forward command post on the top of a nearby building were in fact unable to see what was going on inside. But the first indication that something was amiss reached the command post only an hour or two after the Phalangists had gone in on that Thursday evening. An Israeli lieutenant overheard a conversation on the Phalangists' transmitter in which a Phalangist officer from inside the camps told his commander outside that he had 50 women and children with him, and what should he do with them. The reply over the radio was: 'This is the last time you are go- ing to ask me a question like that; you know exactly what to do' — then raucous laughter broke out among the Phalangists on the roof. Later that evening a Phalangist officer came into the dining-room of the Israeli command post building and told various people that the Phalangists had kill- ed about 300 people in the camps, including civilians. Next day various Israeli soliders in the vicinity of the camps reported Phalangist outrages. But nothing of these reports got far beyond the military, and Mr

Begin himself was told nothing about any massacre until he listened to a BBC news broadcast on Saturday evening.

In the meantime, General Eitan had gone to Beirut on Friday afternoon for a meeting with the Phalangist commanders. It was a very cosy meeting, in which the Israeli Chief of Staff did not question the Phalangists about the behaviour of their men in the camps, but congratulated and flattered them and told them to carry on mopping up Palestinians until the following morning, 'at which time they must stop their action due to American pressure'. He then agreed to lend them an Israeli tractor 'in order to demolish illegal structures'. As it turned out, the Phalangists used their own bulldozers to try to conceal the bodies of their victims. By 8 am on Saturday the Phalangists had left the camps, their dirty Work completed, and soon afterwards the full horror of the massacre was revealed.

The Commission's report is a remarkable document. Even those who would not agree with its conclusions are provided with quite enough detailed information with which to form their own. Even Yasser Arafat, speak- ing on Jordanian television, could not quite bring himself to call it a whitewash. The Commission stretched its terms of reference to their limit, ending with recommenda- tions which ought in theory to bring the Government down. It demanded the resignation or, failing that, the dismissal of Sharon; and it would have demanded the same for General Eitan if he had not been

retiring anyway in April. Luckily for the Prime Minister, lit knew very little about what was going on, but he is nevertheless Sharply criticised for taking absolutely no interest in the Phalangists' activities.

At the time of writing, the political situa- tion is confused. All the coalition parties have apparently agreed that they should act on the Commission's recommendations. Y5-Sharon has reportedly been refusing to resign, while Begin has been showing reluc- tance to dismiss him. Sharon's first public response to the report was to dismiss it as ir-

relevant and to blame the Americans for trying to get rid of him `so as to advance the Reagan plan'.

The Commission, however, is more con- cerned with Israel's moral credibility. The report concludes as follows: The main pur-

pose of the inquiry was to bring to light all the important facts relating to the perpetra-

Eton of the atrocities; it therefore has impor-

tance from the perspective of Israel's moral fortitude and its functioning as a democratic state that scrupulously main- tains the fundamental principles of the civilised world. We do not deceive ourselves that the results will convince or satisfy those who have prejudices or selec- tive consciences, but this inquiry was not in-

tended for such people. We have striven and have spared no effort to arrive at the truth and we hope that all persons of good

will who will examine the issue without pre- judice will be convinced that the inquiry Was conducted without any bias.'

I am convinced.