Letters
Predictable slaughter
Sir: 'Anyone who is claiming now, after the cruel murders of Palestinian civilians by the Phalangists, that this is not Israel's respon- sibility is talking nonsense.' The Israeli press, of which the above quotation is one example extracted from an editorial in Ma'ariv, should (to their credit) be subject to the strictures which Paul Johnson directs towards our own editorialists (25 September).
I do not know whence Mr Johnson deriv- ed his rabid dislike of the Palestinians, but 'After the massacre' reveals him to have been bitten by a more virulent strain than the subjects of that government which he goes to such frenzied lengths to absolve of any responsibility for the slaughter at the Chatila and Sabra refugee camps.
In ascribing to the PLO 'ultimate respon- sibility' for that slaughter, Mr Johnson never questions why the Palestinians are in Lebanon in the first place and who is responsible for keeping them there. If justification for the attack on the camps is sought by Mr Johnson in their status as 'terrorist strongholds and arsenals', he might pay us the courtesy of explaining why the Christian militias sustained such minimal injuries.
By the Israelis' own admission, the move into West Beirut was prepared in advance and set in motion soon after confirmation of Bechir Gemayel's assassination. In the words of an Israeli army spokesman, Israeli forces were 'advancing according to pre- determined targets given to them'. That haste, lack of foresight and military muddle were very far from being the villains of the piece was accepted by the military cor- respondent of Yediot Aharonot, another Israeli newspaper: 'The Phalangists never hid their inten- tions for a moment, and no soldier who served in the area of Beirut can honestly say that he did not know the Phalangists would draw their knives when given half a chance to do so...
'It was entirely clear, and had been said by Gemayel's men quite openly, that they would slaughter the Palesti- nians in the refugee camps. To hint at what was going to happen, the Phalan- gists would always, or almost always, pass the back of their hand across the throat. The slaughter in Sabra and Chatila was therefore entirely predic- table.'
And what is the evidence that it was a 'Moslem bomb' which killed iGemayel?
Stephen Lock
40 Queensdale Road, London W11
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