Under siege, p.22
Under Siege, page 22
In terms of stated U.S. and Israeli objectives, the suffering inflicted on the city and its inhabitants in the course of this application of Israeli pressure against the P.L.O. was totally unnecessary, since these objectives had been met once the P.L.O. accepted the Habib plan in late July. This is the inescapable conclusion from the remarks of Habib himself, and was apparent to many observers at the time. Not surprisingly, the Israelis then and their defenders since have argued that far from obstructing Habib’s efforts, the IDF was supporting them with its military pressure.12 As is clear from Habib’s own words, this self-serving argument is baseless.
According to Hani al-Hassan, quite the contrary was true: far from rendering the Palestinians more amenable to U.S. or Israeli terms, military pressure markedly increased their unwillingness to compromise. He affirmed further that it became a conscious policy of the P.L.O. negotiators to withhold concessions when they were under heavy Israeli attack (he cited as examples June 25 or July 4, when previous P.L.O. concessions were withdrawn). Conversely, the P.L.O. would moderate its demands in periods of calm, such as during the relative lull which followed the failure of the Israelis to advance at the airport and the Museum in early July (at which point al-Hassan says the P.L.O. purposely reduced its terms from 26 points down to 11).13
While this may be an exaggeration, it noteworthy that when asked for the main reason the P.L.O. accepted the Habib plan at the end of July, virtually every P.L.O. leader interviewed stressed that it was the absence of hope for better terms, the lack of “horizons” in the words of Abu Lutf, which played the key role.14 Although Yasser ‘Arafat confirmed that the P.L.O. was sensitive to Israeli military pressure, he referred specifically to the IDF advance to the edge of Shatila camp on August 4, by which time the P.L.O. had already accepted the Habib plan.15 By way of contrast, the same battle was cited as an example of how little effect Israeli advances had on P.L.O. morale by Abu Iyyad, who stated that Israeli military pressure was less important in P.L.O. decisionmaking than the Lebanese, Arab, and international situations.16
IV The Habib Plan is Implemented
In spite of intensive IDF military pressure during the last weeks of negotiation, and notwithstanding Washington’s reluctance to stand up to Sharon and the Israelis, agreement between the different parties was finally reached on August 11. After a few more days of minor modifications of the terms, it was published on August 20, and its implementation began on the following day with the arrival of the initial French contingents of the MNF, and the departure of the first units of the P.L.O. by sea. The evacuation was completed on September 1, two days ahead of schedule.
A variety of problems arose during the evacuation, as the Israelis quibbled over points in the agreement, and repeatedly held up the movement of P.L.O. forces from Beirut until they could obtain satisfaction. Even earlier, however, serious misgivings about provisions of the agreement began to be voiced, particularly with regard to the crucial question of guarantees for the safety of the Palestinian civilian population to be left behind after the evacuation.
One of the first such expressions of concern came from the French, who during the latter phases of the negotiations had played a less prominent role than in the earlier stages, but who had always considered this a question of the utmost importance. Upon receiving the text of the draft agreement from the P.L.O., they asked regarding the issue of guarantees for Palestinian civilians: “How can what is mentioned here be guaranteed? … It is imperative that the U.S. alone obtain all guarantees and assurances from Israel and the Phalangists. France is going to insist on this point with the Americans.”17 The P.L.O. fully shared this French concern. ‘Arafat responded to the message from Paris the next day, at the height of the Israeli bombardment of Beirut: “The P.L.O. insists that France shoulder its real official and moral responsibility in this regard.”18
In fact, as a result of the agreement the P.L.O. had already acquiesced in, there was little France could do, beyond exhorting the United States to be faithful to its promises. For thanks largely to the diligence and single-mindedness of Habib, the final agreement was an American one, the final guarantees were American, and the forces introduced to Lebanon to implement it were American-dominated. The proof of this was to come when the United States decided unilaterally on the precipitate withdrawal of its forces from Beirut, largely for domestic political reasons, obliging the forces of France, Italy, and Britain to withdraw immediately thereafter.
What had taken place was exactly what the French and the P.L.O. had warned against and tried to avoid throughout the first six weeks of the negotiations. The U.S. had succeeded in confining the definition of the conflict, and the negotiations to end it, to the technical question of a P.L.O. withdrawal from Beirut. This was seen in Washington as virtually the sole task of the MNF,19 and once this evacuation had taken place, U.S. troops were almost immediately removed. Thus, instead of there being a truly international force stationed on the spot with a clear and irrevocable mandate to protect the camps and prevent Israeli violations of the agreement, once the MNF withdrew there was nothing standing in the way of Sharon and his implacable desire to enter Beirut.
After the withdrawal of the MNF, only two things in theory restrained the IDF from entering Beirut and allowing the barbarities against the camp population which virtually everyone in Lebanon fully expected if Israel’s Phalangist allies were allowed to have their way. These were the written word of the United States of America to an organization it did not recognize (never delivered formally, but rather embodied in an exchange of letters with the government of Lebanon), and the manifestly uncertain will of the Reagan administration to keep the promises made by its envoy.
In the event, both paper promises and American will were to prove insufficient following the killing of Bashir Gemayel. Unaffected by the existence of these commitments, and even before the President-elect’s body had been found, the IDF began preparing to enter the city, and Israeli generals began discussions with their Phalangist allies over the entry of the Lebanese Forces into the now-defenseless refugee camps.
V. The Massacres
Asked whether the U.S. had failed to keep its word to the P.L.O., and whether Israel had violated the commitments it had made to the United States when it entered West Beirut, Philip Habib later answered, “Of course.”20 A White House statement of September 16 affirmed that Israel’s entry into West Beirut was “contrary to the assurances given to us,” while a statement by the President two days later demanded an immediate Israeli withdrawal.21 But by then it was too late for the victims butchered in Sabra and Shatila from the evening of Thursday September 16 until the morning of Saturday the 18th.
Ariel Sharon’s libel suit against Time magazine once again touched on many of the issues initially raised at the time of the massacre and again when the Kahan Commission delivered its report. In spite of this extensive attention, a number of points have been overlooked in the discussion of this question. One is the matter of Israel’s commitment not to enter Beirut in the first place, and the guarantees the United States received from Israel as to the safety and security of the civilian population of the refugee camps.
According to Ze’ev Schiff’s account of the discussion of Israel’s entry into Beirut which took place between Sharon and Habib’s replacement, Ambassador Morris Draper, on September 16, the Defense Minister stated that “new circumstances” made it necessary for the IDF to violate its pledge and enter the city. Draper apparently made no mention of Israeli promises regarding the welfare of Palestinian civilians, nor of the U.S. commitments to the P.L.O. in this regard.22 This is not surprising, and not only because the burly Israeli general seems to have been his usual intimidating self during this interview. Since his own government gave these U.S. commitments virtually no public attention in the aftermath of the August 20 accords, Draper can be forgiven for failing to mention the matter to Sharon. Even after Israel entered Beirut, there is no reference to U.S. commitments to the P.L.O. in the context of the evacuation accords in six statements by the State Department, the White House, and the President himself.23
The language of the U.S. pledges to the P.L.O. is clear and damning: “Regarding U.S. Government guarantees as regards security … of the camps, … We will provide these guarantees”; “We appear to be in agreement on U.S. assurances about the safety of … the camps”; and “We also reaffirm the assurances of the United States as regards safety and security … for the camps in Beirut.”24 More unequivocal language would have been impossible. Yet these were confidential commitments, offered during the bargaining process, recorded on plain white paper rather than official stationery, and never made public by the United States. (Copies were later given to foreign journalists by P.L.O. leaders, and can be found in the P.L.O. archives.25)
In public, the clear and explicit U.S. guarantee of the safety of the Palestinian civilian population embodied in the published August 20 evacuation agreement was virtually ignored in U.S. official statements at the time and afterward.26 Furthermore, no mention was made by anyone on the U.S. side of any of the confidential pledges to the P.L.O. in this regard. Instead, in August there was self-congratulation and satisfied mutual backslapping in Washington over the fact that the United States had finally solved the core of the problem as described by itself and Israel—the presence of the P.L.O. in Beirut—by obtaining its evacuation.
Then, when reality intruded itself, when Israel did what so many had feared it would and had tried to obtain guarantees against, when Israel’s allies were sent into the camps to perpetrate the very acts the P.L.O. had negotiated for weeks to try to avoid, there was apparent shock and surprise in Washington. Although a series of statements was made concerning the situation, and commenting—lukewarmly at first, and then increasingly stiffly—on the Israeli occupation of the Lebanese capital, there seems to have been little realization on the part of U.S. officials in Washington of the enormity of what was happening.27 In the event, no practical measures were taken by the U.S. to stop the tragedy of the massacres until it was too late. And at no stage did any U.S. official in the many statements made at this time admit that the U.S. had promised to prevent just such an eventuality, that it had broken its word, and that it bore a major share of responsibility for what had happened.
In addition to the clear American responsibility for what happened, several other parties must share the blame. Israel’s role goes far beyond the indirect responsibility and sins of omission attributed to seven Israeli officials by the Kahan Commission. No Israeli official who had had anything to do with the Phalangists could possibly have had any illusions as to what they would do if introduced into a Palestinian refugee camp; moreover, the historical record was full of bloody examples. The most notable of these, Tal al-Za‘tar, had been witnessed by two IDF liaison officers, according to a statement by Sharon in the Knesset in reply to the attacks of his critics after Sabra and Shatila.28 The Kahan report itself is replete with testimony regarding Phalangist intentions and actions regarding the Palestinians as they were revealed to Isreali officers in 1982.
The argument that the camps were full of “terrorists” left behind by the P.L.O. is often adduced in explanation of Israel’s actions. It requires an assumption of gross incompetence on the part of Israeli military intelligence to believe that the IDF did not know that there were no P.L.O. fighters there. In fact, as is acknowledged by most sources,29 there were none. Those men who had remained behind in the camps were Palestinians legally resident in Lebanon, many of whom were part-time members of camp self-defense militias. The Israelis knew perfectly well that they were incapable of offering serious resistance, as is evidenced by the introduction into the camps of a tiny force of a few hundred Phalangists. Clearly, the P.L.O. combatants who for two months had held several divisions of the IDF at the gates of Beirut would have made short work of such a force. But these battle-hardened fighters were gone, as the Israelis knew well. Sending the Phalangists into the camp could only have had one logical objective: the perpetration of a massacre.
Much can be said about the responsibility of others for Sabra and Shatila. Sharon and his accomplices are not the only ones who have gotten off easily: those Lebanese who actually perpetrated the massacre have never been fully identified, let alone made to pay for their crimes. In addition to those bearing direct responsibility, there are others indirectly at fault. Among them are the French, who saw this tragedy coming more clearly than any other external power, and warned against it in vain, but in the event were powerless to stop it. Many Arab states interceded with Washington at various stages of the war, and played a role in obtaining some of the U.S. guarantees which were violated. They were in a position to know what Sharon and the Phalangists were capable of, and had been repeatedly warned of the possibility of a massacre. None of them did anything effective to intercede with their friends in Washington in the more than two days after Bashir Gemayel’s assassination and before the massacres began.
There remains one more party whose responsibility must be defined: this is the P.L.O. itself. It can be argued, and has been by many Palestinian critics, that the P.L.O. leadership was remiss in accepting U.S. guarantees from Habib which were flimsy, and ultimately proved worthless. Further, the massacres raise the question of whether the P.L.O. would not have been better off holding out for better terms no matter how great the Israeli pressure. The argument is that however much more human suffering might have been incurred during a continuation of the fighting, it could not have been greater than that inflicted during the massacres.
These questions have not, by and large, been raised in the course of the public disputes within the P.L.O. since 1982. The reason is simple: every major Palestinian leader, from the traditional Fateh leadership to Habash, Hawatmeh, Jibril, Abu Saleh, and Abu Musa, was in Beirut and played a role in the decisions which led to the P.L.O.’s withdrawal. Not all were satisfied with the results of the negotiations with Habib, but none raised his voice in opposition at the time, and little has been heard from any of them in this regard since. These criticisms of the failure of the P.L.O. leadership to protect their defenseless civilian followers left behind in Beirut have come rather from some of those who remained in Lebanon, or from Palestinians living far away and who could not understand why the P.L.O. ever agreed to leave Beirut in the first place.
Were the decisions taken by the P.L.O. during the 1982 war justified? Could another outcome have been achieved? There is no easy answers to these questions, and there can be no definite ones. In view of what we have already seen, all that can be said with certitude is that the P.L.O.’s original June 1982 decision in principle to withdraw from Beirut was taken under the most intense pressure. This came not only from Israel, the United States, the Lebanese government, and the Phalangists. According to those who took the decision, the most significant pressure came from the P.L.O.’s Lebanese allies on the left and among the Muslims. The effect of this pressure was powerfully reinforced by the almost complete lack of Arab support for the P.L.O. It is difficult to see how the P.L.O. leadership could simply have resisted such pressure in June 1982 without making any concessions whatsoever.
Should the P.L.O. have held firm to the position that having conceded the principle of withdrawal it would withdraw only under certain circumstances? This is an even more difficult question to answer. For over a month, the P.L.O. tenaciously insisted on just such a position. From late June until the end of July, the Palestinians attempted to achieve as a quid pro quo for their withdrawal both concessions “on the ground” (matching Israeli withdrawals, a U.N. buffer force, and binding international guarantees), and political compensation in the form of P.L.O. involvement in Middle East peacemaking efforts based on a modified version of SC 242 (the Franco-Egyptian draft resolution) or at least a dialogue with the United States (the efforts made by Khaled al-Hassan in Washington). As we have seen, these efforts failed: Israel was intransigent about the terms being demanded on the ground, the United States was insistent on refusing any U.N. involvement or any political compensation for a P.L.O. withdrawal, and the Arab states which were necessary intermediaries in this process proved to be less than whole-hearted in their support of the P.L.O. negotiating position.
In view of all this, should the P.L.O. simply have tried to hold out longer, rejecting those elements of the Habib terms which were unsatisfactory, and gambling on its ability to resist and on the possibility that U.S., or Israeli, or international, or Arab public opinion would force a change in the situation? A few in Beirut argued for this at the time. But to most it did not appear to be a viable option, and the decision of the P.L.O. leadership not to risk such a choice was generally, if unenthusiastically, approved.
In favor of such an option were a number of factors, among them the high state of morale of the Joint Forces and their plentiful supplies of food, fuel, and ammunition; the difficulties faced by the IDF in fighting in heavily built-up areas (its only advances on August 4 had been in the last remaining open areas around Beirut not yet occupied, while all the attacks along built-up axes had failed); the deep divisions inside Israel over the war, and the conflicts which had already arisen even within the Cabinet about Sharon’s waging of it; and finally the growing unease of American public opinion over the failure of the Reagan administration to restrain Israel.
