On the Anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila Massacre

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

Thirty-two years have passed since one of the most hideous massacres ever committed against the Palestinian people: the Sabra and Shatila massacre. Israeli leaders conspired with some leaders of the Lebanese militias at the end of the Zionist war on Lebanon, and militia gunmen were allowed to enter the Sabra and Shatila camps for Palestinian refugees to carry out the mass killing of every Palestinian and Lebanese present in the two camps. The massacre began on the evening of September 16, 1982, and continued for three days; children, women, the elderly and men were killed in cold blood, guilty of no crime. The area of the two camps was at the time under the control of the Israeli army, and it became clear from investigations conducted in Israel that Israel’s then-minister of war, Ariel Sharon, and his chief of staff, Rafael Eitan, had allowed the Lebanese Kataeb Party militias, led by the Gemayel family, to enter the camps for the purpose of killing and shedding blood. The militias entered under the command of Elie Hobeika, the militia’s military commander, and killed people mercilessly and without hesitation. Estimates of the number of martyrs who fell in the massacre vary, ranging from roughly 400 to 3,200. No precise count of the martyrs is available to this day.

The Hideousness of the Massacre

The Palestinian people have been subjected to many massacres since the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but no massacre occurred with this number of martyrs, nor with this abundance of blood — not even at the hands of the Zionists themselves. The streets of the two camps filled with corpses, as did the small houses that characterize the camps, and cries and pleas for help were of no use against the murderous criminals. They carried out the killing with every ounce of rancor, hatred and darkness of heart, and we saw the corpses of children and women strewn in the alleyways of the camps, along with the corpses of men and the elderly. These martyrs had survived Zionist crimes with their own lives, only to meet their deaths at the hands of Arab gangs collaborating with the Zionists.

The media were, at the time, barred from entering the camps so that they would not document the barbaric, criminal acts being carried out against civilians, and the criminals carried out the killing in complete calm, far from local and international media — but the media entered the camps after the criminals had finished their party and the Israeli army allowed them in. The media broadcast images that stunned the world, and confronted the Palestinians with a new, horrifying tragedy that left them crushed under the weight of the war on the Liberation Organization and the weight of innocent, flowing blood, while they were unable to do anything to lend a helping hand or deter the criminals. The Palestinian people, at that time, went through the worst feelings of powerlessness in their history. They saw their own sons as lifeless corpses without being able to lift a finger. Israel had destroyed the Organization’s infrastructure and struck the factions militarily, and there was no longer anyone present in the camps to defend them. This despite the fact that Israel and its allies had, at the time, spread the rumor that some 1,500 Palestinian fighters were hiding in the camps. It has been proven that the two camps were empty of weapons and gunmen, and that the rumor served only the premeditated intent to kill Palestinians.

The Investigation

Israel was the only party that opened an investigation file into the massacre, and it is well known that Israel does not hesitate to open an investigation into matters of this kind, depending on international circumstances. Israel does not try to close its eyes entirely to matters of this sort, but it conducts the investigation in a way that does not lead to a strong conviction or to holding its leaders accountable on the international stage. That is, it tries to appease some of the protesting states, without any harm coming to it. Israel’s Kahan Commission of Inquiry found that the Israeli minister of war and his chief of staff had failed to do what was necessary to prevent the Lebanese militia from infiltrating the camps. The Israeli commission of inquiry made no mention of Sharon’s conspiring with the Kataeb militia to enter the camp and kill people, nor did it mention the chief of staff’s role in encouraging the militia to carry out the criminal act.

Like America, the Soviet Union, France and Britain, it too contented itself with condemnation and denunciation. The years have passed, and no international investigation has been opened to this day, nor is there anyone among the Palestinians and Arabs pushing to open the file.

The absence of an investigation has kept the door open for vengeance, or for the search for the killers’ leaders in order to take revenge on them. Bashir Gemayel was, at the time, accused of directing Elie Hobeika to carry out this task, especially since he hated Palestinians intensely and had been waiting for the day Israel would invade Lebanon and eliminate the Palestinian organizations. Bashir Gemayel was assassinated, but there is no indication that Palestinians killed him. As for Elie Hobeika, he was assassinated as well, and there are suspicions that the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command took its revenge on him. There are other names pointed to as having played an active part who have not surfaced publicly, out of fear of retaliation.

The Equation of Rancor and Hatred

There are people in Lebanon, as in Palestine, Jordan and Egypt, who see their interest as aligned with Israel, and who are always ready to ally with it and fight alongside it if need be. Over time, Israel managed to establish an army called the South Lebanon Army to fight alongside it, managed to establish a Palestinian Authority that fights whichever Palestinians wish to fight it, and enlisted Arab armies to serve as guards on its borders, such as the Jordanian army. Those who shelter under Israel’s umbrella are hostile to the Palestinian people, especially to those who wish to resist Israel. Resisting Israel is, for them, a hostile act, because it encroaches on their own private interests. This is why we should never expect these forces to support any kind of Arab resistance against Israel. They are against resistance as a matter of principle, and are permanently ready to ally with the enemies of resistance under false national slogans. This is why the Palestinian resistance had enemies before the resistance ever entered Lebanon. There are people in Lebanon who tied themselves, from the very first days of independence, to the will of the colonial powers, especially France and, after it, America, and who are permanently ready to fight the battles of the colonial powers against those seeking freedom and independence.

Israel, for its part, is always keen on internal Arab strife in order to inflame internal enmities. It is keen on mutual hatred between Palestinians and Lebanese, between Lebanese and Syrians, between Palestinians and Jordanians, and so on. Israel is happy to see Arabs fragmented and locked in internal conflicts. This is why it opened the door for Lebanese to kill Palestinians.

In addition to the pre-existing hatred toward the Palestinian factions and Palestinians in general, the Palestinian factions failed to appreciate the importance of behaving wisely within Lebanese society. Palestinians committed many transgressions that offended Lebanese people, such as vandalizing the Beirut Arab University and killing innocent horses, and they overstepped the bounds of respect for people. It appears that some leaders of the Liberation Organization were intent on tarnishing the image of Palestinians among Arab peoples, so as to strip the Palestinian cause of its Arab garment in favor of its own narrow Palestinian garment. This is how a negative Arab position developed toward the Liberation Organization in Jordan, Lebanon, Kuwait and Tunisia.

And judging by the course of the Palestinian leadership’s conduct, there is a possibility that this leadership was intent on leading the Palestinian people from one disappointment to another and from one failure to another, in order to justify opening negotiations with Israel. There are clear historical readings on this matter, and they do not absolve the Palestinian leaderships of Palestinian concerns. And here some ask: why did the Palestinian leadership leave the camps unprotected? Or why did it not insist on obtaining guarantees to protect the Palestinian camps before agreeing to leave Beirut?

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “في ذكرى مجزرة صبرا وشاتيلا” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.