Antoinette came back with the coffee, and she noticed I was yawning.
“It looks like you were up late last night,” she said.
“Not at all,” I replied. “I went to bed early, but I didn’t sleep through the night. Perhaps it was because of the climate here, one thing happening after another.”
“When the fighting was at its most intense,” she said, taking a sip of coffee, “I used to sleep soundly. It’s a question of habit. You can easily get used to the sound of bullets. Unlike other things.”
“Such as?”
She looked down into her cup. “Sitting down to eat after witnessing a group of rotting corpses,” she replied. “Fires blazing and rockets launching while the radio is playing pop music. Several gunmen standing in your way and asking to see your identity, so they can find out your religion, although you don’t know what theirs is. Or spending Sunday by yourself inside four walls.”
“I’ve often had that same Sunday experience.”
She put the cup back on its saucer and, picking up her purse, led me to the editing room without saying a word. I helped her carry the film canisters from the storage space and then thread into position the film we would be watching. Then I got my pen and paper ready, and took my place in front of the Moviola screen.
The Third Part of the Film
Title card:
On the same day as Syria’s entrance into Lebanon, June 1, 1976, in a move that Western news agencies portrayed as support for the Syrian initiative, the Soviet Premier Kosygin arrived in Damascus at the head of a large official delegation.
Damascus International Airport. Soviet flags everywhere. The large escort for the Soviet official sets out from in front of the airport.
The lead headline of Syria’s al-Baath newspaper: ‘‘Kissinger, after the first round of talks with President Hafez al-Assad: ‘We support the resumption of the Geneva Conference as soon as possible, with the participation of all parties directly interested in the Middle East crisis, and we support the Lebanese forces that are fighting for national unity, territorial unity, and a settlement of the crisis via peaceful means.’ ’’
Scattered headlines in Lebanese newspapers: “Islamic Council under the leadership of Shafiq al-Wazzan welcomes Syrian intervention.” “Kamal Shatila, head of the Union of Working People’s Forces (Nasserist), welcomes Syria’s move and attacks reactionaries, isolationists and regionalists under the sway of secularism, sexual license and hostility to Arabism.” “Shia, Guardians of the Cedars and Phalangists welcome Syrian intervention and commend Syrian president for his bravery.” “Iraq offers 3 million dollars to the Joint Arab Front in the Palestinian uprising.”
Beirut. An office of the Sa’iqa organization in Chiyah. Fatah forces surround the building. Other Fatah forces besiege an office belonging to Kamal Shatila’s organization in the Caracas neighborhood.
Title card:
In response, Syrian forces moved toward Beirut. So the Palestinian resistance sought the help of the Libyans and Algerians, asking them to stop the advancing forces in exchange for a return to the status quo ante. The attacks on the Sa’iqa and Shatila offices were abandoned.
Headline in a Lebanese newspaper: “Syrian forces occupy all of northern Lebanon.”
A paragraph from Pravda: “The armed fighting among the parties fighting in Lebanon has virtually ended thanks to Syrian intervention.”
Zuheir Mohsen, leader of the Sa’iqa, from Radio Damascus: “Fatah has changed: once it was a tool for the Palestinian uprising, but now it’s become a dagger directed against the people of Palestine.”
Headline in a Lebanese newspaper: “Syrian forces and al-Sa’iqa rain down rockets on Beirut and the camps. 700 killed and wounded. Nearly 4,000 homes destroyed. Rockets fall at a rate of one explosion every 6 minutes.”
Moscow. Headquarters of the Soviet Foreign Ministry. A Soviet authority reads an urgent statement to reporters: “With respect to Syria, which announced that the mission of its forces is to help stop the bloodshed in Lebanon, it is evident that blood is still being shed, and in greater quantities.”
Damascus. The entrance to the Republican Palace. The Jordanian prime minister and Zayd bin Shakir, commander-in-chief of the Jordanian Army, accompanied by Mustafa Tlass, Syrian minister of defense.
A circle around a paragraph from an Israeli newspaper: “The largest division of Syrian forces, which had taken up positions in recent months between Damascus and the Israeli lines, was withdrawn and sent to Lebanon and the Syrian–Iraqi border.”
A headline in a Lebanese newspaper: “Syrian forces strip citizens of their money, possessions and food.” A telegram sent from Maronite leader Raymond Eddé to President Hafez al-Assad: “The Syrian Army robbed my house in Sawfar . . . It has not escaped my notice that it did the same to Rashid Karami’s house.”
Sawfar. A Syrian soldier is talking to a French television crew: “We are waiting impatiently for our turn. Coming to Lebanon was always a dream . . . Well-stocked shops, imported goods, movies and women. They selected us from every army division so we won’t feel loyal just to our group, and so everyone feels that they all have an equal chance of going to Lebanon.”
President Hafez al-Assad addressing a large crowd: “They attacked the Syrian soldiers who entered in order to help them . . . We chose these soldiers from different sections of the army, and we made this choice intentionally; we intended for soldiers from every division in the Syrian army to go, for reasons of Arab nationalism, so they could defend the refugee camps, and so that the spirit of defending the Palestinian cause and the camps would be strengthened in all branches of the Syrian military.”
Cairo. A television anchorman reads a news bulletin: “Arab foreign ministers decide to replace Syrian forces in Lebanon with Arab security forces.”
Beirut. The Achrafieh neighborhood in East Beirut. Abd al-Salam Julud, Libyan prime minister, in the car of Abu al-Hasan, Fatah’s security chief. The car stops in front of Pierre Gemayel’s home.
Title card:
While a solution for Lebanon was forging ahead into existence under Arab protection, members of a small leftist organization calling itself the Party of Arab Socialist Labor, which was linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (headed by George Habash), kidnapped the American ambassador and the US Embassy advisor, as well as their Lebanese driver. The kidnapping took place in West Beirut before the ambassador’s car reached the border separating the two sides, on its way to Sarkis’s headquarters. After three hours, the bodies of the three men were discovered in the Janah district.
A headline in a Lebanese newspaper: “The Soviet government offers immediate assistance in the form of food and medical supplies to the Lebanese National Movement and Palestinian resistance via Beirut Airport and other ports.”
A headline in Syria’s al-Baath newspaper: “Syrian minister of media denies that there are battles between Syrian forces and the so-called joint forces (Lebanese and Palestinian), saying, ‘What is happening in Lebanon is a battle among Palestinian forces.’”
A circle around a paragraph from the Soviet newspaper, Sovetskaya Rossiya: “Despite repeated Syrian declarations about helping Lebanon stop the bloodshed, in reality the bloodshed has increased since Syrian forces entered this country. They are coming down hard in regions that are dominated by nationalist forces and where the Palestinian camps are located.”
A headline in a Lebanese newspaper: “President Frangieh – days before leaving the office of presidency – appoints Camille Chamoun as assistant to the prime minister, as minister of the interior, of post, telegraph and telephone, of water and electric resources, and of external affairs and aliens, of national education, of fine arts and of public planning.”
A slender young woman in military clothes, with her hair down over her shoulders, inspects several armed men and women, all bearing the insignia “Tigers of the Liberals”, Chamoun’s militia.
Gunmen bearing the same insignia jump in the air shouti
ng an attack cry.
Narrow alleyways with uncovered drainage ditches running down the middle of them. In front of a tin-sheet shack stands a young man pouring water from a plastic bucket over another young man having a bath on the ground in front of him.
Sunset in the same place. Dozens of men of different ages wearing scruffy clothes appear in the backstreets, shuffling wearily as they return and enter the shacks and low-roofed houses.
Title card:
The Tel Zaatar camp is located in East Beirut, near the industrial zone. Most of its inhabitants are Palestinians and Lebanese, along with poor Kurds, Egyptians and Syrians, Muslims and Christians, in addition to political exiles from several Arab countries.
Maronite monasteries own the largest share of the land occupied by the camp. They were perennially trying to evict the camp in order to reclaim the land, the value of which had increased in recent years. At the same time, the location of the camp kept East Beirut from being entirely under Maronite control.
A general view of the Tel Zaatar camp. Armored cars carrying the “Tigers” emblem surround the camp on all sides. Missiles and rockets fly up over its houses. A mortar on top of an armored car in the fort rains down fire on the camp.
Chamoun, with his carefully-combed silver hair, and with his glasses in his hand, is sitting down, listening to the reports from the leaders of the Tigers, and smiling.
A headline in a Lebanese newspaper: “Jumblatt says: ‘The attack on Tel Zaatar is a contest for leadership of the Maronites between Chamoun and Gemayel.’”
Headlines from Lebanese newspapers: “Beirut without water, electricity and gasoline.” “Gas at 18 lira.” “Blockade of supplies by Syrian forces.” “Dollar rises to 330 Lebanese piastres; US and Canadian banks make billions in profits.”
A wooden donkey cart, with its back wagon filled with people. One of them carries a wide placard reading: “This is how our ancestors did it. We don’t need gasoline.”
A street in Beirut. A Palestinian gunman carrying the Fatah insignia distributes flour from a military truck. Hundreds of hands stretch out to him.
The power company building in East Beirut.
Title card:
After the warring factions cut off the thirteen power lines that fed electricity to both halves of the city, Fu’ad Bazri, president of the power company, who came to be known as “Mr Light”, succeeded in finalizing an agreement between Yasser Arafat and the Phalangists, on the basis of which the Palestinian leader sent two small seagoing transport vessels carrying heavy fuel to the electric power station in the Christian sector, a few kilometers distant from Beirut, so that it could supply the two parts of the city with current.
A newspaper headline: “Nationalist and Palestinian forces advance in the direction of Ain Remmaneh, with the aim of relieving pressure on Tel Zaatar.”
Title card:
On June 27, the Phalangists announced that they had entered the battle of Tel Zaatar.
A press conference with member of parliament Amin Gemayel: “The Phalangists have joined in the assault on Tel Zaatar because those who planned and started the attack were incapable of seizing it.”
A poster carrying the insignia of the Tigers with a photo of a beautiful young woman. Below the photo in French: “Saada Khayyat: the first Lebanese woman to fall on the field of honor during the attack on Tel Zaatar.”
A press conference with Julud, prime minister of Libya: “The conspiracy is large-scale and international . . . The Syrian Army was drawn into the conspiracy so that it could control all the basic elements in the Lebanese public arena . . . Nationalist forces and people who believe in their Arab character, Christians and Muslims, and those who believe in their nationalist sense of belonging, and the Palestinians . . . My opinion is that they should march in file to Tel Zaatar until the isolationists run out of ammunition. If you start with a half-million Palestinians, and end up with only one hundred thousand, that doesn’t matter. This is our view, even toward Israel. If the Arabs weren’t afraid of dying, then Israel wouldn’t exist.”
A newspaper headline: “The resistance takes Bashir Gemayel prisoner after he killed several Palestinians with his own hands. 8 hours later, he was released, following the intervention of President Sarkis and the Deuxième Bureau.”
A headline in a newspaper: “Tel Zaatar repels 49th attack.”
A headline in the Phalangist newspaper, al-Amal: “Leaders of the Phalangists and Tigers follow the progress of the battles directly on the battlefield.”
Title card:
On the twentieth day of Tel Zaatar holding out . . .
A headline in a Lebanese newspaper: “PLO leadership to Tel Zaatar combatants: ‘The coming hours are fateful, your defiance is key.’”
A headline in a Lebanese newspaper: “Communications between Arafat, Gaddafi and Mahmoud Riyad, and between Jumblatt, King Khalid, Sadat, Boumedienne and al-Bakr, and between Assad and Hussein.”
A headline in a Lebanese newspaper: “Tel Zaatar repels 51st attack.”
A headline in a Lebanese newspaper: “New 7-hour-long assault against Tel Zaatar repelled.”
A headline in a Lebanese newspaper: “10-page Soviet diplomatic note warns Syria against further strikes against the Palestinian resistance and Lebanese National Movement.”
A headline in the Lebanese newspaper al-Anbaa: “Jumblatt to a conference of Arab foreign ministers: ‘You were duped by businessmen of the isolationist faction, who are very close to your kings and presidents.’ ”
A headline in a French newspaper: “Killing of William Hawi, president of the Phalangist military council, during the battles of Tel Zaatar. Foreign press bureaus in Beirut confirm that his killing was arranged by Bashir Gemayel, who took his place as the head of the Phalangist military council.”
In front of the Phalangist military council building. Bashir Gemayel in his military uniform surrounded by his aides.
Title card:
Bashir Gemayel graduated from Jesuit schools and the Jesuit University, where he studied law. But power was more enticing to him than the legal profession he was expected to enter.
Since his youth, he was notable for his hotheadness and his violent tendencies. He resorted quickly to his fists when confronted with a problem. These problems multiplied when he reached adolescence. His face was filled with pimples. He discovered that he was short, and his body not well-proportioned. Soon after, it became clear that the leadership positions within his family were limited to his powerful father and his older brother, Amin, who was distinguished by his slender physique, good looks and intellectual gifts. But he didn’t despair. He sought refuge in the street. For fifteen hours a day, during which time he never stopped eating pieces of chocolate, he would attend weddings, baptisms, funerals and masses, currying favor with the petit bourgeois, the semi-employed, minor functionaries, and all the other frustrated people, while waiting for the right opportunity.
The Damascus University amphitheater. Hafez al-Assad is speaking: “. . . Those who are making uninformed opinions must understand that I am not someone who loves power. I am nothing but an individual of this people, and nothing will keep me from feeling the feelings of this people, and taking the decision that I feel expresses the feelings of the citizens of this country and their desires.
“When the events in Lebanon began, some long months ago, we had an explanation for them . . . We said that the conspiracy couldn’t achieve its goals except through killing. So in order for us to frustrate the conspiracy, we had to stop the killing. And we set out to act for that reason . . .
“. . . But there are some who want the problems to stay the way they are, because they want to work. Some gunmen in Lebanon now are against peace. If peace is achieved, then they will be out of work. And that’s a problem.
“. . . We welcomed Kamal Jumblatt. I said to him, We want you to let us know what you really want . . . He spoke about secularism. A secular state in Lebanon. I told him that the Phalangists are enthusiastic for secul
arism. Shaykh Pierre Gemayel told me that he will accept no substitute for secularism. I am insistent on, and hold fast to, a secular state in Lebanon. But the mufti of the Muslims, the Shii imam, and some prime ministers and speakers of parliament have refused secularism.
“Jumblatt said: ‘Let us punish them. We have to settle it militarily. They have ruled us for 140 years, and we want to get rid of them.’ Here I saw that the mask had slipped. The issue was one of reprisal and revenge.
“A military settlement in a country like Lebanon, between two warring sides in one nation, is impossible. A military settlement for any problem means a decisive elimination of that problem. And in Lebanon that notion is impossible because exercising power should not require having absolute power. Or rather, there should be more than one source of power, although that doesn’t exist now. As for the proposed military settlement, if it creates a situation where one side dominates Lebanese public life, then it will result in the emergence of a new problem in Lebanon and in this region. The problem of a certain people, of a certain religion, is the problem of Lebanon or part of Lebanon. The problems of those who are dominated is one that the world will empathize with.
“We can all imagine this solution would not exist at all except through the partitioning of Lebanon. A state filled with hatred would arise. A state more dangerous and more hostile than Israel.
“A third thing: you can all foresee that a military settlement in this way will fling open the doors to every foreign intervention, and especially Israeli intervention.
“On the same day, I summoned Yasser Arafat and this is what I said to him: I told him and I’m telling you now that I cannot conceive of the connection between Palestinians doing battle on top of Mount Lebanon and the liberation of Palestine . . . My friends, do you recall what went on in 1970 in Jordan? At the time, they shouted slogans: Power, all power to the resistance. We are liberating Palestine by way of Amman. The matter is being repeated now in Lebanon. At that meeting, Yasser Arafat promised me that he would withdraw from the fighting.
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