by Noam Chomsky
175. “Strength, Strength, Strength,” Yediot Ahronot, Sept. 10, 1982.
176. Military correspondent Ze’ev Schiff, “War Crime in Beirut,” Ha’aretz, Sept. 20, 1982. This article, commenting on the Beirut massacre, was widely quoted in the U.S. press, but not this remarkable statement by the Chief of Staff.
177. Davar, Sept. 3, 10, 1982. Also Aviezer Ravitzky, Ma’ariv, Oct. 21, 1982 (Israeli Press Briefs).
178. Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, “The Consensus that Never Was,” Migvan, Aug. 1982. An abbreviated version appears in the New Outlook, October 1982.
179. See Peace in the Middle East?, pp. 132f., 172ff., TNCW, 240f., for discussion of some examples from the left-liberal segment of the political spectrum.
180. Oz, “Has Israel Altered its Visions?”
181. For discussion of these matters, see Ian Lustick, Arabs in the Jewish State (Texas, Austin, 1980); TNCW, chapter 9 and Afterword, and sources cited there, including Jiryis, The Arabs in Israel. See also Elia T. Zureik, The Palestinians in Israel (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1979).
182. Jewish Post and Opinion, March 30, 16, 1983. The family benefits legislation is currently before the courts.
183. Yediot Ahronot, April 20, 1979; Ha’aretz, July 28, 1977. Had the pretender succeeded in the ruse, he would have been a bigamist, but it is clear that “attempted bigamy” was not the major charge. In another case, “an inhabitant of the West Bank was convicted of pretending to be a Jew,” also with the intent of marrying a Jewish woman (Ma’ariv, April 27, 1976). Note that the charge was not that he attempted to pass as an Israeli, but that he pretended to be a Jew.
184. For details on the events and the legal process, see Jiryis, The Arabs in Israel, chapter 6.
185. Professor Raphael Jospe, “Report on Visit to Karmiel as Scholar in Residence,” report to the American Zionist Federation, April 1, 1982, circulated by the Zionist Academic Council as part of its educational program in American universities.
186. For some facts concerning Karmiel, see TNCW, pp. 247f., and references cited.
187. Alfred Friendly, “Israel: Paradise Lost.”
188. See TNCW, pp. 257f., for citations and further references. See also note 14, above.
189. See TNCW, p. 439, for some references. For the Arlosoroff memorandum, published in 1948 in the Labor Party journal Jewish Frontier, see Khalidi, ed., From Haven to Conquest.
190. For quotes from some contemporary documents, see Peace in the Middle East?, p. 88. See also Flapan, Zionism and the Palestinians, chapter 2.
191. Speech of 1937, cited in New Outlook (Tel Aviv), April 1977, from BenGurion’s Memoirs.
192. Menachem Begin, The Revolt (New York, Schuman, 1951, p. 335). See Shahak, Begin And Co., for extensive documentation from official sources on the positions taken by Begin’s terrorist army (Irgun Tsvai Leumi) and the political party (Herut) that was formed from it.
193. Report to the World Council of Poalei Zion (the forerunner of the Labor Party), Tel Aviv, 1938; cited by Israel Shahak, J. of Palestine Studies, Spring 1981.
194. Flapan, Zionism and the Palestinians, pp. 265-6.
195. David Ben-Gurion, My Talks with Arab Leaders (Third Press, New York, 1973, pp. 27, 52), reporting talks of 1934 and 1936 with Musa Alami and George Antonius.
196. Speech of Oct. 13, 1936, Ben-Gurion, Memoirs, vol. 3, 1936, p. 467 (Hebrew).
197. Sykes, Crossroads to Israel, pp. 174-5.
198. Arlosoroff memorandum; see note 189.
199. Michael Bar-Zohar, Ben-Gurion: A Biography (Delacorte, New York, 1978, pp. 91-2, 166, 186-7, 249-50). All emphases in original.
200. David Krivine, “The Palestinian puzzle,” Jerusalem Post, Feb. 20, 1981.
201. David Krivine, letter, Economist, July 10, 1982.
202. “Liberated Territory No. 20,” Ha’aretz, June 13, 1982, advertisement.
203. Lucas, Modern History of Israel, p. 437. Though his analogy is in part correct, I do not think he is correct in suggesting that it was the resort to terror—which was real enough—that established this image for the Zionist movement.
204. Nahum Barnea and Danny Rubinstein, Davar, March 19, 1982.
205. Al Hamishmar, March 3, 1978; Jerusalem Post, Feb. 28, 1978 (a somewhat sanitized version).
206. Toldot Hahaganah, vol. II (Ma’arachot, pp. 251f.); see TNCW, TNCW, 2; David Pryce-Jones, New Republic, Year-end Issue, 1982. See p. 97.
207. For a small sample, see TNCW, pp. 463f. and references cited, among them the rather admiring account of Irgun-LEHI atrocities by J. BowyerBell (Terror out 0f Zion, St. Martin’s, New York, 1977). See also the books by Hirst, Sykes, and others cited earlier, and for the later years, also Rokach, Israel’s Sacred Terrorism. Recall Flapan’s comment on the Irgun model for PLO terrorism, many decades later, cited above, p. 74.
208. See Shahak, Begin And Co., for translations from the Hebrew original.
209. Jerusalem Post, Feb. 15, 1982. See chapter 2, note 36 and text.
210. Bar-Zohar, Ben-Gurion, pp. 180-1.
211. Rokach, Israel’s Sacred Terrorism. See p. 20.
212. Cited by Nahum Barnea, Davar, April 9, 1982.
213. See TNCW, p. 465, for references.
214. The Dawn (Al Fajr), Jerusalem, Sept. 24, Oct. 1, 1982.
215. Davar, April 9, 1982, the anniversary of the massacre.
5. Peace for Galilee
S
ince 1949, Israel has sought to remove the displaced Palestinian refugees from the border areas and to destroy their emerging political and military structures. The 1982 invasion of Lebanon
was a further stage in these efforts. Their general character over the years was indicated by Chief of Staff Mordechai Gur in an interview in the Israeli press after the 1978 invasion of Lebanon, which drove another quarter-million Arabs from their homes with heavy casualties, in retaliation for a PLO terrorist attack in Israel. Gur observed that “For 30 years, from the War of Independence [which Palestinians call “the War of Conquest”] until today, we have been fighting against a population that lives in villages and cities,” noting such incidents as the bombing of the Jordanian city of Irbid, the clearing of all inhabitants from the Jordan valley by bombing, driving a million and a half civilians from the Suez Canal area during the 1970 “war of attrition,” and other examples, all undertaken in alleged retaliation against Arab attacks. His remarks were accurately summarized by the noted Israeli military analyst Ze’ev Schiff:
In South Lebanon we struck the civilian population consciously, because they deserved it…the importance of Gur’s remarks is the admission that the Israeli Army has always struck civilian populations, purposely and consciously…the Army, he said, has never distinguished civilian [from military] targets...[but] purposely attacked civilian targets even when Israeli settlements had not been struck.1*
These remarks, in 1978, apply with considerable accuracy to the Lebanon invasion four years later, and with still more force. * The military doctrine of attacking defenseless civilians derives from David BenGurion, who was quite explicit about it, though not in public of course. In a January 1, 1948 entry in his Independence War Diary, he writes:
There is no question as to whether a reaction is necessary or not. The question is only time and place. Blowing up a house is not enough. What is necessary is cruel and strong reactions. We need precision in time, place and casualties. If we know the family— [we must] strike mercilessly, women and children included. Otherwise the reaction is inefficient. At the place of action there is no need to distinguish between guilty and innocent. Where there was no attack—we should not strike.
The latter qualification was not observed, frequently, in the pre-state period and increasingly in later years (as, for example, at Qibya). Excerpts from these diaries, to be published, appear in Yediot Ahronot, April 17, 1983, the independence day edition.
1. The Rational Basis for Attacking the Civilian Population
T
he motive for Israel’s attacks ag
ainst civilian populations to the north and east was dual: to disperse the Palestinian refugees, and to embitter relations between them and the local population in the areas to which they had been driven. As explained by Labor Party
dove Abba Eban: “there was a rational prospect, ultimately fulfilled, that affected populations would exert pressure for the cessation of hostilities.” Eban was writing in condemnation of an article by Prime Minister Begin which reviewed attacks against civilians under the Labor government,* presenting a picture, according to Eban, “of an Israel wantonly inflicting every possible measure of death and anguish on civilian populations in a mood reminiscent of regimes which neither Mr. Begin nor I would dare to mention by name.”2 Eban does not contest the facts that Begin reviewed, but criticizes him for stating them, thus contributing to Arab propaganda. He also does not mention that his own doctrine, just quoted, represented the standard practice of the regimes he does not “dare to mention by name.” Recent events in Lebanon again confirm Eban’s judgment about the “rational prospect.”
On the current scene, it is not only in Lebanon (earlier, Jordan) that Eban’s “rational prospect” has met with a certain success. A “veteran Western observer,” commenting on the tactics of the Afghan resistance, states that “They’ll come through a village, expect people with hardly any food themselves to feed them, then they’ll use the village—with or
* Begin’s review of atrocities under Labor Party rule was in response to Labor criticism of the recent bombing of Lebanon, which left hundreds dead. For further quotes and discussion, see Herman, The Real Terror Network, pp. 76f.
without permission—as a staging point to attack a passing Russian patrol. After the guerrillas leave, the Russians come back and pulverize the area in retaliation.” It is partly for this reason, he alleges, that “A small but growing number of Afghans...have chosen the [Russianestablished] militia as the only alternative to starvation and to more death at the hands of the Russians.”3
In short, the fulfilment of Eban’s “rational prospect,” as in Lebanon. Other similarities have been noted. In Pakistan, local political activists describe the “recent Israeli incursion into Lebanon...as an indication of what could happen if the [Afghan] refugees and resistance assume a permanent presence in Pakistan, a sort of Asian version of the Palestinian problem.” Local residents speak of the Afghan guerrilla group that is favored by the Pakistani government “as troublemakers with licence to interfere in provincial politics,” a fact that is “keenly exploited by local political activists to stir up fear and animosity among their followers towards Afghans in general.” Bombing of refugee concentrations in Pakistan (what the Russians, perhaps, call “cleaning out nests of terrorists”) surely contributes to these efforts.4 Those acquainted with the recent history of Lebanon will recognize the pattern. With many local variations, it is, in general, a familiar story. Military tactics in the course of U.S. aggression in Indochina (or to keep to the Party Line, “the defense of South Vietnam”) are another case.
2. The Northern Border of Greater Israel
W
ith regard to Lebanon, Israel is now realizing plans that have early antecedents in Zionist thinking. It had long been hoped that Israel’s boundaries would ultimately extend to the Litani River in southern Lebanon, one part of Ben-Gurion's vision”
(see p. 289). In 1932, a Jewish Agency emissary visited Beirut to discuss “a joint company for using southern Lebanon’s Litani River for electricity and irrigation.” The Zionists regarded the Christian Maronites as a natural ally and sought to form “a symbiotic alliance” with them against the “common enemy: Islamic-oriented Arab nationalism.” The majority of the Maronites, however, “chose the alternative of peace with the Muslims,” establishing the 1943 National Pact which “succeeded in preserving Christian predominance and prosperity for three decades.” They recognized that “the only alternative to a pact with Lebanese Muslims was civil war and since the resulting agreement was quite satisfactory for Christian interests, this posed little temptation”—in the mid-40s. Only 30 years later “did the main Maronite parties accept alliance with Israel.”5 By then, years of communal strife resulting largely from the inequities suffered by the Muslim majority and later exacerbated by the Palestine presence (siding with the Muslims) had led to the breakdown of the National Pact and a vicious civil war, with Syrian and Israeli participation.
Ten days after the establishment of the State of Israel in May 1948, Ben-Gurion presented his General Staff with his plan to establish a Christian state north of the Litani river with which Israel would form an alliance (see chapter 4, section 9.1). In the mid-1950s, plans were considered at the highest level to dismember Lebanon, establishing a Christian state with Israel annexing the territory south of the Litani. Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan felt that this could be achieved by finding “an officer, even just a Major,” who could be bribed or won over and would then “agree to declare himself the savior of the Maronite population,” after which Israel would invade and realize its plans.6 These plans had to be put in abeyance from 1956, when Israel was allied with France, which saw itself as “the protector of Lebanon.” But they were taken up again in the 1970s and were partially realized with the establishment of Major Saad Haddad’s “independent state” in southern Lebanon in 1979, after the 1978 Israeli invasion, in territory handed over to him by the Israeli army in defiance of the United Nations after Haddad had deserted from the Lebanese army.
3. The Background in Lebanon 3.1 The PLO and the Civil War
I
n 1970, many Palestinians were driven from Jordan after a bloody conflict in which thousands were killed by King Hussein’s forces. In Lebanon, they joined hundreds of thousands of refugees from the
1948 war. The PLO at first attempted to keep clear of Lebanon’s internal strife. Furthermore, after vicious terrorist attacks in Israel in the early 1970s, PLO tactics began to change. John Cooley observes that “During 1974 [and in fact, thereafter] there was a strong tendency by Arafat’s PLO leadership, al-Fatah, to curb cross-border activity,” though this did not prevent “‘wildcat’ actions” by other groups in the PLO.7 The PLO was, however, drawn into the civil war, initially, by an April 1975 Phalange attack on a bus killing 27 Palestinians and Lebanese who were travelling to Tel al-Zaatar from the Sabra and Shatila camps—a grim portent. At first, the PLO role was largely limited to arming some Muslim and leftist groups and helping defend Muslim districts that were under Christian (largely Maronite Phalange) attack. The PLO took a more active role in January 1976, when Christian militias blockaded Palestinian camps. “By this time,” Cooley writes, “such events as ‘Black Saturday’ on December 6, 1975, when over 200 Muslim hostages were taken and murdered by the Phalange in reprisals for murders of four Phalangist militiamen, and a new leftist offensive against the fortified [Christian] hotels, had consummated the partition of Beirut and Lebanon as a whole into two well-defined zones: the eastern Christian and the western, ‘Islamo-Progressivist’ or leftist sector.” (The alliances were actually fairly complex, but I will keep to the oversimplified familiar terms, noting here that they are a bit misleading.) The Muslim Karantina slum was overrun by Christian forces with large numbers massacred, then “burned and razed…with bulldozers.” The Christian (Chamounist) town of Damour was then taken by “the leftist-Palestinian coalition and…occupied, looted, and destroyed.” The propaganda of Israel and its American supporters regularly refers to the last of these atrocities as proof that the PLO was conducting a murderous war against the Lebanese; what preceded is regularly omitted.
3.2 Syria and Israel in Lebanon Syria entered the war in support of the Christians against the leftistPalestinian coalition, an act that Kissinger called “constructive” and that was tacitly backed by Israel, though Israel insisted that the Syrian army remain north of the Litani. By July 1976, a Syrian-led “peace-keeping force” had intervened under an Arab League mandate, still in support of the Christians. In August, the Tel al-Zaatar Palestin
ian camp was overrun after a long siege. Thousands were massacred by Christian forces using Israeli arms, armored personnel carriers and tanks, “still with Israeli Defense Forces markings in Hebrew,” Cooley writes, adding that “By early summer considerable transfers of tanks, vehicles, artillery, and other military equipment had been made by Israel to the rightists [Maronites].” Israeli military forces now operated regularly in southern Lebanon to establish rightist control. Syria launched another major offensive against the leftist-Palestinian alliance in September. By October 1976, the “peacekeeping forces,” largely Syrian, numbered 30,000.
Subsequently, Syria turned against the Christian right. The Maronite Phalange under Bashir Gemayel established its dominance within the Christian-right alliance by murdering opposition elements. The PLO continued to engage in murderous conflict with Israeli-supported Christian elements and, later, with local Muslim groups in the south, while frequently acting to protect Muslim elements from Christian massacres. Israel meanwhile conducted regular military attacks in Lebanon, including bombing and shelling of refugee camps, bombardment of coastal cities by gunboats, terrorist raids in Beirut and elsewhere, the outright invasion of 1978, and finally the occupation of large parts of Lebanon in the summer of 1982. See also chapter 3, section 3.
Israeli sources give further information about early Israeli-Maronite contacts. In Hotam (Mapam), Chaim Margalit reports that in February 1976 a boat with Maronite leaders was received secretly in Haifa. He quotes Amos Eran, then General Manager of the office of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of the Labor Party, who explains further that the Maronites were divided into a group that wanted to undertake joint actions with Israel and those who saw Lebanon as part of the Arab world. The Rabin government supported the former group, the Phalangists and Chamounists. The early contacts were at a low level and were kept secret, though they were widely known; and at the time, Eran reports, “the Americans were not in the picture.” A “qualitative change” took place when the Begin government took power—in fact, other evidence suggests, after Sharon became Defense Minister in July 1981. The “exploitative character” of the Maronites was well-known, Margalit continues, ‘just as we knew that they would not hesitate to arrange provocations in order to bring Israel in to fight for them.” He claims that the conflict with the Syrians over the air defense missiles in the Bekaa valley “began with a provocation of the Phalange soldiers,” a view corroborated by other sources (see chapter 6, section 2.2). Eran asserts that Bashir Gemayel, who was elected President in August 1982 under Israeli guns and later assassinated, was no friend of Israel: “If Bashir Gemayel were alive and President of Lebanon, he would be no better [meaning, no more friendly to Israel] than his brother Amin [who was elected President after the assassination]. Those who knew him are ready to say that it is reasonable to assume that he would have been even worse than his brother with regard to Israel and its requests,” a matter to which we return.8