The Foreign Service Journal, February 2003

U.S. and Western targets of opportu- nity. Major Karson Snyder U.S. Army Amman, Jordan A Curious Omission In “Palestine: The Problem and the Prospect” (October FSJ ), Terrell Arnold purports to lay out the con- cerns of the various players, but then proceeds to single out for challenge just one whose defensibility he finds lacking (surprise! It is Israel). It is curious that in an article of this length, no mention was made of the historic Camp David meetings of September 2000, when the George McGovern of Israel, Ehud Barak, said yes to the Palestinian positions identified by Mr. Arnold. Not being ready to take yes for an answer, Mr. Arafat took time from his awkward departure to coldly predict the tragic result of his decision to not negotiate in good faith. Dan Berman FSO, Foreign Agriculture Service Washington, D.C. The Sabra/Shatilla Massacres In Arnie Schifferdecker’s review (September FSJ ) of John Boykin’s book on Ambassador Philip Habib’s diplomacy in Beirut, Cursed Is the Peacemaker , he writes, “Shortly there- after, Sharon and his Phalangist allies covered themselves in shame through their invasion of West Beirut and wan- ton murders of hundreds of innocent Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps.” The Kahan Commission set up by the Israeli government to examine the Sabra/Shatilla massacre concluded that “the defense minister made a grave mistake when he ignored the danger of acts of revenge and blood- shed by the Phalangists against the population in the refugee camps. These blunders constitute non-fulfil- ment of a duty with which [Sharon] was charged.” The commission recommended that Sharon resign as defense minister, which he did. The Kahan Commission was very clear on one important point relevant to the review, however: “We have no doubt that no conspiracy or plot was entered into between anyone from the Israeli political echelon or from the military echelon in the IDF and the Phalangists, with the aim of perpetrat- ing atrocities in the camps. The deci- sion to have the Phalangists enter the camps was taken with the aim of pre- venting further losses in the war in Lebanon; to accede to the pressure of public opinion in Israel, which was angry that the Phalangists, who were reaping the fruits of the war, were tak- ing no part in it; and to take advantage of the Phalangists’ professional service and their skills in identifying terrorists and in discovering arms caches. No intention existed on the part of any Israeli element to harm the non-com- batant population in the camps ... ” While a judgment of indirect responsibility for the massacres is no small matter, it falls far short of proven culpability for “wanton murder.” The Kahan Commission was, as far as I am aware, the only independent commission of inquiry ever to look into the massacres in a systematic and thorough manner and to assign blame. It would be appropriate for the Lebanese and Syrian governments to set up independent commissions of inquiry to assign direct responsibility for the Sabra/Shatilla killings and other, even larger, massacres in the Lebanon of that era. But I suspect that we will have to await successor regimes to those currently in place before anyone dares to turn those par- ticular rocks over. Kenneth A. Stammerman FSO, retired Louisville, Ky. F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 3 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 9 L E T T E R S