Tuesday, October 26, 1999
Former Major General Amos Yaron, whose army career was damaged by the Kahan Commission report on the Sabra and Shatilla massacres in Beirut in 1982, when Yaron commanded Israeli occupying forces in the Lebanese capital, failed to mention the affair in the handwritten application he was required to submit as part of the formalities for his appointment as director-general of the defense ministry.
Named by Prime Minister Barak for the job, Yaron is nonetheless expected to win cabinet approval for the position.
(c) copyright 1999 Ha'aretz. All Rights Reserved
I tried! I personally sued Yaron on behalf of next of kin of the victims of the massacre. the USG had given a pledge of protection for the camps to Arafat to get the PLO to pull out of Lebanon. Arafat feared for the lives of his People from the Phalange, who had already talked about exterminating them. The US Embassy knew about the massacre but did nothing to stop it. They allegedly did not want to compromise their intelligence source who had tipped them off. The Israeli army under Yaron's command surrounded the camps, then let the Phalange in to do the extermination. While this was going on, Yaron was on top of a building overlooking the camps, with Elie Hobeika of the Phalange by his side. Hobeika had a walkie-talkie to communicate with his troops in the camps while doing the killing. Yaron knew exactly what was happening. The Kahan Commission Report found that he bore command responsibility for the massacre. He still should be punished for it under the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Even Israel's own Kahan Commission Report found that he bore command responsibility for the massacre. They did not point out that at the Commander he also bore personal criminal responsibility under the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 for the massacre of "protected persons," and should have been prosecuted, which argument was the basis of our lawsuit. On the basis of this argument, we convinced the Canadian Government to reject his diplomatic credentials. The Pentagon did not want this bloodthirsty murderer either as Israel's military attache. Someone should point that out to Barak: That Yaron's appointment will create problems in dealing with the US Pentagon. fab.
The massacre took place over a 2 day period. surrounded by Israeli forces, the Phalange went into the camps to do the dirty work. Yaron was on top of a building overlooking the camps with Elie Hobeika by his side. Hobeika had a walkie-talkie communicating with the Phalange while they exterminated 2000 Palestinian women, children and old men. Arafat had pulled guerillas out of the camps on the promise by the US government that we would protect the camps from the Phalange. The US Embassy knew what was going on, but refused to do anything about it, allegedly so as not to compromise their intelligence source who had tipped them off. fab.
See Volume 5, Palestine Yearbook of International Law (1989). fab