War Crimes and Ethnic Cleansing

From BBC News :

"London's mayor has reignited his row with some Jewish leaders by accusing the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of being a war criminal.

Israeli ambassador to London Zvi Heifetz said by making these comments Ken Livingstone had "launched a virulent attack against Israel".

The mayor also said Israel was involved in "ethnic cleansing" of Palestinians"

If facts matter at all then what Livingstone has said should not be in the slightest bit controversial. He is not accusing Ariel Sharon of being a war criminal. He is stating the fact that Sharon is a war criminal. The Kahan commission in Israel found Sharon guilty of having shared responsibility for massacres of Palestinian refugees during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Hundreds of men, women and children were butchered in the Sabra and Shatilla camps by Lebanese militia, encouraged and incited by Israeli military officers of the highest rank. The commission also deemed Sharon, who was defence minister at the time, unfit to hold so high an office (he is of course now prime minister).

But that’s just what Sharon was held accountable for. It’s far from the whole story. The Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 was pushed for both by Sharon and by a nationalist Chief of the general staff, Refael Eytan. Sharon wanted to occupy the country, install a pro Israeli government, and destroy the PLO. In his book, The Fateful Triangle, Noam Chomsky describes the war Sharon’s troops waged on the Palestinians in Lebanon. The words speak for themselves. Read this and ask yourself if Livingstone’s criticism of Sharon should be in any way controversial.

“Economist Middle East correspondent G. H. Jansen describes Israel's tactics in the first days of the war as follows: to surround cities and towns "so swiftly that civilian inhabitants were trapped inside, and then to pound them from land, sea and air. After a couple of days of this there would be a timid probing attack: if there were resistance the pounding would resume."

“Tom Segev of Ha'aretz toured "Lebanon after the conquest" in mid-June. He saw "refugees wandering amidst swarms of flies, dressed in rags, their faces expressing terror and their eyes, bewilderment..., the women wailing and the children sobbing". Tyre was a "destroyed city"; in the market place there was not a store undamaged. Here and there people were walking, "as in a nightmare." "A terrible smell filled the air"- of decomposing bodies, he learned. Archbishop Georges Haddad told him that many had been killed, though he did not know the numbers, since many were still buried beneath the ruins and he was occupied with caring for the many orphans wandering in the streets, some so young that they did not even know their names.”

As Chomsky notes “The treatment of prisoners gives a certain insight into the nature of the conquering army and the political leadership that guides it”. The reports of the treatment many of the prisoners received should come with a health warning.

“A lengthy account of the experiences of one prisoner in Israel and in Ansar appears in the German periodical Der Spiegel. This man, a Lebanese Shia Muslim (the largest religious group in Lebanon), was taken prisoner on July 2, when his village was officially "liberated" by the IDF. At 4:30 AM the village was awakened by loudspeakers announcing that all inhabitants from ages 15 to 75 were to gather in the village center at 5 AM. IDF troops with tanks and armored personnel carriers surrounded the village while, to the amazement of the villagers, a network of collaborators within the village, clearly established in advance, appeared with IDF uniforms and weapons, prepared for their task, which was to select the victims. Each person received a notice, ''guilty'' or ''innocent''; this man was "guilty," with a written statement describing his "crime"- in Hebrew, so he never did find out what it was. The guilty were blindfolded and taken to a camp in southern Lebanon. There they were interrogated while being beaten with heavy clubs. Teachers, businessmen, students and journalists received special treatment: more severe beatings. The interrogation-beating sessions lasted from 10 minutes to half a day, depending on the whims of the liberators. Prisoners slept on the ground, without blankets in the cold nights. Many were ill. They were forced to pass before Lebanese informants, and if selected, were sent to Israel.

For no reason that he could discern, this man was one of those selected. Their first stop in Israel was Nahariya, where Israeli women entered their buses, screaming hysterically at the bound prisoners, hitting them and spitting at them while the guards stood by and laughed. They were then driven to an Israeli camp where they were greeted by soldiers who again beat them with clubs. They were given dinner-a piece of bread and a tomato. Then soldiers came with four large shepherd dogs on chains, who were set upon the prisoners, biting them, while those who tried to defend themselves were beaten by soldiers. "Particularly the young boys, aged 15 and 16, began to cry from fear," leading to further beatings.

"Each day brought with it new torture." Many were beaten with iron bars, on the genitals, on the hands, on the soles of the feet. One had four fingers broken. This man was hung by his feet "and they used me as a punching bag." When prisoners begged for water they were given urine, provided by the liberators. One day they were taken to the sports stadium of a nearby village where the inhabitants came to throw bottles and other objects at them. Prisoners were forced to run like cattle, beaten with clubs. Once they were made to sit for a solid week, most of the time with hands on their heads. The worst times were Friday night and Saturday, when the guards celebrated the Sabbath by getting drunk, selecting some prisoners for special punishment "to the accompaniment of laughter, full of hate."”

As for ethnic cleansing, the fact that this is can even be disputed is a serious concern in itself. Ilan Pappe, Professor of History at Haifa University, has long argued that an honest discussion on the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948 that resulted in the establishment of the state of Israel is an absolutely essential component of any just and meaningful peace process. There can be no lasting settlement without an acceptance of the reality of this crime.

“Because so many of the people who live in Israel lived through 1948, this is not a distant memory. It is not the genocide of the Native Americans in the United States. People know exactly what they did, and they know what others did. Yet they still succeed in erasing it totally from their own memory while struggling rigorously against anyone trying to present the other, unpleasant, story of 1948, in and outside Israel. If you look at Israeli textbooks, curricula, media, and political discourse you see how this chapter in Jewish history - the chapter of expulsion, colonization, massacres, rape, and the burning of villages - is totally absent. It is not there. It is replaced by a chapter of heroism, glorious campaigns and amazing stories of moral courage and superiority unheard of in any other histories of people's liberation in the 20th century. So whenever I speak of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948, we must remember that not just the very terms of "ethnic cleansing" and "expulsion" are totally alien to the community and society from which I come and from where I grew up; the very history of that chapter is either distorted in the recollection of people, or totally absent.”

Since the British government is its involved in the Israel/Palestine situation, holding the London conference this week, it is essential that this involvement be guided by a proper public debate. It should therefore be deeply troubling that the simplest facts relating to the history of the conflict cannot be stated without incurring the vitriol of the Israeli embassy. It places an even greater onus on us to seek the facts out for ourselves and to make them known.