Democratic Palestine : 19 (ص 33)
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- Democratic Palestine : 19 (ص 33)
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matter is not only a geographical one. Sabra and Shatila were
more accessible to the butchers, nothing more. The hunted
people are more than the inhabitants of Sabra and Shatila.
They are all the Arabs, and all those who believe in liberating
all occupied Arab land and Jerusalem.
TESTIMONIES OF THE LIVING
Before beginning, it is important to note a basic point which
is that this research does not give final answers. It is totally
impossible, in a research like this, to arrive at final numbers or
even claim to narrate the story exactly. We convey what we
hear, but each one who has lived through this experience will
relate the tragedy as seen through his eyes. No matter how
much we hear, there remains much to be heard. The awaited
book on this subject will not be written today, but tomorrow.
Its author will be a young boy whom fate saved from death.
We are waiting for this boy to grow up and write.
From November 1982 until the end of 1983, I recorded tes-
timonies from the relatives of victims and from the inhabitants
of Sabra and Shatila. Recalling the memories of that difficult
year and the stories of scores of witnesses, I cannot forget any
of them, no matter how many they are. None of them was a
scientist or a leader. They were simple people who had wit-
nessed a tragedy that many wish to forget. They were the heros
in an unheroic age. They exposed themselves to persecution if
they spoke, yet they spoke.
How can I forget the fear in the children’s eyes? And the
torture in the mothers’ eyes? How can I forget their small,
connected houses where nothing covers the tile floor in
December, and ruins overlook you everywhere - from the
window and from the roof. There is no money for restoration
and no decision for restoration. The walls that had been splat-
tered with the blood of the martyrs, are now covered with pic-
tures - pictures of the martyrs.
In Shatila, you walk from house to house in narrow streets
that are often narrower than the hallways of modern buildings.
The walls are bent and curved; they often seem decrepit. So
you ask: How do these houses and walls portect the people
from massacres? How can they protect them from cold and
rain? How can they guard their whispers and secrets, or their
pride? They told me that they sleep in the shelters nightly. In
the shelters? Why? At that time, there was no shooting or war.
Why to sleep in the shelters now? And they remain quiet. There
is nO answer to my question. Their silence was an overly polite
answer to my ignorance. When they spoke at last, they con-
fessed that the shelters will not protect them from a new mas-
sacre, but they feel more safe there, even if only a little. If they
sleep in their houses, memories like ghosts will keep them
awake. If they sleep with the crowd in the shelters, the vivid-
ness of the memories haunting them fades, and for a short
while at least they can sleep.
In the many, continuous meetings, the testimonies are
similar. They affirm, coincide and contradict what was
reported. If I was asked about the importance of those mee-
tings, I would unhesitantly answer that the living testimonies
are the primary and fundamental documents. The press, for its
part, spread news, interviews and pictures that were extremely
important in raising international awareness about what hap-
pened. This was followed by a series of tribunals, in Cyprus,
Oslo, Athens, Tokyo and Bonn, from 1982 to 1985.
THE KAHAN REPORT
My conviction in the testimonies alone as a mode of
research, was shaken after reading the Israeli report on the
massacre, the notorious Kahan report issued in February 1983.
The international media gets the credit for being the first to
bring the massacre to the conscience of humanity everywhere.
These same newspapers began to stress Kahan’s report, pre-
senting it as an indication of the existence of ‘democracy’ in
‘Israel’. The newspapers also began to stress the contents of the
Kahan report, while the truth is that its contents are totally
contradictory to what the newspapers originally published
about the massacre. We will present one example:
The report states that the number of child victims was only
20, and what newspaper that had released pictures of the mas-
sacre had not shown this number many times multiplied? Des-
pite that, the report was presented by prominent newspapers as
proof of Israeli ‘democracy’; that was the excuse of the for-
eigner in defending the Kahan report. Foreigners who
defended the report supported this by saying: «it was a good
report. I didn’t read it, but I read about it.» The question of
numbers did not mean much to me in the interviews with the
witnesses, and often I recalled Toynbee’s statement: «The large
number adds to the graveness of the tragedy and torture, but it
is impossible for a human to be more than 100% criminal.»
That means it is enough to kill once to be a murderer. In 1961,
in a public debate, Toynbee replied to Hertzog, the Israeli
ambassador to Canada, who was antagonized by Toynbee’s
comparison of what happened to European Jews with the
massacre of Palestinians in Deir Yassin. According to Hertzog,
the victims of Deir Yassin were a few hundred and thus did not
merit comparison with the millions of Jews who fell victim to
Nazism. Following Toynbee’s line of thinking, I had not been
seeking the depth of the tragedy in numbers, but today it seems
that we are living in the era of Kahan, not Toynbee. It became
necessary to search for the numbers and investigate all the
details.
FIELD RESEARCH
The field research was carried out in March and April 1984,
i.e., after the ghost of the May 17th agreement had vanished. It
had not been possible to do any field research in the camps in
the shadow of this agreement (between Lebanon and ‘Israel’).
It is impossible to give a complete picture or even a concise one
of the field research in this presentation. It is also impossible to
cover all the distortions in Kahan’s report. From the fallacious
figures presented there, we will choose only four: the number
of victims, the number of females, the number of children, and
the number of Palestinians as opposed to Lebanese. Our dis-
cussion of these numbers is part of the reply to the claim that
what occurred was a murder, not a massacre. To facilitate the
process of replying, it is necessary to indicate some of the
points relevant to the field research.
1. This research is an individual effort and no more than
that. The primary credit goes to the Palestinian and Lebanese
youth of the area, who volunteered, enthusiastically and res-
ponsibly, to distribute the forms and have them filled out,
beginning in their own homes and families, and moving to the
neighbors’ homes, from the nearest to the farthest. I need not
mention that the trust among them was the basis for this effort.
2. The goal of the field 1esearch was very clear to everyone.
What was needed was to record the event in the most detailed
manner. Nobody had preconceived convictions. However, all
agreed that in our struggle with the Zionist enemy, we do not
need exaggerations or underestimates. Everyone’s motivation
was loyalty towards every martyr and kidnapped, Arab or >
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