Democratic Palestine : 26 (ص 37)
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- عنوان
- Democratic Palestine : 26 (ص 37)
- المحتوى
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The September Massacres
Jordan 1970 Tel Al Zatar 1976 Sabra-Shatila 1982
Since the rise of the Palestinian revolution in the late sixties, Palestinians outside their homeland have
been subjected to three all-out massacres in the month of September - in Jordan 1970, Tel al Zatar 1976
and Sabra-Shatila 1982. In all three cases, the shock troops were provided by reactionary Arab forces, the
Jordanian regime in 1970 and the Lebanese fascists in 1976 and 1982. In all three cases, the butchers were
acting in accordance with the imperialist-Zionist master plan for imposing reactionary stability in the
strategic Middle East.
What is the common quality binding
the Palestinian masses in Amman with
those in Tel Al Zatar and Sabra-
Shatila? Why were they targeted in
these inhuman attacks? Each of these
massacres was linked to a major thrust
to eradicate the Palestinian armed
revolution. In 1970, Jordanian troops
slaughtered over 10,000 Palestinians in
the effort to drive the fedayeen out of
Jordan. The Phalangists’ siege of Tel
Al Zatar, where 1,300 Palestinians were
killed in the fighting and over 4,000
massacred as the camp finally fell, was
the culmination of the 1975-76
Lebanese civil war. Via this war, the
US-Israeli-fascist alliance hoped to li-
quidate the Palestinian revolution. The
massacre in Sabra-Shatila was a bloody
‘mopping-up’ operation in the after-
math of three months of Israeli bomb-
ing and invasion, intended to wipe out
the PLO. Especially the case of Sabra-
Shatila, where as many as 4,000
Palestinian and poor Lebanese civilians
were massacred after the departure of
PLO fighters from Beirut, makes clear
the enemies’ intentions: Their goal was
not simply snatching away the Palesti-
nians’ klashnikovs, but rather to quell
the whole revolutionary process
associated with the fact of the masses’
carrying arms.
The rise of the Palestinian resistance,
first in Jordan, and later in Lebanon
and the alliance with the Lebanese Na-
tional Movement, generated a new at-
mosphere of mass mobilization and
democracy. It formed the objective
basis for the spread of progressive
secular ideas, so dangerous to the sec-
tarian Israeli and Arab forces. It
created a new human being armed with
a revolutionary spirit - a spark that
would spread throughout the Arab
world, threatening not only the Zionist
occupiers in Palestine, but reactionary
Arab forces who rely on repression,
violence and alliance with imperialism,
to keep the masses underfoot.
This revolutionary spirit among the
masses engaged in revolution was
beautifully captured in the poetic prose
of Jean Genet, the famous French
writer and defender of third world
liberation causes, who died in 1986.
Genet’s identification with the op-
pressed seems to have developed in-
stinctively from his own experience of
being oppressed. Growing up deprived
and separated from his parents, Genet
became involved in petty crimes for
which he spent long years of his life in
prison where he began to write. He was
finally freed as a result of a broad
campaign by French intellectuals who
recognized the genius contained in his
plays and novels.
In an interview printed in Le Monde
after his death, Genet related how dur-
ing the French mandate in Syria, he was
drafted out of a youth detention center
into the army and _sstationed in
Damascus. Reacting against being part
of the colonial army, and out of
boredom, he slipped away at night to
play cards with Syrian friends. They
played secretly in mosques as the col-
onial army had forbidden cardplaying
in the coffeehouses.
Later, on his own, Genet visited the
Middle East several times. One time
was to Jordan where he visited the
Palestinian fedayeen after the 1970
September massacres. Another visit
brought him to Beirut in September
1982, where he entered Shatila camp
right after the Israeli-orchestrated
massacre. Genet combined the impres-
sions of these two instances when
writing «Four Hours in Shatila» which
was printed in the Journal of Palesti-
nian Studies, Spring 1983. Below we
print excerpts of this to mark the
September massacres.
«Four Hours in Shatila»
No one, nothing, no_ narrative
technique, can put into words the six
months, and especially the first weeks,
which the fedayeen spent in the moun-
tains of Jerash and Ajloun in Jordan.
As for relating the events, establishing
the chronology, the successes and
failures of the PLO, that has been done
by others. The feeling in the air, the
color of the sky, of the earth, of the
trees, these can be told; but never the
faint intoxication, the lightness of
footsteps barely touching the earth, the
sparkle in the eyes, the openness of
relationships not only between the.
fedayeen but also between them and
their leaders. Under the trees,
everything, everyone was aquiver,
laughing, filled with wonder at this life,
so new for all, and in these vibrations
there was something strangely im-
movable, watchful, reserved, protected
like someone praying. Everything
belonged to everyone. Everyone was
alone in himself. And perhaps not. In
the end, smiling and haggard. The area
in Jordan where they had withdrawn
for political reasons extended from the
Syrian border to Salt, and was bounded
by the Jordan River and the road from
Jerash to Irbid. About 60 kilometers
long and 20 deep, this mountainous
area was covered with holm oaks, little
Jordanian villages and sparse crops.
Under the trees and the camouflaged
tents the fedayeen had set up combat
units and emplaced light and semiheavy
arms. The artillery in place, directed
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