Fateful Triangle

Aftermath628two were killed or wounded; see below.Turning to the number of casualties suffered by the 2000 terrorists,Defense Minister Sharon testified that based on “the figures of the ArmyIntelligence Branch,” between 700 and 800 people had been killed, 83almost 20 times the scale of the Kishinev massacre, 375 terrorists foreach Phalange fighter. This figure was accepted as the most probableestimate by the Kahan Commission, relying on Israeli intelligence andignoring Lebanese sources. The Lebanese government alleges that 762bodies were actually recovered and that 1,200 more were buriedprivately by relatives, so that the death toll would be about 2000.Perhaps these are the “2000 terrorists” of Israeli hasbara exercises. 84Thomas Friedman subsequently found that “it has now become clearthat at least a quarter, and possibly many more [of those killed], wereLebanese Shiite Moslems,” and that most of the Palestinians came fromIsrael’s Upper Galilee and Jaffa in 1948—which means that they werevery likely expelled by force. Nine Jewish women were also reportedkilled. 85 Citing Palestinian and independent medical sources, Friedmanadded that several hundred men rounded up during the massacres wereremoved to the Israeli prison camp in Ansar. There had, in fact, beenearlier indications that this was so.As the massacres came to an end, the IDF at once displayed theefficiency of which it is capable when it so desires, turning its attentionto those who had somehow survived the slaughter. Early Saturdaymorning, as the killing ended, Israeli troops outside the camps arereported to have used loudspeakers to order survivors to a nearbystadium where they “were separated into small groups and interrogated,witnesses said.” Most were released, “but some, called PLO suspects bythe Israelis, were detained.” A few days later, the State Department“indicated there was a new source of Administration concern overreports that, after the massacre of the Palestinians in the Beirut camps,Classics in Politics: The Fateful TriangleNoam Chomsky