Fateful Triangle

Aftermath630alleged massacres” (IDF spokesman). The expression of anger by theU.S. over the killings in the camps was denounced in Jerusalem as“hypocrisy.” Subsequently a variety of excuses were attempted (thePhalangists entered through an area not under Israeli control, etc.), butthese were soon dropped as it became evident that there were simplytoo many credible eyewitnesses. Worldwide outrage was extensive. TheGeneral Assembly of the United Nations voted 147 to 2 with noabstentions to condemn the massacre, the United States and Israelalone in opposition as usual. 88 But in the United States too there wasoutraged condemnation, to which we return, as there was in Israel aswell, most notably, in the huge protest demonstration with a reported400,000 in attendance, which was quickly exploited in the U.S. toincrease American support for Israel’s new settlements in the occupiedterritories and its military actions in Lebanon, as already discussed.The charge of hypocrisy levelled by spokesmen for the government ofIsrael has considerable merit, once again. There had been no such angerover the murderous bombardments of the camps from June 4, whichcaused far more casualties than Israel’s replay of the Kishinev massacreon a far larger scale, or over the war itself. What is more, earliermassacres in the aftermath of Israeli aggression, as in Gaza in 1956,evoked no outrage, though in that case it was IDF soldiers themselveswho did the killing (see chapter 4, section 3). Hence it is unclear, atfirst, why the Beirut massacres should have evoked such expressions ofhorror. In scale, the massacre falls into the category of other recentexamples that have not exactly seared the conscience of the West, forexample, the Kassinga massacre in Namibia in 1978, when over 600people were killed by bombing by French-built Mirage jets and byparatroopers transported in U.S.-built Hercules troop carriers. 89 Or theRio Sumpul massacre in El Salvador in May 1980 which signalled theonset of the mass murder of peasants that constituted one of the finalClassics in Politics: The Fateful TriangleNoam Chomsky