Fateful Triangle

Aftermath711Beirut during the past decade, driven from their homes by the Israelibombings from the early 1970s, the Phalange policy of clearingMuslims out of areas under their control during the civil war, the 1978invasion, the subsequent heavy bombings and finally the “Peace forGalilee” operation. A Shiite ghetto, populated by poor refugees from thesouth, was bulldozed, and the squatters who lived there were deniedpermission to reconstruct. Hundreds of people were rounded up,including Lebanese Muslims. Most of those rounded up were probablyPalestinians, whose number may have reached several thousand withinthe following months. David Ottaway reported that “The government hasalready made clear that it wants the vast majority of the estimated500,000 Palestinians in Lebanon to leave as soon as possible.” Hereports that a French officer of the international peace-keeping force saw60-100 Palestinian men taken from one part of the Sabra camp. TheEconomist reported that “fear and uncertainty in the camps today areeven greater than they were when the Israelis briefly occupied westBeirut.” *There was at first a pretense that after the Muslims of West Beirutwere disarmed, the Lebanese army would turn to East Beirut and disarmthe militia there. That never happened. The Lebanese army did takeover East Beirut in February 1983, though the Phalange militia kepttheir arms and a pier in Beirut harbor that they used for imports without*See also Robert Fisk, London Times, Feb. 9, 1983, reporting the viciousbeating of a Druze woman by Phalangists in Beirut, who justify the act(meanwhile, explaining that “we are not violent people”), also explaining that“we need the Israelis and we dare not lose their help. We are too few here inLebanon. We have just been driven out of Aley by the Druze. The Israelis letthat happen to teach us that we cannot do without them... We are patriots andwe are not brutal but we are all alone.”Classics in Politics: The Fateful TriangleNoam Chomsky