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Sabra and Shatila: Uncovered at last?
Tom Segev (Ha'aretz)
GAMLA Note: The following article is not the only "earthquake" about to blow concerning the Kahan Commission and Arik Sharon. This article is written by Tom Segev, a well-know left wing writer who has a long history of hating Sharon (and Bibi, of course). The details are sketchy, but sufficient. On the other hand, "Ma'ariv" on it's Internet site, claims that the famous "secret section" of the Kahan Committee (which because it was kept secret was always viewed as trying to "hide" something terrible about Arik Sharon) not only isn't terrible, but actually vindicates Mr. Sharon - probably why Mr. Sharon himself has been fighting all these years to have this section published. Gamla will be following closely these and other events.
Attorney Yosef Dar from Netanya was once among the most ardent admirers of Aharon Barak, the president of the Supreme Court. But no longer. Dar is not inclined to say whether he is among the admirers of Ariel Sharon, the Likud leader who is running for prime minister, because the book he is publishing this week is not supposed to be construed as an attempt to help Sharon, but as a legal opinion. But Sharon will be pleased just the same. Dar, 47, who worked for the Shin Bet security service for a few years, maintains that the Kahan Commission, which investigated the massacre perpetrated at Sabra and Shatila during the Lebanon war, did Sharon a serious injustice. A reminder: In September 1982, Christian Phalange units entered the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in Beirut under the auspices of the IDF and murdered about 800 people in revenge for the assassination of Lebanon's president-elect, Bashir Jemayel. The Kahan Commission of Inquiry, headed by the president of the Supreme Court at the time, Justice Yitzhak Kahan, which was appointed to investigate the atrocity, effectively brought about the removal of Ariel Sharon from his post as defense minister. The villain in Dar's book is not Sharon, however, but the current president of the Supreme Court, Aharon Barak, who was one of the three members of the commission. Yitzhak Zamir, who was then the attorney general and is now a justice of the Supreme Court, is also to blame, Dar contends, as he should at least have prevented the entry of the Phalangists into the Palestinian camps. Dar says that when he started writing the book he had no way of knowing that it would appear just before the elections for prime minister. The impression is that he is less interested in defending Sharon than he is at lambasting Aharon Barak; there is something obsessive about the book. Zamir seems to come in for criticism largely because he is a friend of Aharon Barak. Be that as it may, the attack is unusually ferocious. Dar writes: "Justice Aharon Barak's participation in the Kahan Commission involved a conflict of interest and grave partiality. As a result of the bias shown by Justice Barak, the commission's work was totally disrupted and the individuals who were harmed by it suffered a perversion of justice and serious wrong. As a consequence of Justice Barak's conflict of interest and partiality, and of course in the wake of the obstruction, perversion of justice and wrongdoing, the commission's report, conclusions and recommendations are totally and completely invalid." Dar calls his work "Phalange Justice," and published the book himself. The gist of his argument is as follows: Barak, formerly the attorney general, was involved in diplomatic activity and was very close to the prime minister, Menachem Begin. Dar quotes from the press a letter that Barak sent to the justice minister, Shmuel Tamir, stating that he had "formed ties of friendship" with Begin. Barak's close relations with the prime minister, Dar contends, should have led him to disqualify himself from being a member of a commission that was called upon, as one of its tasks, to examine Begin's share of the responsibility for the massacre. Barak was only a member of the commission, but its chairman, Yitzhak Kahan, was not young and not well, while the third member, Yona Efrat, was a military man with no legal education. Barak, therefore, was the dominant figure in the panel. According to Dar, his close friendship with Begin led the commission to reduce Begin's share of responsibility for the Phalangists' entry into the refugee camps - despite a warning from David Levy, the deputy prime minister. Begin claimed he had not heard Levy because he was busy perusing various documents while Levy was speaking in a cabinet meeting. However, Barak's primary guilt, Dar says, is that he absolved the attorney general, Yitzhak Zamir, of blame, and even excused him from being interrogated by the commission. This week, at the request of Ha'aretz, the cabinet secretariat checked its records and found that Zamir was in fact present at the meeting that discussed the entry of the Phalangists into the refugee camps. Dar writes: "When the attorney general was apprised of the decision to let the Phalangists into the camps, and immediately afterward heard the chief of staff talk about knives being sharpened and the warning of minister Levy about the danger of a massacre, his 'judicial ear' should have been the first to absorb the meaning of what he heard. As they say in these parts: 'That is why they pay him.'" In this connection, Dar notes the remarks of the chief of staff, Rafael Eitan, who said at the cabinet meeting, "We can give the Phalangists orders, but not the Lebanese army." He writes, "When the attorney general heard that 'we can give the Phalangists orders,' he should have - because of that fact alone - apprised the commanders of the IDF and the ministers that responsibility for the acts of the Phalangists 'reverts' to them, to the ministers and the commanders. If the IDF commanders and the cabinet ministers had been cautioned by the attorney general on this point of principle, we may assume that they would have taken fright at the decision - just so - and been diligent in maintaining more effective command and control over the Phalangists. ... But the attorney general was silent." The commission of inquiry did not deal with the attorney general's share of responsibility for what happened. Dar maintains that in its report, the panel even tried to conceal the fact that he was present at the meeting; it noted among those present "a number of people" who were not members of the cabinet, including the chief of staff, the head of the Mossad espionage agency and the director of Military Intelligence. Zamir's presence was not mentioned. Dar writes, "The commission was well aware that if it were to 'touch' the attorney general in any way, it would have been compelled not only to impose responsibility on him, along with the others, but also to provide an excuse for not imposing on him ... the entire responsibility." The reason things turned out as they did, Dar says, is that Barak and Zamir are close friends: "Can one even conceive of the possibility that Justice Barak would sit in judgment on Prof. Zamir and decide his fate?! ... In the light of the relations described above, is it possible that Justice Barak would see Prof. Zamir as being in a state of danger and not 'throw him a life jacket'?! ... The 'smuggling out' of the attorney general in the case under consideration is particularly grave. Because the person who smuggled out the attorney general not only smuggled out, together with him, the responsibility that devolves on him; he also, as we saw, 'foisted' it on others." Yitzhak Zamir was given Dar's book to read this week and decided not to respond; Aharon Barak also decided not to issue a reaction. The court spokeswoman explained why: Barak and Zamir believe that at the present juncture, any reaction will be given a political interpretation.
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