More Mideast

To the Editors of The Crimson:

In their anxiety to resurrect their mythological version of recent history in the Middle East, the critics of my editorial "Questioning Israel's Morality" (3/6/83) have resorted to numerous of the hackneyed arguments of the Zionist propagandists. As I assume The Crimson will afford me only limited space, let me respond to just two of them:

1. The claim that the Phalangists bear "sole responsibility" for the Beirut massacres. Mr. Marks appears to have utterly missed the thrust of my argument when he quotes the inquiry report to support the above proposition. To reiterate the argument for his and others benefit: the factual findings of the commission of inquiry clearly substantiate that the Israelis provided extensive logistical support to the Phalangists. Reading the full record, one is left with the distinct impression that the Israeli military all but pulled the triggers, and swings the axes, which caused the deaths of over 1000 Palestinian and Lebunese civilians.

My argument is that Israel's responsibility consists in the fact that it is unleashed its rightwing surrogates on defenseless civilians under conditions which virtually guaranteed total abuse, and this was totally foresecuble by Israeli leaders.

As Mr. Marks seems generally unfamiliar with international law. I would add that the narrowly circumscribed notion of responsibility employed by the commission and apparently subscribed to by Mr. Mak is not only an insult to commonsense, but to international legal principles as well. He might be reminded that German financiers and industrialists, whose contributions to the Nazi war machine were far less direct than the Israelis' contributory role in the Beirut massacres, were indicted and tried in the Nuremberg Trials. Moreover, Article 3(e) of the U.N. Convention on Genocide regards complicity in genocide to be a punishable act; there is little question that Israel's acts rise to the level of such complicity.

2. The claim that Israel acted in the interest of "self-defense" in the invasion under Article 51 of the U.N. Charter. Again forgiving Mr. Marks' ignorance of international law, let me inform him that legally justifiable use of force according to the terms of Article 51 must be preceded by an "armed attack." No such "armed attack" from the Palestinian side had occurred since the July, 1981 ceasefire agreement which U.S. presidential envoy Philip Habib had succeeded in negotiating between the PLO and the Israeli government. On the other hand, the U.N. Forces in Lebanon and Western journalists had reported several Israeli attacks and numerous other attempted provocations by the Israel forces (such as massing troops and equipment along the borders).

The one occasion during the 10 months or so prior to the Israeli invasion on which Palestinian gunners had fired across the border had been preceded by an Israeli air attack on the Palestinian camps of Rashidiye which claimed some 15 lives. The Israeli attack was spurred, it was said, by the deaths of two Israeli officers, which occurred when the jeep in which they were traveling ran over a land mine--in South Lebanon. The Palestinian retaliatory shelling had been intentionally directed into agricultural fields in afterwork hours. The Palestinian deliberate decision not to inflict casualties, and their clear desire to uphold the spirit of the ceasefire, was not lost on the Hebrew press of Israel, which began to refer to this incident as the "diplomatic" shelling.

The course of the invasion itself belies the charge that the Palestinian forces had developed any serious challenge to Israel's security. That a lightly armed, badly outnumbered force could threaten an army equipped to the teeth with the latest in sophisticated American weaponry is a claim that only a fool--or someone with a vested interest in distorting reality--would make.

In fact, what led to Israel's invasion of Lebanon was not Israel's fear of attack, but rather its fear of peace. Since the July, 1981 ceasefire, the PLO had been demonstrating itself to be a reliable negotiating partner, one capable of disciplining the disparate elements which forms it sufficiently to scrupulously honor the ceasefire agreement in the face of Israeli provocations. The PLO was perfectly aware that it was doing so under the watchful eye of the U.S.--one of the few, but obviously crucial, nations in the international community which has persisted in failing to recognize the legitimacy of Palestinian national aspirations, and the role of the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. What would have been threatened by such recognition was not Israel's security, but rather the sanctity of America's illusions about Israel and the Palestinian--illusions which have been necessary to rationalize the U.S. government's funding and arming of the Israeli government in the historic project of maintaining and helping to expand an exclusivity Jewish state in Arab Palestine with all of the acts of genocide which that project has necessarily emailed. George Bishart   President, Harvard Arab Student Society