Before the massacre: the Lebanese civil war, the Phalangists and links with Israel
The report devotes considerable space to the analysis of the Lebanese civil war: Christians taking part are made up of various armed organizations, including those related to the Chamoun and Gemayel families. The head of the Gemayel family, Pierre, founded the Phalangist organization, and he passed the torch to his son Bashir consequently.
The Phalangists over time become the central element of the Christian forces, and in 1982 they recruited a body of 2,000 full-time soldiers, along with an on-call and part-time reserve arm, for a total of about 5,000 men. The commander was Fadi Frem and the head of the intelligence division Elie Hobeika.
The link between the Christian forces and the state of Israel, according to the findings in the report, was born shortly after the beginning of the civil war. The Christian forces were promised that, if necessary, Israel was ready to rush to their aid – something that in effect actually happened through Mossad.
The Palestinians in Lebanon
The presence of armed forces on Palestinian territory beginning to take root after several waves of migration to Lebanon starting in 1948. According to UNRWA data, in 1982 there were about 270,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, while the armed Christian forces counted nearly twice as many, a overestimate of the real numbers, says the Comission report.
The prevailing position of the Phalangist leaders was that a unified and independent Lebanese state would not be possible without a solution to the “problem” of Palestinian refugees, because their constantly increasing number threatened to undermine the demographic balance of the country.
Therefore eliminating them from their territory by the persuasion or other means of pressure, without hiding the hypothetical use of violence to cause the exodus, was proposed on a number of occasions.
After the massacre: the end of the Kahan Commission
On December 6, 1982, less than three months after the massacre of Sabra and Shatila, the United Nations General Assembly condemned what happened and called it an act of genocide.
Two months later, the Kahan Commission reported the findings of its investigation: Elie Hobeika and Fadi Frem were directly responsible for the camp massacres, but indirectly responsible for failing to predict what would happen were the then Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon and other high authorities of the state of Israel.
Neither Mossad nor the intelligence services warned the Israeli defense forces or the political powers that the Christian militia could carry out a massacre if their men were allowed to enter the camps.
Following the assassination of Bashir Gemayel September 14, 1982, Israel would be forced to enter West Beirut to avoid unrest. This was the premise, but the Commission pointed to vicarious liability due to the absence of intelligence service warnings to then Prime Minister Menahem Begin, Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan and the Minister of Defense Ariel Sharon.
The commissioners identified an omission by Begin who did not considered the role played by the Lebanese Phalangist — the Prime Minister should have foreseen the risk of a disaster, and by the same token Defense Minister Sharon should have ordered the expulsion of Lebanese Christian forces from the camps.
Also, Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir did not take the necessary steps to ensure the accuracy of information provided by the Ministry of Communications regarding the actions of the Lebanese forces.
The Chief of Staff Raphael Eitan emitted the occurrence of acts of vengeance and bloodshed by the Lebanese armed forces by not verifying the authenticity of reports on the Phalangists’ actions.
Finally, the head of Military Intelligence Yehoshua Saguy did not paid sufficient attention to the role that the Lebanese armed forces had on the Israeli army in West Beirut and failed to provide a warning about the risk of reprisals and bloodshed following the assassination of Gemayel.
The full Kahan Report can be found here
Translation by Kathryn Carlisle