THE CRIME OF GENOCIDE

At the time of the massacre of Sabra and Shatila, the Security Council adopted Resolution 521 (September 1982) which, in relevant part,

“Condemns the criminal massacre of Palestinian civilians in Beirut”

On 16 December 1982, the United Nations General Assembly adopted, with an overwhelming majority,^[16] the following resolution (37/123D):

“The General Assembly,

Recalling its resolution 95 (I) of 11 December 1946,

Recalling also its resolution 96 (I) of 11 December 1946, in which it, inter alia, affirmed that genocide is a crime under international law which the civilised world condemns, and for the commission of which principals and accomplices - whether private individuals, public officials or statesmen, and whether the crime is committed on religious, racial, political or any other grounds - are punishable,

Referring to the provisions of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted by the General Assembly on 9 December 1948,

Recalling the relevant provisions of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949,

Appalled at the large-scale massacre of Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps situated at Beirut,

Recognising the universal outrage and condemnation of that massacre,

Recalling its resolution ES-7/9 of 24 September 1982,

1. Condemns in the strongest terms the large-scale massacre of Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps;

2. Resolves that the massacre was an act of genocide.”

This conclusion merits consideration. In effect, article 2 of the 9 December 1948 Convention on genocide, approved by the law of 26 June 1951,^[17] provides the following definition:

“...The crime of genocide consists of one of the following acts, committed with the intention of destroying, either in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group : 1) The killing of members of the group; 2) A serious attack on the mental or physical integrity of members of the group...”^[18]

The facts clearly demonstrate that the attack against the refugees at Sabra and Shatila rested upon a profound hatred of Palestinians because of their national origin.

The intention to harm them was clearly fuelled by the fact that they were Palestinians. The American journalist Thomas Friedman, who was one of the first witnesses on the scene after the massacre, elucidates this phenomenon in his book:

Afterward, the Israeli soldiers would claim they did not know what was happening in the camps. They did not hear the screams and shouts of people being massacred. They did not see the wanton murder of innocents through their telescopic binoculars. Had they seen, they would have stopped it immediately. All of this is true. The Israeli soldiers did not see innocent civilians being massacred and they did not hear the screams of innocent children going to their graves. What they saw was a “terrorist infestation” being “mopped up” and “terrorist nurses” scurrying about and “terrorist teenagers” trying to defend them, and what they heard were “terrorist women” screaming. In the Israeli psyche you don’t come to the rescue of “terrorists.” There is no such thing as “terrorists” being massacred. Many Israelis had so dehumanised the Palestinians in their own minds and had so intimately equated the words “Palestinian,” “PLO,” and “terrorists” on their radio and television for so long, actually referring to “terrorist tanks” and “terrorist hospitals,” that they simply lost track of the distinction between Palestinian fighters and Palestinian civilians, combatants and non-combatants. The Kahan commission, the Israeli government inquiry board that later investigated the events in Sabra and Shatila, uncovered repeated instances within the first hours of the massacre in which Israeli officials overheard Phalangists referring to the killing of Palestinian civilians. Some Israeli officers even conveyed this information to their superiors, but they did not respond. The most egregious case was when, two hours after the operation began on Thursday evening, the commander of the Israeli troops around Sabra and Shatila, Brigadier General Amos Yaron, was informed by an intelligence officer that a Phalangist militiaman within the camp had radioed the Phalangist officer responsible for liaison with Israeli troops and told him that he was holding forty-five Palestinians. He asked for orders on what to do with them. The liaison officer’s reply was, “Do the will of God.” Even upon hearing such a report, Yaron did not halt the operation. ^[19]

This collective “demonisation” of Palestinians described by Mr Friedman is also evidenced in Ariel Sharon’s autobiography ‘Warrior’: The objective of the attack on Sabra and Shatila was “to clean the PLO cadres out of West Beirut."^[20] In another passage from the same book, Mr Sharon explains the purpose of Israel's invasion of Lebanon in the following terms:

“Any effective approach (...) would have to look not just at specific local targets but at the entire PLO military and political infrastructure in Lebanon. And this, whether we liked it or not, would force us to take into account the entire Lebanese tangle.”

It also squares with the infamous comments of the Israeli prime minister at the time, who called Palestinians “two-legged animals,” and with those of Rafael Eitan, who, according to the Kahan commission, shared responsibility for the massacre, and who once compared Palestinians to “drugged cockroaches.”

Furthermore, it is clear from the testimony of the plaintiffs and other survivors of the massacre that, in addition to the Israeli commanders, those who actually carried out the massacre exhibited a similar hatred for Palestinians as a national group. Although it is true that a large number of Lebanese were also killed, the ethnic nature of the killings is clear from many plaintiffs' accounts of formal or intended distinctions being made between Lebanese and Palestinians. As plaintiff Adnan Ali Mekdad recounts:

“My mother saw the armed men, made them some tea and told them she was Lebanese. They told her that they were only after the Palestinians, and that, being Lebanese, she could stay in the area, no-one would bother her, she just had to keep her ID papers with her.”

The hatred of Palestinians as an ethnic group, on the part of the Israeli military command as much as on behalf of the Phalangist perpetrators, is clearly noted by several journalists including Thomas Friedman:

The Israelis had so demonised Sabra and Shatila as nests of Palestinian terrorism and nothing more that they didn’t even know that probably one quarter of the Sabra and Shatila neighbourhoods were inhabited by poor Lebanese Shi`ites who had come to Beirut from the countryside.... A picture in the As-Safir paper the day after the massacre was exposed captured the blind tribal rage of the Phalangists who tore through the camps. The picture, which occupied most of the top of the front page, consisted of a single hand. The fingers of this hand were locked around an identity card that could easily be read. The card belonged to Ilham Dakir Mikdaad, age thirty-two. She was a Shiite woman whose entire family, estimated to be forty individuals, was wiped out by the Phalangists. Her body was found lying on the main street in Shatila, with a row of bullets running across her breasts. It was clear what had happened: she must have been holding up her identity card to a Phalangist, trying to tell him she was a Lebanese Muslim, not a Palestinian, when he emptied his bullet clip into her chest.^[21]

These conclusions are supported by the notorious assertions taken up in the enquiries and reports of the day regarding the collective dimension of the massacre (women and children as well as men), and the particular vindictiveness against pregnant women (see for example the testimonies of Mohammed Ibrahim Faqih and of Shawqat Abu Roudeina) and babies. From these numerous reports and testimonies, several instances stand out: a baby being trampled to death,^[22] the assertions of Lieutenant Avi Grabowski (who was present during the massacres but was ignored by the superiors to whom he reported what he saw),^[23] and, especially, confirmation of the collaboration between the killers and the Israeli Ministry of Defence:

At one point,^[24] Sharon began to stress the need to destroy whatever was left of the PLO’s infrastructure in West Beirut and emphasised the danger of letting terrorists remain free in the city:

“I don’t want a single one of them left!”, he was quoted as saying in a session with Hobeika, a Phalangist militia head.

“How do you single them out?” Hobeika asked.

It was an odd question for a high-ranking officer in a militia known for its talent at ferreting out terrorists, and Sharon decided to evade it. “I’m off to Bikfaya now,” was his reply. “We’ll discuss that at a more restricted session. ”^[25]

To that note, which Israeli authors qualified as “sinister,” it must be added that, in the jurisprudence of the ICTY,^[26] the

“ specific intention of the crime of genocide does not have to be clearly expressed. (...) It can be inferred from a certain number of elements, such as the general doctrine of the political project (...) or the repetition of discriminatory destructive acts (or) the perpetration of acts undermining the foundation of the group.”^[27] In the Akayesu case, the tribunal concluded that “[t]his intention can be deduced from a certain number of elements, relevant to genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, by example of the massive and/or systematic character or of their atrocity (...)”^[28]

In conclusion, all the constituent elements of the crime of genocide, as defined in the 1948 Convention and as reproduced in article 6 of the ICC Statute and in article 1§1 of the law of 16 June 1993,^[29] are present.

[The Case Against The Accused]

Footnotes