Bashir Gemayel, Ariel Sharon & the Sabra and Shatila Massacre

In June 1982, the Israeli army invaded South Lebanon after Israel’s northern towns had been bombarded for years from the Lebanese territory. The Israeli government’s original plan was to occupy a 40 km security zone in Lebanon in order to "cleanse" the missile range used by the Palestinians against Israel’s northern towns. The Israeli Minister of Defense at the time, Ariel Sharon, developed a fantastical and ultra-imaginative plan: to occupy Lebanon as far as Beirut, including Beirut, and to appoint his Christian ally, Bashir Gemayel, to the post of President of Lebanon. The goal was to eradicate the threat to the State of Israel from the north and to expand the front against Syria. Sharon and senior military leaders were actually the only ones who knew about the plan. While the Israeli government approved a 40 km range operation only, the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) thrust full speed ahead all the way to Beirut.

In August 1982, the IDF was still waiting on the outskirts of Beirut for the command to penetrate the city. Meanwhile, a treaty was signed which would allow all Palestinian combat fighters to be evacuated from Beirut on ships to Tunisia. In return, the IDF would remove the threat of penetrating the city. That same week, Bashir Gemayel, senior commander of the "Phalangists" Christian militia, was elected President of Lebanon. Gemayel was considered extraordinarily charismatic, a fashionable young man, handsome and infinitely admired by all Christian militia soldiers and their families, as well as the Israeli leadership.

While giving a speech at the Phalangist headquarters in East Beirut, Bashir Gemayel was killed by a massive explosive charge. To this day it is unknown who was responsible for the murder. That afternoon, Israeli troops penetrated a region in West Beirut that was mostly populated in those days by Palestinian refugees, and they surrounded the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. Towards evening, large Phalangist forces made their way to the area, driven by a profound sense of revenge after the killing of their revered Bashir Gemayel. At nightfall, Phalangist forces entered the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps aided by the IDF’s illumination rounds. The declared objective of the Christian forces was to purge the camps of Palestinian combat fighters. However, there were virtually no Palestinian combat fighters left in the refugee camps since they had been evacuated on ships to Tunisia two weeks earlier. For two whole days the sound of gunfire and battles could be heard from the camps but it was only on the third day, September 16th, when panic-stricken women swarmed the Israeli troops outside the camps, that the picture became clear: For three days the Christian forces massacred all refugee camp occupants. Men, women, the elderly and children, were all killed with horrific cruelty. To this day the exact number of victims is unknown but they are estimated at 3000.

News of the massacre shocked the entire world and a spontaneous protest of hundreds of thousands of Israelis forced the Israeli government to create an official inquiry committee to investigate the liability of Israeli political and military authorities. Minister of Defense Ariel Sharon was found guilty by the committee for not having done enough to stop the horror once he became aware of the massacre. He was dismissed of his duties and prohibited from serving as Minister of Defense for another term. This did not stop him from being appointed Prime Minister of Israel twenty years later.