Israël aurait trompé les Etats-Unis en faisant obstacle à leurs efforts pour empêcher les massacres de Sabra et Chatila, affirme un chercheur américain qui a pu consulter des documents déclassifiés.
On September 15, then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin told U.S. envoy Morris Draper that the reason the IDF had entered West Beirut was to keep the peace there. “Otherwise, there could be pogroms,” Begin said. But upon hearing that Defense Minister Ariel Sharon was considering allowing the Phalange militia into West Beirut, even Chief of General Staff Rafael Eitan acknowledged that he feared “a relentless slaughter,” according to Anziska.
Another Israeli official who feared a massacre was Deputy Prime Minister David Levy. On September 16, during a cabinet meeting at which the ministers learned that the Phalange had been allowed into the camps, he said, “I know what the meaning of revenge is for them, what kind of slaughter. Then no one will believe we went in to create order there, and we will bear the blame,” according to the documents Anziska found.
But Sharon told the Americans that the conquest of West Beirut was justified because there were “2,000 to 3,000 terrorists who remained there.”
At a meeting on September 17 that included Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir, Sharon, several Israeli intelligence officials and Draper, Shamir did not mention the slaughter that had occurred in the camps the previous day, according to Anziska.
A transcript of the meeting reveals that the Americans were browbeaten by Sharon’s false insistence that “terrorists” needed “mopping up,” Anziska writes.
