person:morris draper

Sabra et Chatila : Nouvelles révélations
Seth Anziska – 17 septembre 2018 | Source : The New York Review of Books | Traduction : J. Ch. pour l’Agence Média Palestine

▻http://www.agencemediapalestine.fr/blog/2018/10/02/sabra-et-chatila-nouvelles-revelations

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Les historiens essaient de ne pas laisser entendre leurs hoquets dans les salles de lecture des archives officielles, mais il arrive que des traces écrites conservent leur capacité à choquer. En 2012, alors que je travaillais aux archives d’État d’Israël à Jérusalem, je suis tombé sur des documents hautement classifiés sur la Guerre d’Israël au Liban en 1982 qui venaient juste d’être autorisés aux chercheurs. Cet accès était conforme à la règle des trente ans de déclassification qui gouverne l’ouverture des documents en Israël. Assis entouré des dossiers du ministère des Affaires Etrangères, je suis tombé sur les minutes d’une réunion du 17 septembre entre les responsables israéliens et américains qui se tenait en plein milieu du massacre de Sabra et Chatila.

Le surprenant échange mot pour mot entre le ministre de la Défense Ariel Sharon et le diplomate américain Morris Draper a clairement démontré à quel point le massacre des civils dans les camps de réfugiés de Beyrouth Sud a été suivi de l’assentiment de Draper face à la déclaration mensongère de Sharon comme quoi il y restait des « terroristes ». Cela a rendu les Etats Unis involontairement complices des trois jours de triste renommée du massacre perpétré par les miliciens liés à la Phalange, parti politique de droite des Chrétiens Maronites Libanais qui était l’allié d’Israël. (...)

Sabra and Shatila: New Revelations
Seth Anziska , The New York Review of Books, le 17 septembre 2018
▻https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/09/17/sabra-and-shatila-new-revelations

Historians try not to audibly gasp in the reading rooms of official archives, but there are times when the written record retains a capacity to shock. In 2012, while working at the Israel State Archives in Jerusalem, I came across highly classified material from Israel’s 1982 War in Lebanon that had just been opened to researchers. This access was in line with the thirty-year rule of declassification governing the release of documents in Israel. Sifting through Foreign Ministry files, I stumbled upon the minutes of a September 17 meeting between Israeli and American officials that took place in the midst of the Sabra and Shatila massacre.

The startling verbatim exchange between Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon and US diplomat Morris Draper clearly demonstrated how the slaughter of civilians in the Palestinian refugee camps of south Beirut was prolonged by Draper’s acquiescence in the face of Sharon’s deceptive claim of “terrorists” remaining behind. This made the US unwittingly complicit in the notorious three-day massacre carried out by militiamen linked to the Phalange, a right-wing political party of Lebanese Maronite Christians that was allied with Israel.

Some critics have always suspected, and hoped to uncover evidence, that Israeli officials explicitly ordered the massacre or directly colluded in its execution. These new documents don’t supply that smoking gun. What they do show is a pattern of extensive cooperation and planning between Israeli and Maronite leaders in the aims and conduct of the war that provides a more comprehensive framework for judging moral accountability. These sources suggest a line of thinking about the political and military defeat of Palestinian nationalism that built on the legacy of the Nakba itself, reaching tragic ends through the destruction wrought in Beirut.

The excerpts from the Kahan Appendix do, however, underscore the fact that members of the Israeli military and intelligence organizations knew in advance what the Phalange was intending to do to the Palestinians—at a minimum, forced expulsion through threatened or actual deadly violence, and the subsequent razing of the refugee camps. According to the testimony of Colonel Elkana Harnof, a senior Israeli military intelligence officer, the Phalange revealed that “Sabra would become a zoo and Shatilah Beirut’s parking place.” Harnof added details about acts of brutality and massacres that had already taken place, inflicted by Maronite forces with “specific references to acts of elimination of locals ‘most likely Palestinians.’” This was relayed to Defense Minister Sharon as early as June 23, little more than two weeks after the start of the Israeli invasion (II: 78). On that day, a report was passed to Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir and Defense Minister Sharon that described the Christian militia’s “terminating” 500 people in the evacuation of West Beirut. The Mossad Director Nahum Admoni and others met with Bashir Gemayel and the description of the meeting contains harrowing evidence of what was planned for the Palestinians throughout Lebanon.

▻https://www.scribd.com/document/388796835/Kahan-Commission-Appendix-English#from_embed

▻http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4887715-Kahan-Commission-Appendix-Complete-English.html

#Palestine #Liban #Sabra #Chatila

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.

’Israel misled U.S. diplomats during Sabra and Shatila massacre’ - Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper
►http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-misled-u-s-diplomats-during-sabra-and-shatila-massacre-1.465925

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.

Le « massacre évitable » de Sabra et Chatila (Le Monde)
►http://www.lemonde.fr/proche-orient/article/2012/09/17/le-massacre-evitable-de-sabra-et-chatila_1761171_3218.html

L’échange se passe à Jérusalem il y a trente ans jour pour jour. Morris Draper, ambassadeur itinérant du président Ronald Reagan au Proche-Orient, rappelle à ses interlocuteurs israéliens la « position fondamentale » des Etats-Unis : « Nous n’avons pas pensé que vous deviez entrer. Vous auriez dû rester en dehors. » Réponse d’Ariel Sharon, ministre israélien de la défense : « Que vous l’ayez pensé ou pas... Quand l’existence et la sécurité sont en jeu, tout est de notre responsabilité, on ne laissera jamais personne d’autre décider pour nous. » (...) Source : Le Monde