“Sabra And Shatila Were Breeding Grounds”
This
is a phone interview conducted with a former Lebanese Maronite Christian
Phalange militiaman that took place on Wednesday, December 5th,
2001. The man, who will remain anonymous, was born in Lebanon in 1961, trained
by the Phalange in the early Seventies and emigrated to the United States
shortly after the beginning of the Civil War. Though he was not in Lebanon at
the time of the massacre at Sabra and Shatila, due to his background as a
Phalange fighter, the opinions he presents reflect the popular sentiments of
the militants, and also serves as a valuable source of insight into matters
surrounding the massacre and the nature of the regional conflicts. The
interview is transcribed with minimal editing exactly as it occurred:
Yes.
I was political, I had a political ID, I had a fighter ID and I had a student
ID as a phalange… militia phalange.
You
see, young in the American eyes, but there, if you are at the age of ten,
eleven, twelve, they’ll take you and train you. Because those are the kids that
do most damage in guerilla warfare. The little kids that don’t know any better.
Oh,
definitely, yes. Before then, let me tell you, before then I didn’t even know
what Palestinian do…
Before
the war, before the training. Whenever they would have a new tactic lined up
they would take us for like three months, train us on different things…
different bullshit, different tactics, different weapons and stuff…
Right before the Civil War broke out.
Right,
that’s when the civil war broke. But keep in mind, before the civil war, there
were preparations for it. The people were starting to arm themselves. People
would come and say, if you’re a Christian, they would come and say “you know
what? We don’t feel comfortable in this country, you should arm yourself, you
should get yourself empowered in the phalange party because you want to protect
your kids and stuff… so five years ahead, the Christians were preparing for
this. And the Moslems were preparing for this. But if it had been Christian
against [Lebanese Muslim], Christian would have won. But since the Palestinians
sided with the muslims, they were the majority. Because the Palestinians are
more experienced… they’ve been through the mills as far as wars and militia
fights and stuff… So the Christians started seeking help. From anybody who
would give them help. And help came from where? From Israel. Israel was very
happy to help us, with anything we want. As a matter of fact, the first
shipment of weapons that was given to us, I’ll never forget it, the shipment
that was military equipment were confiscated from the Egyptian army, back in
’69/’70, and that was given to us. To the phalange. All the old Egyptian
equipment of war was given to us. From RPGs… you shoot tanks with… it’s a small
missile you shoot tanks with… AK-47 which is called Kalashnikov, all of it was
from the Egyptian army that was confiscated… and given to the Phalangists. And
that’s how we started originally…. Then from there, we used Israeli VAL, it’s a
type of machine gun that looks like an M16 but has bigger bullets, made in
Israel. But the Israeli, when they gave it to us, this is very very tricky: On
that weapon, when that weapon was actually being built, the star of david was
engraved on the side of the gun. When that gun was shipped to us, they actually
took down the star of david. They chiseled it down. The Israelis, before they
gave us the weapon, they grinded down their star of david. So the world
wouldn’t notice. Because they didn’t want [it to be proven] that the Israelis
were helping the Christians against the Palestinians and the muslims.
And then, a couple of years later, they openly do it.
But
they were doing it all along. The Christians were used in Lebanon from day one
of the war. We were used 100% by the Israelis to kill the Palestinians. At any
cost.
But
the Phalange was also using the Israelis in order to keep the Muslims at bay.
Exactly.
But the Phalange, they were stupid. Why they were stupid because… I mean,
ultimately… the Israelis pulled out of Lebanon. They pulled out last year
completely. And all these people, the Lebanese people were fighting with
the Israelis for 23 years… they left
them just like that in the dark, “we’re leaving”, what are we going to do here?
They said “you’re on your own…. We can no longer pay you.” They were on a
payroll. Keep in mind, the Phalange were also on the Israeli payroll. Are you
aware of that?
So when the Christians went into the refugee camps, they were actually being paid for it by Israel?
Yes
sir… the Israelis would always pay the Phalange for anything they did, any job
against the Palestinians… they were rewarded, money-wise to weapons, anything.
Well,
it was at my time $270 a month. It wasn’t bad… but you know, you gotta kill
yourself for it…
I had some questions about Sabra and Shatila.
Sabra and Shatila, yes… at that time I was in the U.S. but I was very active back then, it was… the Palestinian conflict with the Phalange… and I was a phalange… ex-phalange. I was trained by the Phalange back in 1974, ’75, ’76, and I fought with them against the Palestinians mainly around those camps. You know,… and to me when I heard that Sabra and Shatila was… massacred [...], to be honest with you, it was a joyful moment, you know?
When
you found out that Phalangists went into the camps, it was a joyous occasion?
Yes.
When
you heard the news, how many people were reported dead?
Well
the actual count, they say, 800, here the news media, but I know from
experience that they’re not going to let the reporters see all the dead people.
Most likely, if they say 800, you can double that. Or you can say probably
twelve, thirteen-hundred or probably sixteen-hundred.
Who’s
not letting the reporters see the actual number?
The
people, the Israeli did not permit any news media in until the Phalange covered
their mess. But still there were a lot of things…. You know, they were able to
hide a lot of stuff but stuff they did not hide… you know, they counted, they
say 800 but reality is it’s most likely to be 12 hundred and fifty.
So, if the true number was indeed covered up, I assume nobody actually wanted that number inflated? Nobody was proud of what they did?
No,
it wasn’t proud, it wasn’t something people would talk about, because it turned
out that women and children… when we first got the news from Lebanon, it was
“Sabra and Shatila”… and Sabra and Shatila, those are extremely dangerous
camps. Keep in mind, I mean, you’re not talking about your average camp… you’re
talking about camps with tunnels and camps with artillery bases with guns, and
you know… cannon-bases… and barracks and all, but at that time, keep in mind,
when the Israeli went into Lebanon, they kinda cleaned the Palestinians out of
all those areas, all the fighters, they were actually in one area of Beirut.
The actual fighters, they were not in the camps. What was left in the camps was
actually the children, and the old men and old women… and that’s really who was
actually left in the camp. And if you remember, back then, right there two
weeks afterwards, the US and the Palestinians and the Arab league met together
and decided to move the Palestinian bases and all their fighters out of Lebanon
and send them to Tunis. And that was agreed.
Yes,
but not the actual movement of the army. […] Originally, this is what happened:
When the ships came in to move all the Palestinians, I remember exactly, they
did not move until the 16th of the following month. And there was a
lot of them to move… I mean, the massacre happened when no fighters were in the
camps. Nobody to fight, so the Phalange had… now keep in mind why the massacre
happened. The massacre happened in retaliation to the killing of the president…
Bashir Gemayel. Well, in reality, take a guess who killed Bashir Gemayel. The
Isrealis! That’s reality.
How
do you know that?
We
know that because they caught the guy who killed Bashir Gemayel. They said they
caught him… and the reason Bashir Gemayel was killed… and this is news, it’s
facts! When Israeli went into Lebanon, they went into Lebanon with the
understanding that Bashir Gemayel, he said… he said before he became president
that we’ll deal with the devils as long as I can protect my country and my
people and the Christians of Lebanon. So he started dealing with the Israelis.
[…] to clear Lebanon of the Palestinians. So he agreed. “We like that”, and at
the beginning when he became president he was talking shit about the Syrians
and that they have to get out of here. Now, the second he became president, he
changed his political view completely, he went 360. And he said, well, we
believe we have a place for everybody here in Lebanon, Lebanon should be a
peaceful country, we should not resort to fight, we should not…. All of a
sudden he started disagreeing with the Israeli on a lot of issues. Many, many
issues. Boom! They got rid of him. Where Bashir Gemayel was at the time, there
was no way Syria, or the Palestinians, or anyone could have gotten him. No way
on Earth. The only people who would have gotten there were the Israelis.
No,
he was in the Phalange Parliament and he was holding the last minutes, he was
holding the meeting to transfer power… because he was chairman of the phalange.
If he was president, he couldn’t be chairman of the phalange, and president of
Lebanon so he had to change leadership. He had to leave the phalange to become
president. So at the time, he had Samir Shaja, he’s the second one in command…
wanted to transfer power from Bashir to Samir Shaja. Samir Shaja at the end
played a big role. He’s the one who divided the phalange into two sectors and
the division of the Christian forces in Lebanon, so the power changed hands
from Bashir to Samir and in that meeting right there they blew up the
phalangist parliament. While the meeting was held. Around 16 people died.
Bashir Gemayel took the most of… they knew where he was going to sit… cuz he’s
the chairman, so the bomb was almost right behind… right behind the wall he had
his back to. The reality is, the Israeli killed Bashir Gemayel because he
disagreed with them on how he was going to deal with the Palestinians, deal
with the Syrians… they agreed on something and when they started going in, they
started changing their mind, and to back this up, his brother Amin Gemayel,
that took the presidency after him, had an interview on LBC news in which he
confirmed the whole thing. My brother, you know… the Palestinians didn’t kill
him… as a matter of fact, we had a good repoire with the Palestinians. The
Isrealis killed his brother.
But the Phalange went into Sabra and Shatila to take revenge anyway… They apparently didn’t know about this?
No,
at that time, when Bashir was killed, right away the Phalangists thought that
Palestinians killed their president. But then, after weeks or months, they
thought about it and said “If the Palestinians did this job… it should have
been a suicidal person… the guy should have been killed”. Suicidal people go in
and blow themselves [up]. Well, guess what? The guy that implanted the bomb, he
was able to leave the area, and go about his business! They caught the guy at
the end. So therefore, it was planned, and somebody was protecting the guy. The
thing is, the guy was being protected by the Israelis. Then the phalange
thought about it and they said you know what? Little by little, the Israelis
went into Lebanon… they were supposed to support us with firepower and you
know, here’s bashir, he’s gone, … exactly that’s what they did in southern
Lebanon with the south Lebanon army, where they protected Israel for 27 years,
and suddenly Israel pulls out of Lebanon, and leaves these people to be
butchered by the Shi’ites. And even as we speak, the Shi’ites, two weeks ago,
they planted a bomb, with the commander-in-chief of the SLC forces, the
Christian forces in southern Lebanon. Those are the people who took over Israel
when Israel pulled out of southern Lebanon.
So, going back to our subject as far as
Sabra and Shatila… I have first-hand… because I was trained by, I was trained
by Israeli trainers, and the main thing is, you know we had… our enemy was,
everybody knows, the Palestinians. We have to clean the country out of the
Palestinians. (The Palestinians are now allowed there), but what happened after
a while, you know, when we heard the news that our president, Bashir, died and
stuff…. It was great thing, man! You know? They’re the enemy and we killed… to…
for phalange to be able to go into two camps, Sabra and Shatila!… That was the
impossible mission! That was an extremely, extremely tough thing to do! But
here’s the scenario: The Isreali surrounded the two bases, the two camps, and
there was nobody, no firepower coming out of the base… out of the camps. So the
phalange went in there… and did what they did!
Where
were the fighters?
The
Isrealis gathered all the Palestinian fighters and pushed them into western
side of Beirut. By Beirut port. And they were waiting for ships to move them to
the settlement… now keep in mind, not for the peace treaty, but to solve the
Palestinian fighters’ problem. There were 16,000 of them. They pushed them all
and surrounded them to the Lebanese port, all the Palestinian fighers… they
cleaned Beirut. They cleaned Beirut of all Palestinian fighters, and made sure
that all fighters would be in one area. So Sabra and Shatila were left with no
protection whatsoever from the Palestinians. Sabra and Shatila were like
anybody would have gone there, and anybody could have done anything because
nobody was helping… I mean, nobody was there to stand in their way. So here’s
the two camps, you know, what happened to the president kinda boiled the
Christian blood, and with the help of the Israeli, the Christians went in and
slaughtered all these kids… children, men and women… and on the Beirut LBC,
when they showed the people, the dead… I don’t know, the BBC, I think the
English channel showed the most… the atrocities that the Christians did… But
also, don’t forget, the muslims, they retaliated against the Christians that
lived in the mountains, and they killed close to 2000 christians.
Israel made sure that every single
Palestinian with a gun is in one area, held in one area, no way Palestinian
fighters could have been in Sabra and Shatila… because they agreed on moving
out of Lebanon. And they were way in on boats… to clean Beirut, to clean south
Lebanon out of the Palestinian fighters. Why? Because Israel wants to create a
safety zone for northern Israel. So in fact, and the reality is, at that time,
what the Israeli army did, they cleaned Beirut and all of southern Lebanon of
all the Palestinians, for them to wait in one area for all the ships to come in
and for them to be transported to Sudan. Meanwhile, Bashir Gemayel died, ok,
and Phalange were free to go into Sabra and Shatila… and kill these people.
But the Israelis knew that this massacre was taking place, and was going to take place, right?
Yeah,
and if you were Palestinian and running out, they would never have let you,
they would have sent you back in… to get killed…… I mean, these are facts,
these are true stories.
So, the Palestinian fighters, at the time, what were they thinking was happening to them… I mean, they left their families behind.
Well,
you know… as a fighter, as somebody who fought… I mean, you never think about
[killing] children… and they figured if the camp… they were not going to go in
there and kill, you know, old women, old men and children. I mean, that’s a
rule of war. You don’t go and do these things… You just don’t. No matter how
ugly the situation gets. That was serious, serious… that was a big blow to
Christian support, worldwide… for the Christians to go in there and kill all
these children, to kill all these old men and women, that was… really really,
big blow to the Christian world support.
Yeah,
I approved of it because… at that time, I didn’t know any better. Because, I
thought, you know, fighters were there. You know… Palestinians shooting at the
phalangists, and all… but it turned out to be no, the camps were cleaned…
nobody was firing at the Phalange. They went in there, from one house to
another, and keep in mind, houses in those camps are really, they’re not
houses… They’re a little bit bigger than a tent, and the roof of those houses
are made out of metal… I mean, a bullet can go through five different houses
all at once. If you shoot through these houses… they were… like really shabby
homes. So at that time, I did not know there was no fighting, but when
everything… you know, the truth started to appear, everybody was ashamed of
what happened. Everybody was ashamed of what happened. Something like that, and
I don’t know if you heard, Sharon, when he, when he visited a couple of days
ago, the U.S., last week, when he had to leave to Israel, he wasn’t able to land
in one country because they’re going to arrest him as a war criminal. Because
the Palestinians, actually, there is a lawsuit against him, for… if you ask me,
in my heart of hearts, and if you ask me if there were war crimes committed
there… I would say in a heartbeat yes, and if you asked me who started the war
crimes, and that kind of a killing, I would tell you the Phalange. The
Christians did… against the poor children.
Well,
the Phalange did it with the protection of Sharon.
Israeli…
the least Palestinian that they can have in south Lebanon, the more… the
happier they are.
Yeah!
Women and children can produce babies! Children can become adults… women can
make babies. And that, ultimately, will cause problems for Israel, north
Israel. And let me tell you something… average Palestinian men can produce up
to 16 children. Are you aware of that? And they reproduce for the simplest
thing ever. “We want to outnumber the enemy… So what if five of my kids die”…
that’s how the Palestinian thinking. “So what if five of them… if one of them
died, I still have ten more…. If two of them died, I still have nine more.” So,
when you hear of suicide [bombings] of the Palestinians in Israel, it’s
actually, these guys were actually, it’s sad to say, they were actually
conceived for the purpose, to die for the cause of the country. It’s reality.
Well,
you see, the Palestinians are at a point where, they need a piece of land. And
they need their homeland, which is Israel, which is where Israel was occupying
at the time… the Israeli, the way they were thinking, the less number of
Palestinian we can have, the less land we have to give them. So they send them
to Sudan with the hope they’ll be far far away from their land, and they’re not
gonna come back and fight. But guess what? It did not help. The Palestinians
are resorting at the present time, and it’s a fact, to outnumber the Israelis… by
like a hundred to one, as far as production of children. It’s not uncommon for
a Palestinian to have 11 kids on average, I’m talking about the average family
in Palestine, on average to have 11 kids per family. And if you ask Palestinian
why he’s doing that, he’ll tell you “because that will help us get our country
back.”
Sharon
knew that. Sharon knew for a fact… and also the incentive for Palestinians to
have more kids. If you live in a camp, ok, you will get relief, you will get more
money if you get more kids, if you have more kids, you get more money. You
know, from the U.N., and all… So, Sharon, at any cost, he wanted the
Palestinian kids, families, old men, old women, he wanted everyone out of
southern Lebanon and Beirut. Because ultimately they’re gonna come back and
haunt him. And he believed in his heart that the best way to go about it is to
get rid of them all. Get rid of them and that’s the only way Israel can live in
peace. And it is really really… what Sabra and Shatila… keep in mind, now I’m
talking a little bit, you know, I feel bad about what happened in Sabra and
Shatila, but let’s not forget: Sabra and Shatila was breeding grounds… for all
the trouble in Europe, all the attacks, the bombs, really bad atrocities… was
committed by the Palestinians. Toward the Israelis. And if a criminal wants to
hide in Lebanon, he will go to Sabra and Shatila… and hide. And when Sabra and
Shatila folded and the Israeli took over, when the Phalange took over, after
that there was a camp called Ein el-Hilweh, you’re going to hear about it in the next month or
so, because the Americans will bomb Ein el-Hilweh camp. Ein el-Hilweh at the present time,
considered by the Americans, as harboring all of Bin Laden’s trained Al Qaeda
group… in Lebanon and Syria, they are in that camp at the present time. And a
month ago, when the Americans sent a list of names, the Lebanese government
went to see where these criminals are… the Lebanese military went into Ein
el-Hilweh and they
were actually stopped by the Palestinians, due to… they didn’t want to let them
go into the camp, because they don’t want to give Al-Qaeda members to the
Lebanese military… because they knew, the Lebanese military will give them back
to America. So at the present time… you know, back then, the camps, always,
from day one, Palestinian camps exist side by side with violence. It doesn’t
matter whether or not, you know, children were killed… I hate to say about it,
they brought it onto themselves, but actually, reality is, camps are actually,
in reality, a harbor for criminals… a lotta bad stuff coming out of camps.
Not
at the present time. None… the way they’re going about it… I mean, you know,
somebody, you know… who has no value for life, get bombs and go into a bus full
of civilians and blow himself up, you think that’s… I mean, how low can
somebody get? You wanna fight, go to the… combat area, and fight! You know?
Don’t go killing people going to a bar, I mean, you’re a college student,
right? What do you do on Friday, Saturday… you go to a club, have a drink with
your [friends] and stuff… have a good time, right? Ok, all of a sudden these
people are unsafe because they don’t know when a bastard with a bomb is going
to kill everybody, and keep in mind, when they say 20 people killed… that means
200. Are you aware of that? The people, the injured, and the injuries… the type
of bomb these people use to blow themselves up, the nails and all, they paint
those nails with poisonous material where when somebody is injured, he or she
can not heal that quickly. And in most cases they will die from the poison that
those nails and shrapnel… when they hit somebody, that person will die
eventually. So this is a pure hate. This is a pure, pure, pure…. It’s not war,
it’s not a legitimate war. These are terrorists.
The massacre in Sabra and Shatila was also not legitimate war.
I
agree with you. I agree with you a hundred percent. But also, we have to go
back to the Geneva convention where… you know, number one, if you believe… if
you’re jewish, and you believe in the jewish religion, and if you read their
bible… their torah or whatever you call it, if you are pure jewish orthodox,
you do not believe in taking hostages… you do not believe in taking prisoners
of war. What do you do? You go into an area, you go into a combat zone and when
you win, you take their children and you take their wives and you make them
slaves, and you don’t let them reproduce. This is the jewish religion, this is
reality… in their… in their bible. You know? You do not let anybody live. And
we witnessed that back in 1973, when the Egyptian army went into the Sinai
desert and were able to really really gain a lot of land and the Israelis
surrounded 16,000 egyptian soldiers. Out of the 16,000 egyptian soldiers, 800
came out alive…. They killed everybody. If you’re real jewish and you want to
follow your religion to the letter, you do not take prisoners of war. And I can
show it to you in black and white… I have their bible here.
But these were Christians who did this.
Sure,
but the Christians did it with the help of the Israelis. The Israelis wanted
the Christians to go in and kill these people. It was help for the Israeli to
do so. It’s not like, oh my god, you know, the Israeli aren’t going to cry over
what happened… and if anything, they gave them a lot of support. They gave them
24 hours to do this. They forbid reporters to go in to see what’s going on in
those camps. The Israelis. So we can not say the Christians did it. Both [the
Israelis and the Phalange] are equally responsible for what happened.