MER Article The Kahan Report: Mossad and the Massacres The final report of the Kahan Commission shows the extent to which the Lebanese Phalangists and Major Sa’ad Haddad’s “Free Lebanon” forces are little more than hired hands in the eyes of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and the intelligence agency, Mossad. The Israeli government decides and the Phal Konrad Ege • 4 min read
MER Article The Kahan Report: The Commission and the Evidence I will begin at the end; I am not satisfied by the report of the commission of inquiry.... I have great respect for the three members of the commission. They did an excellent job. The conclusions were reached according to their conscience and understanding. They added honor to Israeli democracy and Uri Avnery • 16 min read
MER Article The Kahan Report: Banishing the Palestinian Ordeal If politics is the art of the possible, then the impact of the Kahan Commission Report has to be understood as “beyond politics,” Israel’s final victory in the Lebanon war is not the expulsion of the PLO or even the extension of its sovereign reach to challenge Lebanese territorial and political ind Richard Falk • 14 min read
MER Article The Lebanon War and the Occupied Territories Until the war in Lebanon, official Israeli policy toward the Palestinians under its occupation rested on the premise that the PLO was the only obstacle on the road to what Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir called “the fullest advancement of the process that began in Camp David.” [1] The elimination of Khalil Nakhleh • 10 min read
MER Article Saudi Arabia and the War in Lebanon People here responded to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in a typically quiet fashion. In my day-to-day business contacts with Saudis, the subject of the war rarely came up unless I raised it. One Saudi friend commented, “We don’t yell and shout, but when we’re among ourselves we talk about it and w A Special Correspondent • 3 min read
MER Article Relief Efforts in the South Richard Butler is director of the Middle East office for the National Council of Churches. Jim Paul interviewed him in New York in August 1982. When were you in Lebanon? James Paul • 5 min read
MER Article The Prisoners of Israel The Israeli Defense Forces have taken some 9,000 to 10,000 Palestinians and Lebanese prisoner in south Lebanon. Because the Israelis have not released lists of names or figures, the exact number of prisoners currently held cannot be determined. The IDF itself has released its estimate of 7,000 to 9, Judith Tucker • 8 min read
MER Article US and Israeli Weapons in Lebanon I visited Muhammad Sannoun, fourteen and a half years old, at his home in Burj al-Barajna to ask him why he had touched the triangle-shaped cluster bomb that had blown off his right arm. “It looked like some kind of aluminum cup painted red on the top, yellow on the bottom, with a black casing on th June Disney • 7 min read
MER Article The War of Numbers How many people have been killed and wounded in the course of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon? Precise numbers have been hard to assemble because of unsettled conditions, lack of free access to all areas, the incomplete recovery of bodies buried under the rubble, censorship and the tendency on the p Judith Tucker • 9 min read
MER Article Fakhani, 1981 Her shoes were blown off, torn from her feet. That’s all. And the other half of the room, the entire building, simply gone. She was thrown by the force of the blast against her desk, her shoes taken from her in the explosion along with those standing across from her, her friends. An incision was pre Hilton Obenzinger • 8 min read
MER Article Israel's Invasion and the Disarmament Movement On June 12, 1982, over half a million people demonstrated in New York, calling for a halt to the nuclear arms race. The demonstration was unusual in its size, and even more so in the favorable media coverage it received. About the same time, a few thousand people in scattered cities throughout the c Noam Chomsky • 22 min read
MER Article South Lebanon: Behind the News I was working for an American network and I was on the coastal front during the first week. The battle of ‘Ayn al-Hilwa was still going and the Israelis were “mopping up” the resistance forces still there. Then we moved near Khalda, which became the new front. By the last day, I was already in east A Special Correspondent • 10 min read
