BBC broadcast a documentary film last night on Ariel Sharon and the Sabra and Shatila massacres. The program shows the atrocities of the September 1982 slaughters in which Lebanese Christian Phalangists killed some 900 Palestinian villagers. It presents the view that then-Defense Minister Sharon, responsible for the invading IDF army, is at least indirectly responsible for the massacre and should stand trial as an international war criminal. All those interviewed on the film agreed with this stance, except for several Israeli spokesmen who weakly defended him; they later said that they did not know that the issue was whether or not Sharon should be tried as a war criminal.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry\'s response to the film: \"Israel views with great severity the distorted, unfair, and tendentious manner in which the Panorama program was presented. The timing, 19 years after the events, testify to a lack of good faith and an attempt to smear, at any cost, Israel\'s name and that of its Prime Minister… BBC has placed itself as a television court while blatantly ignoring the findings of serious tribunals in the U.S. and Israel.\" Attorney-General Elyakim Rubenstein expressed concern that Israel could fall victim to a new trend to internationalize war crimes. \"This is why I objected [several months ago] to Israel\'s joining the International Tribunal,\" he said.
The Kahan Commission, which investigated the massacres in 1983, found that no Israeli had either instigated or conspired to cause the massacres: \"We have no doubt that no conspiracy or plot was entered into between anyone from the Israeli political echelon or from the military echelon in the IDF and the Phalangists with the aim of perpetrating atrocities in the camps ... No intention existed on the part of anyone who acted on behalf of Israel to harm the non-combatant population… The direct responsibility for the perpetration of the acts of slaughter rests on the Phalangist forces.\" The Commission did find that Sharon carried an \"indirect responsibility\" for the killings because he was not sufficiently aware of what should have been expected from the Christian Phalangists and did not take actions to prevent them. But a jury in New York found a Time Magazine article \"false and defamatory\" in writing that Sharon had planned a Christian \"revenge\" in advance.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry\'s response to the film: \"Israel views with great severity the distorted, unfair, and tendentious manner in which the Panorama program was presented. The timing, 19 years after the events, testify to a lack of good faith and an attempt to smear, at any cost, Israel\'s name and that of its Prime Minister… BBC has placed itself as a television court while blatantly ignoring the findings of serious tribunals in the U.S. and Israel.\" Attorney-General Elyakim Rubenstein expressed concern that Israel could fall victim to a new trend to internationalize war crimes. \"This is why I objected [several months ago] to Israel\'s joining the International Tribunal,\" he said.
The Kahan Commission, which investigated the massacres in 1983, found that no Israeli had either instigated or conspired to cause the massacres: \"We have no doubt that no conspiracy or plot was entered into between anyone from the Israeli political echelon or from the military echelon in the IDF and the Phalangists with the aim of perpetrating atrocities in the camps ... No intention existed on the part of anyone who acted on behalf of Israel to harm the non-combatant population… The direct responsibility for the perpetration of the acts of slaughter rests on the Phalangist forces.\" The Commission did find that Sharon carried an \"indirect responsibility\" for the killings because he was not sufficiently aware of what should have been expected from the Christian Phalangists and did not take actions to prevent them. But a jury in New York found a Time Magazine article \"false and defamatory\" in writing that Sharon had planned a Christian \"revenge\" in advance.