Posted 25th June 2001

J'Accuse Sharon

On Sunday 17 June, 2001, the BBC's award-winning investigative news programme, Panorama, broadcast a documentary titled "The Accused" that looked at the role of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Israel's then-Phalangist allies in the 1982 massacres of Palestinian and Lebanese men, women, and children at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps on the outskirts of Beirut. According to Richard Falk, a professor of International Law at Princeton University interviewed for the documentary, "Sharon's specific command responsibility arises from the fact that he was Minister of Defence in touch with the field commanders, that he actually was present there in Beirut, that he met with the Phalange leadership and it was he that gave the directions and orders that resulted in the Phalange entering the camps in September."

At one point the Panorama reporter, Fergal Keane, asked Morris Draper, US Special Envoy to the Middle East in 1982, "When Ariel Sharon says, and other senior Israeli officers, that they couldn't possibly have predicted what might have happened..." to which Draper responded, "Complete and utter nonsense." Judge Richard Goldstone, former Chief Prosecutor at the UN War Crime Tribunals in 1994-1996, commented in the documentary that, "if the person who gave the command knows, or should know, [based] on the facts available to him or her, that [there] is a situation where innocent civilians are going to be injured or killed, then that person is as responsible -- in fact in my book more responsible -- even than the people who carry out the order." Later in the documentary, US Special Envoy Draper recounted the message he sent to Sharon during the massacre: "You must stop the acts of slaughter, they are horrifying. I have a representative in the camp counting the bodies. You should be ashamed. The situation is absolutely appalling.

They're killing children! You have the field completely under your control and are therefore responsible for that area." When asked by the Panorama reporter if Draper had "no doubt since then or at that time that Ariel Sharon was responsible?", Draper replied, "No doubt whatsoever. Well of course more Israelis have to share in that responsibility, but absolutely." The documentary concluded that there was sufficient grounds to indict Ariel Sharon for war crimes. The full transcript of "The Accused" can be read and the programme can be viewed online via Real Video at http://www.bbc.co.uk/panorama/ The programme will be retransmitted on the BBC World satellite channel on 23 June at 0710 GMT & 2010 GMT, and on 24 June at 1510 GMT & 1810 GMT. On Monday 18 June, 2001, a historic event took place. The dossiers of 28 Palestinian and Lebanese survivors from the Sabra and Shatila massacres were deposited before an investigative judge in Brussels. The case has officially been opened against Ariel Sharon and any other Israeli or Lebanese persons responsible for "war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide".

Since these two momentous events took place, the wire services, as well as the British and Israeli media, have all reported this dramatic story widely, as one would expect, but, the US media has written just 225 words about this up to 21 June 2001. J'Accuse Sharon, like many criminal investigations, will undoubtedly turn up a host of co-conspirators, including other Presidents and prime Ministers?..