John Hughes, spokesman for the US State Department, called the Israeli bombings"understandable wrath" and condemned "the tragic bombing by terrorists of the Israeli army building in Tyre."
At least one Israeli journalist took issue with his government's discourse at the time. On November 13, Michael Elkins wrote in the Jerusalem Post that "by the criteria we ourselves have demanded ["] what happened in Tyre may not be dismissed as terrorism, but was instead a guerrilla action." Such a distinction was important because "by calling the action in Tyre 'terrorist,' we are demonstrating yet again our stubborn and increasingly pervasive refusal to see any slightest core of legitimacy in the Palestinian and Arab side of the conflict between us."
In practice, Israel's definition of "terrorism" was much broader than Netanyahu's. It was also much narrower, since Israeli officials never applied the term to violence against civilians coming from their allies.
Around 6 pm on September 16, 1982, the Phalangists, a Christian militia, entered the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla. A day and a half later, they had massacred hundreds of men, women and children.
If "terrorism" is "the deliberate, systematic murder, maiming and menacing of the innocent to inspire fear in order to gain political ends," then surely these men were "terrorists."
On February 9, 1983, the Kahan Commission of Inquiry issued its report, famously concluding that Defense Minister Ariel Sharon bore "personal responsibility" for what happened in the camps.
The word "terrorist" appears 45 times. At first, it is preceded by the qualifier "Palestinian." Then, in the expression "the terrorists," it is repeated over and over again.
Commission members appear to have worked from two clear, and related, assumptions. First: "terrorist" is the obvious, appropriate terminology to refer to anyone related to the PLO, Israel's enemy in Lebanon. Second, and just as obviously: the word cannot refer to Israel's allies, even when they massacre hundreds of Palestinian civilians.
In fact, Israeli officials and the Commission itself saw the Phalangists as valued allies in the fight against "the terrorists."
Thus, Brigadier General Yaron explained that, upon learning that the Israeli forces had sent the Phalangists into the camps, he was "pleased because it was clear to him that this camp contained many terrorists."
The Commission agreed. Israel had wanted to "take advantage of the Phalangists' professional service and their skills in identifying terrorists and in discovering arms caches." They were, after all, "more expert than the I.D.F. in uncovering and identifying terrorists."
This remained the Commission's analysis even though the report cites a Phalangist who, asked about the killing of civilians, had explained: "The pregnant women will give birth to terrorists and children will grow up to be terrorists."
At the Washington conference, Netanyahu did not refer to the Christian militias allied with Israel as "terrorists." And yet, he illustrated his claim that the decision to harm civilians was "where the terrorist parts company with humanity" as follows: "A baby is fair game; he may, after all, grow up a soldier. So is the baby's mother; she gave birth to this future soldier."
The discourse on "terrorism" draws its rhetorical power from its claim to stand for a clear, principled opposition to all political violence against innocent, civilian life.
In the real world however, Israel's discursive practices have repeatedly, in fact systematically, contradicted this claim. They have never reflected the definition of "terrorism" put forward by Netanyahu some 30 years ago.
The Israeli discourse, far from being driven by "moral clarity," has been fundamentally ideological. It has been the discourse of de-legitimization, and of de-humanization.
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