"By allowing the argument to proceed on Mr. Sharon’s terms, Mr. Draper
effectively gave Israel cover to let the Phalange fighters remain in the
camps. Fuller details of the massacre began to emerge on Sept. 18, when
a young American diplomat, Ryan C. Crocker, visited the gruesome scene and reported back to Washington.
Years later, Mr. Draper called the massacre “obscene.” And in an oral
history recorded a few years before his death in 2005, he remembered
telling Mr. Sharon: “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.”
On Sept. 18, Reagan pronounced his “outrage and revulsion over the
murders.” He said the United States had opposed Israel’s invasion of
Beirut, both because “we believed it wrong in principle and for fear
that it would provoke further fighting.” Secretary of State George P.
Shultz later admitted that “we are partially responsible” because “we
took the Israelis and the Lebanese at their word.” He summoned
Ambassador Arens. “When you take military control over a city, you’re
responsible for what happens,” he told him. “Now we have a massacre.”
But the belated expression of shock and dismay belies the Americans’
failed diplomatic effort during the massacre. The transcript of Mr.
Draper’s meeting with the Israelis demonstrates how the United States
was unwittingly complicit in the tragedy of Sabra and Shatila.
Ambassador Lewis, now retired, told me that the massacre would have been
hard to prevent “unless Reagan had picked up the phone and called Begin
and read him the riot act even more clearly than he already did in
August — that might have stopped it temporarily.” But “Sharon would have
found some other way” for the militiamen to take action, Mr. Lewis
added.
Nicholas A. Veliotes, then the assistant secretary of state for Near
Eastern affairs, agreed. “Vintage Sharon,” he said, after I read the
transcript to him. “It is his way or the highway.”"
