PALESTINE Memories of 1948 - Photographs of Jerusalem | Page 77

of a group over which he had no control, as he
had done after the massacre at Deir Yasin.
22. During her research on Al Dawayima in
1984, journalist Yoella Har-Shefi met former
members of the 89th Battalion. These included
Uri Millstein, historian, who defends the offi-
cial history of Israel that claims there was no
massacre at Al Dawayima, and Haim Shabtai,
second-in-command of the company. The latter
was the subject of an investigation and eventually
admitted that he had twisted the facts in order
to justify the behaviour of his men at Al Daway-
ima: he had said that on going into the houses
in Al Dawayima the soldiers had found items
belonging to people in an Israeli settlement near
Hebron, which was in fact not true. See Journal of
Palestine Studies, vol. 14, n° 2, 1985, pp. 207–212.
23. See Catherine Rey-Schyrr (in charge of
historical research at the International Commit-
tee of the Red Cross, who is participating in the
preparation of the history of the ICRC from 1945
to 1955), “Le CICR et l’assistance aux réfugiés ar-
abes palestiniens” Revue Internationale de la Croix
Rouge, September 2001, vol. 83, n° 843.
24. See the article by Géraldine Chatelard
“Palestiniens de Jordanie”, in Jordanie, le royaume
frontière, Riccardo Bocco and Géraldine Chat-
elard, eds, Paris, Autrement, 2001.
25. See Blandine Destremau, “L’espace du
camp et la reproduction du provisoire: les
camps de réfugiés palestiniens de Wihdat
et de Jabal Hussein à Amman” in Riccardo
Bocco and Mohammad-Reza Djalili, eds,
Moyen-Orient, Migrations, Démocratisation,
Médiations, Graduate Institute Publications,
Geneva, 1994. Refugees can buy land but are
not allowed to have the title deeds to it.
26.  See Mohamad Kamel Doraï, Les réfugiés
palestiniens du Liban, ch. IV, CNRS éditions,
2006 and 2013. The paragraph titled ‘L’isole-
ment croissant de l’OLP au Liban et sur la scène
moyen-orientale’ explains the context: Yasser
Arafat was simultaneously facing three parties
that were hostile to the Palestinians: Israel, the
Phalangists and Syria. Menachem Begin’s gov-
ernment wanted its proposal for the autonomy
of the Palestinians in the occupied territories
to be accepted, but for that it was necessary to
invade Lebanon as far as Beirut, to defeat Syria
and to install Bachir Gemayel, an ally of Israel,
as head of the Lebanese government. The PLO
learnt of the Israeli plans (called Operation
Peace in Galilee) for an imminent major attack
and sought support from its external allies, but
with no significant success.
27. See the article by Cosima Flateau, “La
Bekaa, un territoire stratégique sous influ-
ence”, Les Clés du Moyen-Orient, June 13, 2013.
28.  See the article by Anne-Lucie Chaigne-Ou-
din, “Opération Paix en Galilée” Les clés du
Moyen-Orient, March 9, 2010, which explains
in detail how starting on August 21, 1982, the
PLO and its fighters (15,000 men) were evacuat-
ed under the protection of a Multinational Force
and with a promise from the Israelis that they
would not enter West Beirut. The multinational
force accomplished its mission and left Lebanon
on September 13, 1982. The Lebanese president,
Bachir Gemayel, was assassinated on September
14th. The Lebanese army immediately allowed
the Israeli army into West Beirut and between
September 16th and 18th the Christian militias
slaughtered the Palestinian refugees in the camps
at Sabra and Shatila, under the eyes of the Israeli
military. The Multinational Force then returned
to Beirut to oversee the withdrawal of the Israeli
army, which took until September 26th.
The Dheisheh refugee camp, West Bank, 1960
Rushdieh
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