On
April 13, 1975, an armed attack on Christians
occurred in the Christian Beirut suburb of Ain al
Rummaneh. Six people were killed. Believing the
attackers to be Palestinian, Christian militiamen
avenged the assault by attacking a busload of
Palestinian civilians traveling between two refugee
camps. Twenty-nine Palestinians were killed.
A
simmering Lebanon erupted into a vicious civil war.
Muslims
fought Christians...Palestinians fought Lebanese...Druze
fought Maronites... With no single group strong
enough to defeat all others, the government of
Lebanon collapsed. Syrian intervention brought
Israelis into the conflict.
In
1977, Menachem Begin was elected Prime Minister of
Israel. Having lost his parents and a brother in
Nazi concentration camps, Begin saw the face of
Hitler on any enemy of the Jews. Taking an
uncompromising position toward the Palestinians,
Begin came to see opportunity in the Lebanese
War...an opportunity for Israel to defeat its
Palestinian enemies. Using the June 3, 1982, PLO
attack on Israel's ambassador to Great Britain,
Shlomo Argov, as an excuse, Begin ordered the
Israeli Military to invade Lebanon on June 6, 1982.
*
* *
August
12, 1982
At
her home in Jerusalem, Ester Gale pulled the
curtains and opened the door leading onto the small
balcony. The light had seemed dim from inside the
room, but Ester could see that the sun was already
bright yellow. She decided the day was going to be
hot.
While
waiting for her husband and daughter to return from
the post office, Ester busied herself in the
kitchen, brewing strong coffee. They had not heard
from Michel in over two weeks and Ester was worried.
The disastrous war in Lebanon was proving deadly.
Ester knew that neither she, nor Joseph, could
survive the loss of another child.
Ester
heard the front door open and hurried to see if a
letter had arrived from Michel. Without asking, she
knew the answer when she saw the satisfied smiles
mirrored on Joseph's and Jordan's faces.
"Joseph!
A letter?"
"Yes,
darling." Joseph held out the unopened
communication for Ester to see. "A nice fat
letter."
Even
after forty-four years of marriage, Joseph felt his
face grow warm at the sight of his wife. In spite of
the horrific conditions she had endured during World
War II, Ester was still a beautiful woman and looked
a full ten years younger than her sixty-two years.
Jordan
nudged her father on his back. "Open the
letter!" she demanded. She hopped over to her
mother, giving her a quick hug, before saying,
"Pop refused to open the letter before we got
home!"
Ester
smiled up at her tall, vivacious daughter, whose
face was glowing in anticipation. She stroked
Jordan's long red hair. "Come into the kitchen.
I have coffee and rolls. We'll read the letter
together."
After
pouring three cups of coffee, Ester settled into one
chair and propped her feet on the wooden prongs of
another. With Joseph and Jordan looking on, she
opened Michel's letter. Ester frowned in
disappointment when she saw there was nothing more
than a one-page letter accompanied by a stack of
photographs. Before studying the pictures, she read
aloud the nearly illegible black scribbles her son
had made on the white paper.
August
1, 1982 at 11 PM
Dear
Mom, Pop, and Little Sister,
Remember
that old saying, it might be easy to get into a war,
but it's not so easy to get out of it? That's
Lebanon! I feel we have been in Lebanon for two
years rather than two months. Trying to clear out
the terrorists is a lot more difficult than I had
imagined. The slums in West Beirut are filled with
Arafat's fighters and until we can go in and clean
out the nest of the viper, nothing will be resolved.
We know that Shatila and Sabra are teeming with
terrorists, so we are concentrating our efforts on
the camps. Today, our pilots flew over 120 sorties.
Plus, our ground forces are moving in from the West
and the South and the good boys of the Navy are
bombarding PLO positions.
I've
asked myself a million times, why don't the
Palestinians just give up and go away? There is no
longer a place for them in this part of the world.
I
won't bore you with war talk. I'm fat and sassy and
no longer in any danger. Actually, to the Lebanese
Christians here in East Beirut, we are heroes and
even the little girls throw flowers in our path.
(Don't tell Dinah, but the big girls make us feel
welcome in other ways!)
Seriously,
if we can only make the Palestinians vanish, Lebanon
would be a terrific neighbor. So, maybe this war
will accomplish something when all is said and done.
I'm
sending Swiss chocolates and Danish cookies by one
of my pals who has a minor leg wound and is being
sent home. You would be astonished at the goodies I
have purchased: Christian East Beirut is like one
big shopping centre. It's hard to believe these
people have been embroiled in a civil war for years!
