Crisis of Conscience

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"My God, I was awake all night crying and despairing. What will become of us? What is happening to us?" That plaintive question could easily have come from a Palestinian woman grieving for her lost family following the massacre of Arab men, women and children in the Palestinian refugee camps south of Beirut. In fact, the anguished speaker was an Israeli woman in Jerusalem who the night before had watched the television pictures of the aftermath of the killings by the Israeli-backed Lebanese Christian militiamen. In Lebanon, even as Amin Gemayel was inaugurated as the new President in the place of his slain brother Bashir, the counting of the corpses in the camps continued. In Israel, the slayings and the Israeli government's complicity in those dreadful events produced a reaction of shock and soul searching unparalleled in the nation's 34-year history. Suddenly many Israelis were wondering if their country had lost the sense of righteousness that David Ben-Gurion, the first Prime Minister of the nation, had said must distinguish its actions and its role in the world.

Israel's newspapers reflected the mood. For the Jerusalem Post, this year's Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) would be remembered as "the Rosh Hashanah of shame," for "we have all been made accomplices to the horrible massacre in West Beirut." The conservative Ma'ariv observed: "By our presence [in West Beirut] we have become indirectly responsible for the awful pogrom committed there." As the left-wing Al Hamishmar saw it, "This slaughter has made the war in Lebanon the greatest disaster to befall the Jewish people since the Holocaust."

The war, which brought images of bombings and suffering to television audiences everywhere, had stunningly served to portray Israel as the aggressor in its dealings with its Arab neighbors. The massacre involved more than 300 known deaths, and by the weekend it was believed the final total could reach the 700-to-800 range. The number was not large when viewed in the context of Lebanon's savage seven-year civil war, but the killings may well have marked a watershed in the history of Israel and the surrounding region. Most immediately, the massacre made negotiations for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Lebanon more difficult, and the Arab nations, which link Israel with the U.S., may now be far less likely to respond to the broad peace initiative launched by President Reagan on Sept. 1. The massacre aroused sympathy and support for the cause of the Palestine Liberation Organization that the P.L.O., which itself attained power through terrorism, could not have hoped to achieve otherwise. American Jewish leaders lamented Israel's role, however indirect, in the killings. Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater and North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms had the same sardonic, if inaccurate, comment on the situation: "Begin makes Arafat look like a Boy Scout."