Posted on 06/23/2002 6:14:40 PM PDT by Phil V.
Cabinet: Kahan Committee report appendix to remain secret for now
The cabinet voted yesterday to keep the secret appendix to the report by the Kahan Committee which investigated the 1982 massacres in Sabra and Shatilla secret, at least for another five years.
By a vote of 9-7, the cabinet decided to adopt the recommendations of a special committee set up last year and comprised of members of the security services to decide whether this appendix should be made public.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, whom the Kahan Commission found in 1983 bore indirect responsible for the massacre because the camps were under IDF control, argued in the cabinet that the appendix should be released. He then was one of three ministers who abstained from voting.
Sharon has been lobbying for the release of the appendix for years.
He sued Time Magazine in 1985 for stating that the secret appendix stated he had visited the Jemayel family after the assassination of president-elect Bashir Jemayel, and had urged them to take revenge on the Palestinians for his death. According to the alleged appendix, Sharon told the Jemayel family the IDF would occupy West Beirut and expected the Christians to take over the adjacent refugee camps.
Sharon sued Time in a US court. Even though the court ruled that the report was libelous and untrue, Sharon lost the case. He then sued the magazine in Israel and won because of a difference in the libel laws in the two countries.
Sharon, who was permitted to read the annex, wrote in his autobiography Warrior that the appendix was secret "because it contained the names of various intelligence officers."
Cabinet secretary Gideon Sa'ar said the reasons given in the cabinet for not opening the document the issue will again be discussed in five years had to do with "national security" and Israel's diplomatic relations.
I don't know. Perhaps some of the others might be of help? . . . anybody?
Time published a "libelous and untrue" report?
Why, Time would never do something like that, would they?
LOFL !!!
For exactly the reason that is stated: the names of intelligence operatives civilian or otherwise. The Report itself is a public document and (I believe) is accessible via the internet. I referred to it a number of months ago in a post on Sabra Shatilla I'm just too lazy to find the URL.
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