August 27, 2012: David Remnick, in profile of Mossad Director Meir Dagan for @NewYorker, reveals that in 1980-81 two Israeli journalists investigated story that Dagan & other senior Israeli officials were conducting secret #terrorist campaign in Lebanon 1/ newyorker.com/magazine/2012/…
The 2 journalists are Yigal Sarna and Anat Tal-Shir. They worked for Yediot Ahronot. Sarna told Remnick that their story was killed by the Israeli military censor. Dagan confirmed to Remnick that this had happened, although he denied the actual thrust of that story 2/ 
A few days later, on the blog of @972mag, Noam Sheizaf mentioned Remnick's story and quoted Sarna as agreeing that "the censorship [on these stories] has been on for years. Horrifying things were done there, not just planned" 972mag.com/what-covert-op…
In 2016, this time in @haaretzcom , Michael Oren wrote yet another profile of Meir Dagan where he referred to the same story, and added a number of remarkable details about this secret #terrorist operation conducted by very senior Israeli officers 4/ haaretz.com/israel-news/.p…
Acc. to Oren, an Israeli officer who served under Dagan in early 1980s claimed that the IDF was "under cover of the Front for the Liberation of Lebanon from Foreigners," (FLLF) secretly conducting a series of "deadly strikes" in Lebanon, including strikes that killed civilians 5/
The complaint reached Israeli press. But the story was killed by the military censor. It also reached Prime Minister Begin who, faced with an upcoming election, decided not to do anything about it. Acc to Oren, the complaint named several senior Israeli officials besides Dagan 6/
The four officials named: Raphael Eitan, @IDF chief of staff; Avigdor Ben-Gal, head of Northern Command; his intelligence officer, Shlomo Ilya; & Dagan. If that story was accurate, very senior Israeli officers had been involved in a major secret #terrorist campaign in #Lebanon 7/
And indeed, story WAS accurate. 2 years after Oren's article, in early 2018, book published in US confirmed that the FLLF, a terrorist group that claimed responsibility for dozens of car bombings in Lebanon betw 1979 & 1983, WAS indeed created & ran by senior Israeli officials 8/
The book is entitled "Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations." Its author is @ronenbergman , a former journalist for Yediot Ahronot. Bergman was hired by the @nytimes a few weeks after publication of his book 9/ penguinrandomhouse.com/books/209254/r…
As I wrote at great length in May 2018, this book described in great detail (over 5 pages) how the FLLF was set up by Dagan, Eitan and Ben-Gal in order to "sow chaos" in Lebanon while hiding Israel's hand in these attacks 10/ mondoweiss.net/2018/05/remark…
It is difficult to ascertain with any precision how many civilians lives this Israeli "terrorist" campaign claimed. Still, a few points should be highlighted. First, over a dozen attacks are included in the "terrorism databases" compiled by RAND and START 11/
Several attacks mentioned in one database are not included in the other however. And a comprehensive analysis of press reports from that time period make quite clear that both RAND and START widely undercount the number of attacks by the FLLF 12/
A RAND report fm April 1983 mentions a few FLLF attacks that took place in September 1981. The death toll for these attacks was around 120. By comparison, that same report notes that in 1980 & 1981 combined Palestinian "terrorists" killed 16 civilians 13/ rand.org/content/dam/ra…
In Oct 1981 Fred Schiff, journalist for UPI who reported fm Beirut, wrote that during preceding 2 weeks as many as 308 people had been killed by FLLF bombs. The extraordinary deadliness of this FLLF/ Israeli car bombing campaign cannot be overstated 14/ upi.com/Archives/1981/…
In October 1983 Lee O'Brien wrote in MERIP that, based on media accounts from the French and Arabic press in Lebanon, the number of civilians killed by the FLLF between 1979-1983 was undeniably in the hundreds, with countless more wounded 15/ merip.org/1983/10/campai…
As O'Brien notes, AT THE TIME countless Lebanese officials & Palestinians insisted that the FLLF was a fake group used by Israel to hide its hand in these car bombings. Israel always denied such accusations, insisting that the bombings were examples of "Arab on Arab violence" 16/
Importantly: the FLLF terrorist campaign took place exactly as Israel was conducting an (ultimately very successful) "hasbara" campaign aimed at convincing the world (& esp the US) that its fight vs Palestinians was a moral fight vs the evil of terrorism that all should join 17/
At heart of discourse was following claim: ISR was main victim of "terrorism" around world & never its perpetrator. Palestinians were main perpetrators of "terrorism" in world & never its victim. All ISR uses of force were legitimate: they came in self-defense vs terrorists 18/
As Bergman explains, starting in August-September 1981 Ariel Sharon used the FLLF to conduct terrorist bombings in Lebanon in order to provoke the PLO into using "terrorism," which would justify Israel's invasion of Lebanon as a response to... "terrorism" 20/
Over a period of 2 weeks, in late Sept/early Oct 1981, FLLF/Sharon conducted a series of "terrorist" car bombings that killed anywhere betw 120 & 300 civilians, & wounded countless more. Several were covered in international press & front page of NYT 21/
In summer of 82, Israel invaded Lebanon in name of fighting the evil of "terrorism." In a remarkable ex of Chutzpah, while he was secretly conducting his own campaign of terrorism Sharon took to the pages of the @nytimes to make precisely such a case 22/ nytimes.com/1982/08/29/opi…
In that OpEd Sharon repeatedly referred to the Palestinians as terrorists, justified invasion of Lebanon as moral because its aim was to root out the absolute evil of terrorism, and repeatedly insisted that the methods used was precisely what separates ISR & the Palestinians 23/
In that OpEd, Sharon insisted that what separates ISR from the Palestinians is that the former never targets civilians, indeed makes every effort to avoid civilian casualties, a policy that "stands in vivid contrast to the P.L.O.'s practice of attacking only civilian targets" 24/
To repeat: When Sharon wrote this OpEd, he had been using the FLLF as a cover to conduct car bombings against purely civilians targets for more than a year! During that time, the FLLF bombs killed hundreds of civilians. And they would continue to do so until the end of 1983 25/
Bergman's book was published 31 months ago. It received rave reviews, and is a major international bestseller. And yet, the US press has remained fully SILENT, during these 31 months, about his revelations regarding the FLLF & this Israeli campaign of "terrorism" in Lebanon 26/
The US media has also remained absolutely SILENT about the fact that the Israeli Military Censor, in 1980-81, KILLED the story by Sarna & Tal-Shir that would have revealed the existence of this secret terrorist campaign conducted by senior @IDF officers 27/
I have written about this media silence since mid-2018:
I have also highlighted remarkable case of @tomfriedman , who personally covered several FLLF bombings in 1980s & yet remains SILENT about Bergman's revelations 28/
I have also highlighted remarkable case of @tomfriedman , who personally covered several FLLF bombings in 1980s & yet remains SILENT about Bergman's revelations 28/
I have also noted that Bergman's revelations appear to confirm accusations made by former US Ambassador to Lebanon Gunther Dean that Israel was indeed behind an attempt on his life in the summer of 1980, & have called on US journos to investigate 29/
Crucially, acknowledging that "we" (Israel, US, other Western countries) too have resorted to terrorism is CENTRAL to any attempt to discuss questions such as the legitimacy (accepted by most in the West) of the use of force vs "the evil terrorists" 30/
The "war on terrorism" has been an abject failure. It is high time we develop a RADICAL critique of the discourse that has enabled & justified so many criminal, and counter-productive, policies. It STARTS w/ telling the truth about OUR terrorism 31/
For much, much more about the FLLF revelations, the silence of the US media about this truly extraordinary secret Israeli campaign of terrorism, etc.... see the THREAD below. END.
NOTE: As I note at beg of Thread in his @newyorker piece Remnick writes that Dagan DENIED thrust of Sarna & Tal-Shir's story. If Bergman (& his sources, all of them Israeli officers) is right then Dagan LIED to Remnick. Is this not enough to make Bergman's revelations NEWSWORTHY?
If you are a journalist like Remnick, or much more clearly like @tomfriedman (who got his Pulitzer because of his work in #Lebanon!!!) would you not want to CORRECT THE RECORD about a story you personally covered & wrote about? What explains this SILENCE?
