One day in Lebanon

By James Ron

For thirty years, I worked as a human rights investigator and an academic, focusing my research and teaching on the effects of international human rights norms.

I never told my colleagues and students that this interest was sparked by an incident that occurred in Lebanon when I was 19.

In February 1986, I had been in the paratroopers for a few months. I’d been recruited into the Israeli military a year earlier, but had spent most of that time training with another infantry-style unit.

The people around me were suddenly thrown into a frenzy, running about and piling ammunition boxes onto trucks. I had missed the briefing, but one of the guys told me in passing, “We’re headed to the Security Zone.” A strip of land occupied by Israeli troops and their local allies, the Southern Lebanon Army.

We quickly drove north, traveling up the bleak road between the occupied West Bank and the River Jordan. We reached the gate leading into Lebanon and transferred our supplies to a cluster of armored carriers. I’d never seen one of those beasts; you entered through a ramp in the back and stuck your head outside the hatch, resting your arms over the side. An ugly metal box with a massive machine gun, accompanied by crates of enormous bullets.

I’d also never seen the border up close — high gates and a fence piled with barbed wire, backed by broad expanses of raked earth to track footprints.

As we drove through, the boys around me snapped their helmet buckles shut, chambered rounds, and poked their gun barrels over the edge. I watched and followed suit, pretending I’d done this before. I didn’t want the other guys to know I’d never stepped foot in an armored carrier.

I was still confused as to why we were there. I vaguely understood there had just been a firefight and that Hezbollah had taken two Israeli soldiers prisoner, but that was all I knew. I gathered we were part of a much larger force looking for the prisoners.

We dismounted after thirty minutes and began jogging across a muddy field.

Within moments, a Lebanese village appeared in the distance, dimly visible through the gathering dusk. We entered through a back alley; the place seemed empty. Later, I learned that the residents were under curfew.

I was impressed by the architecture, old-looking stone buildings akin to what I’d seen while touring Europe. A fog was rolling in, and I couldn’t see more than twenty yards ahead.

I found myself waiting in a narrow street lined with other paratroopers on each side. Nothing was happening, so I leaned back against a stone wall, hoping no one would mind.

Four men walked towards us. They seemed older, perhaps in their late twenties or thirties. Two seemed Israeli, although they wore non-standard uniforms and carried unfamiliar weapons. Directly behind were two others sporting jeans, vests, and Kalashnikovs, the weapon of choice for the Lebanese militia.

They stopped to confer with our commander, who turned to me and one of the others. “Go with them. It’s the Liaison.” I had only a vague sense of what that was: Arabic-speaking Israeli officers working with allied Lebanese militias.

We trailed them as they walked down the street, turned a few times from one alley to another, and approached a large house. The Liaison lead turned to us for a brief second: “You are here to provide security. Just do what you’re told.”

One of the Lebanese gunmen banged on a metal door, a woman opened it, and everyone piled in. Nothing in my training had covered this scenario, so I just followed the others.

There were many people inside the house: a few women, babies, younger children, older folk, and at least one middle-aged male. The Lebanese militiaman said something in Arabic and pushed them all into the kitchen. More heated conversations, and one of the women seemed to be pleading.

The Liaison guys zeroed in on the middle-aged man, ziptied his hands, yanked him outside, and motioned us to follow. We circled the villa and entered a dark back alley, where they ordered him to his knees and covered his eyes. He knelt and faced the wall, forehead touching the stones.

One of the militiamen pushed his Kalashnikov into the back of the prisoner’s head. He seemed to be asking questions but receiving no answers.

The Liaison turned to us and snapped, “Face the other way. Secure the alley.” The other paratrooper and I moved about 10 yards away. We didn’t talk to one another — he wasn’t from my group — but I couldn’t stop looking behind us. Are they just going to shoot this guy right here?

I couldn’t believe we’d blow someone’s head off like that, but nothing about the Zone seemed normal. The Liaison’s guns and uniforms were strange, I didn’t understand Arabic, and the militiamen seemed to belong to another universe. We had crossed the border, and everything seemed to have changed. Perhaps shooting prisoners in the head is normal here? I’d been in the military for 13 months, but no one had ever described a scene like this.

When I turned back towards the alley, I faced a uniformed UN soldier standing only yards away. He had crept up without a sound; if he’d been the enemy, we’d all be dead. I’d been distracted by the drama behind me and had failed at my job. He seemed European, and I surmised he was from UNIFIL, the international monitoring force patrolling Lebanon’s south. Their mission was to observe and report, so he just stood and watched.

Years later, I would join social scientists studying the “human rights gaze,” using statistical and other techniques to investigate whether interventions like this mattered. That evening, I participated in a micro-application of that theory.

Once the Liaison officers noticed the UN soldier, they abruptly ended the interrogation and hauled the prisoner away. The international observer had ended the incident with nothing other than his mere presence.

The other paratrooper and I trailed behind the group, awkwardly fingering our rifles. When we returned to the others, the Liaison walked off with their prisoner, and I returned to my place in line.

Nobody asked me what had happened, and I didn’t say a thing. I had just seen four men threaten to execute a bound, blindfolded, and unarmed prisoner, and I’d done nothing but stand and watch. If they’d pulled the trigger, I would have been an accomplice, but my only concern was whether I’d looked sufficiently tough.

The UN observer’s presence was undeniably meaningful, but it only took the edge off the incident. The Liaison had kept the prisoner with them, and the UN hadn’t stopped the fighting, rescued the Israeli prisoners, or saved the surrounding Lebanese villages from the Israeli military’s search, which — I found out the next day — was brutal.

Maybe that’s the best the international human rights machinery has ever been able to do.

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This is an excerpt from a memoir-in-progress, Azimuth. This story was originally

published on Medium and is reprinted here for subscribers.

James Ron is an author and a social scientist. To read his scholarly work, visit his Google Scholar, ResearchGate, or Academia.edu pages.