Beirut Jane distorts her history
World War 4 Report
By David Bloom, 07/26/2005
Jane Fonda, AKA Hanoi Jane, AKA Beirut Jane is back in the news.
She has chosen a rather uncontroversial moment to oppose the Iraq
war, doing a bus tour with Iraq Veterans' families. According to the
BBC,
The star was dubbed Hanoi Jane in the 70s for her stance on
the Vietnam War.
She caused an outcry when she was photographed sitting on an
anti-aircraft gun in north Vietnam in 1972, while touring the
country to call for an end to the war.
Although she has since called it the "largest lapse of judgment
that I can even imagine", some people have never forgiven her. (BBC,
July 26, 2005)
She also said:
"I have not taken a stand on any war since Vietnam," she told
some 600 people who turned up to see her speak at the bookshop
in Santa Fe. "I carry a lot of baggage from that.
Whoa – she's never taken another stand on a war? Then what was
she doing as a guest of the Israeli Defense Forces with Tom Hayden
when they were shelling Beirut in 1982? Maybe she does not consider
it a large lapse of judgment -- she has never aknowledged it.
According to the blog Redstateson.com, there is no mention of her
adventures in Beirut in her new bio, "My Life So Far."
Red-state-son also recounts:
"I've always thought that Fonda made up for her "lapse of
sanity" when she, along with then-hub Tom Hayden, visited Israel
in 1982 to show their support for the Israeli invasion of
Lebanon and Menachem Begin's Likud party. Fonda and Hayden
watched the shelling of Beirut from Israeli positions,
applauding while cluster bombs ripped through apartments and
hospitals, and Israeli helicopter gunships strafed those trying
to escape. Here, Fonda was not shy about appearing with weapons
– hell, she reveled in it. And unlike the anti-aircraft gun in
North Vietnam, which was not being used at the time of her
visit, Israeli weapons were in full use, chopping up and killing
over 17 thousand Lebanese and Palestinians.
In debates with rightwingers obsessed with Fonda's "treason,"
I've often mentioned her later embrace of mass murder in Lebanon.
In every case, my opponents expressed ignorance of this fact (which
I found amazing), and they usually winced when I re-branded
Fonda as Beirut Jane."
The following article from AP on July 7, 1982 describes the
pair's trip:
Actress Jane Fonda and her candidate-husband Tom Hayden
returned from Lebanon on Wednesday, and he said the U.S. Marines
should help evacuate the Palestinian Liberation Organization to
avoid a "bloodbath in Beirut."
"What we have to do is avert through public opinion a bloodbath
in Beirut and arrange somehow for an evacuation of the PLO, and
I think that requires people who have been peace advocates to
say that, for a two-week period, the use of Marines exclusively
for the purpose of evacuation is justified," said Hayden.
”It's not another Vietnam, it's not another El Salvador,"
added the 42-year-old Democrat, whose anti-war credentials were
established in the 1960s. "If you want to avert a bloodbath, the
United States may have to play that role."
Hayden, who is running for the California Assembly in a heavily
Jewish district, said earlier in New York that President
Reagan's proposal to send the Marines into Lebanon as part of a
PLO withdrawal would be "a humane and greatly valued act."
Hayden said he opposed any long-term U.S. presence in Lebanon.
PLO leader Yasser Arafat has rejected United States aid in any
evacuation, but has left open the possiblility of U.S.
participation in an international peacekeeping force in Lebanon.
The Israelis invaded Lebanon on June 6, and have besieged west
Beirut, the PLO headquarters.
White House officials suggest any American troops would not be
committed for longer than 30 days.
In Los Angeles, Hayden said the Israeli invasion was "inevitable"
but he would reserve judgment on the war effort.
"The hawks were right in their assumption that it could be done,
that the PLO could be militarily defeated," he said. "What
remains to be seen is whether any new possibility for permanent
peace emerges from the war. That's the ultimate test of whether
the war will have been justified."
Miss Fonda was silent during most of the airport news conference,
nodding agreement with Hayden.
She did say the visit to Israel and Lebanon was "a very good and
important opportunity for me personally to try to understand the
situation better. I learned a lot...
"It helped me to be there and to see this interesting - and
maybe unique to Israel - situation where you have a tremendous
diversity of opinion among civilians and also the Israeli
defense force, and yet a unanimity when it comes to the
necessity to defend, to not pull back right now and to do
everything that's possible," she said. "I think that's why they
were happy that we went there."
Hayden said he spoke with Lebanese Christians in Sidon, Tyre and
east Beirut. He did not meet any Palestinians during the trip,
which began Friday.
In November, he faces Republican businessman Bill Hawkins in the
44th Assembly District.
Also, NYT on July 5 1982:
Today Jane Fonda and her husband, Tom Hayden, briefly visited
the Israeli position at St. Anthony's School and watched the
shelling. The movie star and her husband have been visiting
Israeli soldiers and Lebanese wounded in the invasion. Israeli
soldiers crowded around Miss Fonda to be photographed with her,
but she looked distant and uncomfortable.
Mr. Swersky, the Israeli command spokesman, gave Miss Fonda and
her husband a private briefing on the military situation. Mr.
Hayden, who was a leader of the opposition to the Vietnam War,
has said that the Israeli invasion is justified because the
P.L.O. refused to recognize Israel.
While she has not publicly acknowledged her earlier cheerleading
for Israeli militarism -- although
she did tell Ha'aretz
"once I went to talk with the soldiers in Lebanon," she did visit a
Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank in 2002, where she offered
this trenchant observation: "This is the focal point of so many
conflicts. Both sides aren't hearing each other's narratives, and
maybe that's our role as artists." (AP,
Dec 10, 2002)
Hayden and Fonda refused to meet with anti-war Israelis during
the trip. These activists, who were calling for the removal of
Israeli forces from Lebanon, also argued at the time that the US
brokered withdrawal of PLO fighters from the Palestinian
neighborhoods and refugee camps would actually lead to a bloodbath
in Beirut, which occurred in mid-September of 1982 in Shatila camp,
with Israeli complicity.
