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Until a few months ago, very few Israelis realised that their army fired flares to light up Beirut's Sabra and Shatila refugee camps while Lebanese Christian militiamen committed the notorious massacre of Palestinian civilians there, September 16 to 18, 1982.
But Ari Folman, who as a 19-year-old soldier
fired some of the flares, makes their descent through the sky over Beirut's beachfront one of the recurring images of Waltz With Bashir, his "animated documentary" that premieres in Britain this week, and was seen at this year's New Zealand International Film Festivals.
In Israel, the film has rekindled discussion about the divisive invasion of Lebanon that was initially billed by Ariel Sharon, who was Defence Minister at the time, as a limited push to halt PLO rocket attacks, and about the extent of Israeli responsibility for the Sabra and Shatila massacre. The estimated number of victims ranged from 300 to more than 3000.
Folman has said he had no idea the massacre was being committed when he shot the flares.
The killings by Phalangist militiamen dispatched into the camps by Israel came after their leader, Bashir Gemayel, President-elect of Lebanon, was assassinated in a bombing wrongly blamed on Palestinians. An Israeli state commission of inquiry, set up as a result of a tide of public protest in the massacre's wake, found that Sharon, today comatose from a stroke nearly three years ago, bore "personal responsibility" for not having foreseen the danger that the Phalangists would commit the slaughter. He was forced to give up the defence portfolio, something that did not prevent him from being elected as Premier in 2001 and re-elected in 2003.
The film has been widely acclaimed in Israel. One reviewer, Eitan Weitz, writing for the website Parshan, termed it "required viewing" for those aged 16 and 17 nearing their mandatory military service, for army reservists in their thirties and for mothers of soldiers.
But not everyone is happy about the film's screening abroad. Gerald Steinberg, a political scientist at Bar Ilan University with right-of-centre views, voiced concern even though he has not seen the film. "The Israeli audience knows the atrocities were committed by Lebanese Christian militiamen and can sort out how much responsibility is ours and how much is theirs.
"Foreign audiences will be blaming Israel for everything and this could reinforce that."
On the other hand, some Israeli viewers say Folman lets Israel off too easily.
"The Israeli soldiers are shown as being good, as being people who are tormented by what is going on," says Ronit Shpiner, 35, a Jerusalem psychologist from Jerusalem.
"Ultimately, the moral responsibility is taken off of them even though those who saw the slaughter should have stopped it. The movie depicts the soldiers as the victims of the massacre because they were traumatised by it."
A bartender, Lidya Ophir, 26, said: "I think the movie is saying that probably the Israeli Army is just as responsible as the people with the guns inside the camps."
Folman says the movie aims to dissuade young people from fighting in wars: "I hope that young people, when they watch Waltz With Bashir will see how stupid all wars are, a useless idea, a creation of tiny little leaders with big egos," he responded in an email to the Independent.
"They will see in Waltz With Bashir that there is no glory in war, no bravery in war, nothing. They will never want to be the guy in the movie. And that is unlike a lot of American anti-war movies, where they show you that war sucks, but the guys in the movie are so cool."
Sharon is shown only briefly in the film, wolfing down steak and eggs, his nose twitching as he talks on the phone to the Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and to a commander in Lebanon.
His former spokesman, Raanan Gissin, takes issue with the depiction: "He never gave orders while eating."
Gissin denied Israel had any responsibility in the killings, saying they were "probably a Syrian-instigated plot".
For many people, the most powerful part of the film is the recollection by an Israeli journalist, Ron Ben-Ishai, of a conversation he had with Sharon during the massacre. Ben-Ishai, stationed in Beirut, had heard from Army officers at a dinner he hosted that a massacre was being committed.
Disturbed, he called Sharon at his ranch in southern Israel but the Defence Minister showed little interest and did not act to stop it.
Regarding Israel's degree of responsibility, Ben-Ishai says: "It is like the Allies in the Second World War who could have stopped the slaughter in the death camps but didn't."
SLAUGHTER IN THE CAMPS
* The Sabra and Shatila massacre happened between September 16 and 18, 1982.
* It is alleged that Israeli Defence Forces allowed Lebanese Christian Phalangist militiamen to enter two Palestinian refugee camps, and that the militia massacred civilians.
* Estimates of numbers killed range from 328 to 3500.
* A major outcry erupted in Israel and internationally, because the Sabra and Shatila camps had been under the control of Israeli Defence Forces. The Phalangists were spared the brunt of the condemnation.
* An Israeli state commission found Israel indirectly responsible.
* Ariel Sharon, Defence Minister at the time, was also found to have borne "personal responsibility" for not having foreseen that the Phalangists would commit the slaughter.
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