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Syria evaded Soviet overtures. In 1980, it was the weakened and discredited Ba'thi regime that wanted the treaty, while the Soviets appeared reluctant to risk their prestige.⁵ When the treaty was finally signed in October 1980, the clauses that could apply in the eventuality of Syrian-Israeli fighting in Lebanon were, indeed, carefully drafted to be imprecise and vague. And when such combat seemed imminent during the missile crisis in 1981, the Soviets indicated that the 1980 treaty did not apply to Syrian forces in Lebanon. Only later, when the crisis was nearly over, did Soviet statements vis-à-vis Israel assume a more threatening tone.⁶

## The Regional Setting

The outbreak, the course, and the outcome of the Lebanese civil war were all influenced by the changes in the system of inter-Arab relations in the early 1970s: primarily the decline in Egypt's position and the concomitant rise in influence of the oil-producing states and Syria.⁷ But these convulsions did not produce a stable new order. Hegemonies and alliances were short-lived, and the pattern of inter-Arab relations was altered often and abruptly. Saudi Arabia and Syria, whose regional policies seemed so influential and successful in 1976 and 1977, were weakened by 1979—Syria by the crisis in Asad's regime and Saudi Arabia by the ramifications of the Islamic revolution in Iran. For a brief moment in October 1978, Iraq appeared to be the leading state in the Arab system but was soon incapacitated by domestic problems and the Iranian challenge. Most important, in 1977 Egypt opted out of formal inter-Arab relations for a few years in order to complete the peace process with Israel and regain all Egyptian territory. The other Arab states were unable to force Egypt to renounce this policy, or to suggest an effective alternative.

This state of affairs had two important repercussions for the Lebanese crisis in the years 1977-82. For one thing, the crisis was pushed to one side on the Arab agenda, overshadowed by the issues that preoccupied the principal Arab states: the stability of their own regimes, the Egyptian-Israeli peace process, the Islamic revolution in Iran, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. This decline of Arab

## THE LINGERING CRISIS

interest and the absence of a durable pattern of alliances and hegemony in the Arab system helped to perpetuate the status quo in the Lebanese crisis during this period. Various Arab states were unhappy that the crisis continued, or with some particular aspect of it, be it Syria's policy or the Lebanese Front's relations with Israel, but they lacked the motivation or the capacity to translate their dissatisfaction into sustained and effective policies. All efforts to devise a solution to the crisis in Arab summit conferences during these years ended in failure.

The profound changes of the late 1970s in the Arab-Israeli conflict, however, had an immediate bearing on the Lebanese crisis. As has already been mentioned, the Egyptian-Israeli peace process (and the failure to form an eastern Arab front) contributed to a crucial change in the Syrian-Israeli balance of power. But while some consequences of this change emerged gradually, others were already apparent in 1977.

For one thing, Syria and the PLO were driven to paper over their differences and jointly oppose Sadat's policies. The bitterness of 1976 did not fully disappear, nor did the underlying causes of Syrian-Palestinian tension in Lebanon; but they became less important, and a period of cooperation ensued.⁸

It was Lebanon's misfortune that the Egyptian-Israeli detente did not ease the broader Arab-Israeli conflict, but tended rather to telescope it and focus it on the Palestinian issue. While Israel was making peace with Egypt, it was fighting a bitter war with the PLO, primarily in the West Bank and in Lebanon. In the West Bank the conflict was over land and political influence; in Lebanon it was governed, until June 1982, by military action. Having by and large renounced terror outside the Middle East and being barred from Israel's Syrian and Jordanian borders, the PLO concentrated its efforts on launching raids along Israel's land and sea borders with Lebanon. Earlier Palestinian-Israeli violence in Lebanon was dwarfed by the military build-up, raids, counterraids, and preemptive raids of 1977-82.

One other regional issue affected the Lebanese crisis, though less significantly than the foregoing: the rise of a revolutionary Islamic regime in Iran, its efforts to "export" the Islamic revolution, and the ensuing Iraqi-Iranian war. Iran is a Shi'i country; it has traditionally

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influenced the Lebanese Shi'i and since 1979 has been an ally of Syria and an enemy of Iraq. Iranian meddling in Lebanon contributed to violent conflict between Lebanese who supported Iran and those who supported Iraq. Its impact on the strength and politics of the Shi'i community was twofold. While further splintering the community, it also helped to fashion within its ranks a cadre determined to go to great lengths to enhance Shi'i power and standing.

## The Continuing Domestic Conflict

It has already been noted that the partial settlement in October 1976 failed even to consider, let alone remedy, the root cause of the Lebanese crisis: the conflict between two rival camps over the identity of the Lebanese entity and the distribution of power within the Lebanese state and political system.

In the absence of reconciliation and consensus, the term of Lebanon's 1972 parliament was extended in 1976 and again in 1980. Even by-elections for seats that became vacant could not be held. The cabinets of Salim al-Huss and then of Shafiq al-Wazzan were defined as technocratic and as such won approval from a parliament whose functions were primarily ceremonial. Several attempts were made after October 1976 to devise a formula that would enable a gradual return to normal political life, but Lebanon's politicians, divided and under pressure from external forces, were unable to agree. Nor could the army or the presidency act as a focus for consensus and stability. The Lebanese army, the object of a struggle for influence between Syria and the Lebanese Front, was confined to its barracks and not used to enforce the authority of the central government. Efforts by President Sarkis to transcend partisan and sectarian divisions were obstructed during the first years of his presidency by too close an affiliation with Syria. He later distanced himself from Syria and drew closer to the Lebanese Front, but in so doing he forfeited the confidence of Syria and its Lebanese allies.

In the absence of any progress toward national reunification and political normalization, Lebanon's domestic politics were conducted within and among the major political camps and factions.

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These internal conflicts were carried on simultaneously with the national political process, and most of the time they overshadowed it.⁹

The development of the Lebanese Front was unquestionably dictated by the Phalangist drive, under Bashir Jumayyil's leadership, for undisputed hegemony.¹⁰ Jumayyil, who was unknown and twenty-eight years old at the end of the civil war, became during the next few years the virtual leader of the party in the broad sense of the term, usurping the position that his father was still formally holding and that his older brother, Amin, might have expected to inherit. It is difficult to separate the personal dimension from questions of policy and orientation in the unfolding of this process. Bashir Jumayyil was unusually ambitious, determined, and gifted. He was also a consistent advocate of a close relationship with Israel and unambiguously hostile to Syria and the PLO, more like Camille Chamoun in this respect than like the traditional Phalangist thinkers. His closeness to the Israelis and the growing gap between the Maronites and the Syrians played into his hands and accelerated his progress to the party's leadership. The corresponding decline in the position of his elder brother and of part of the party's hierarchy must have produced tensions in its ranks, but except for occasional references in (mostly hostile) press reports, such tensions were well disguised by a show of party solidarity.¹¹

Bashir Jumayyil's formal position was not in the party's hierarchy—he became commander of the Lebanese Forces after Wijlliam Hawi was killed in Tel Za'atar in August 1976. This arrangement not only helped relations within the Jumayyil family but also enabled the Lebanese Front to attract Christian supporters who had not been identified with the Phalange in the past and who might have found a direct affiliation with the party awkward. Bashir Jumayyil's position also reflected the Phalangist belief in military power as the basis of political power and in the need to unify Maronite military forces. The Phalanges maintained that fragmented and divided forces, a characteristic of Maronite politics, was a luxury that a beleaguered community, fighting for its future against numerical and political odds, could not afford. Maronite political pluralism ought perhaps to be tolerated, but the community's military power had to be under one authority, and that authority had to be theirs.

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On that premise, the Phalanges sought to break the independent power bases of their two principal partners. The conflict with the Faranjiyya family occurred first, in the spring of 1978, and was expedited by profound political disagreements over the Maronite community's relations with Syria. The Phalanges dispatched political and labor organizers, who agitated against the Faranjiyya family. Matters came to a head when the Phalanges sought to expand their party organization into northern Lebanon and to undermine the Faranjiyya family's economic base. In the social reality of Maronite northern Lebanon, political power could hardly be separated from the paramilitary organization and its economic underpinning. The Faranjiyyas responded to the challenge by killing the chief Phalangist organizer, Jud Bayeh. Bayeh's humble origins added a social dimension to the incident, showing the conflict between the traditional patriarchal family of northern Lebanon and the leveling influence of the Phalangist mobilization of Maronite society. The Phalanges retaliated by shelling Tony Faranjiyya's home in the village of Ehden, killing him and his immediate family in June 1978. Whether or not his assassination had been planned, it is obvious that excessive brutality turned the incident into much more than a settling of scores or the weakening of a rival faction. Syria's proximity and protection helped the Faranjiyya family keep its regional position and assert its independence, now as sworn enemies of the Phalanges and the Jumayyil family.¹²

Two years later, in July 1980, Bashir Jumayyil's militia destroyed the military infrastructure of the Tigers, the National Liberal Party's militia in the Beirut area. Camille Chamoun accepted the new reality, but his son Dany chose to oppose his former ally by joining other Lebanese expatriates in Paris. Camille Chamoun's acceptance of the Phalangist victory, essential for the continued existence of the Lebanese Front, was more than just another symptom of his pragmatism. It reflected his complex attitude to Bashir Jumayyil, the son of his colleague and competitor, whose role on the national stage seemed to be that of Chamoun's political successor.¹³

In the same vein, the Phalanges sought to expand their mandate and their demographic and territorial bases by becoming the representative authority for all Lebanese Christians, not just the Maronites. This search was most notably embodied in the establishment

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of a Phalangist military and political presence in the predominantly Greek Catholic town of Zahle in eastern Lebanon in December 1980. Later, an attempt was made to build a road linking Zahle to Mount Lebanon and to Jounieh, the territorial nucleus of Christian Lebanon.

In complete contrast to that of the Lebanese Front, the post-civil war history of its chief Lebanese rival, the National Front, was characterized by decline and disintegration. The National Front, already seriously weakened by its conflict with Syria in 1976, lost its one national leader when Junblatt was assassinated in 1977. His son, Walid, inherited his father's command and political position but lacked the experience, stature, and charisma that could have made him into a real leader of a political camp.

Syria further weakened the National Front by basing its Lebanon policy not on its leftist clients and sympathizers but on a broad spectrum, which included traditional Lebanese politicians like Sulaiman Faranjiyya and Rashid Karami as well as the Palestinians and the revisionist militias—a strategy that was another obstacle along the way to national reconciliation in Lebanon. The Lebanese Front continued to argue categorically that the Palestinians were an alien presence in Lebanon and that their problem should be solved by the Arabs collectively and not at Lebanon's expense. The PLO (and its Syrian and Lebanese allies) naturally objected to this position as well as to any settlement in Lebanon that did not meet its requirements. And while incapable of imposing their own settlement, it was powerful enough to veto any settlement accepted by the Lebanese Front.

## Syria's Quest for Hegemony

From Syria's vantage point, the settlement in October 1976 was a partial success. The Arab consensus endorsed Syria's preeminence in Lebanon, and the prospects of consolidating Syrian hegemony appeared excellent. Clearly, Syria was not seeking to annex Lebanon: that was an unrealistic and indeed not an advantageous policy goal. But Syrian influence might be ensured, without the burden of maintaining a large expeditionary force in Lebanon, by continuing

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to cultivate a Lebanese political clientele, by shaping a subservient central government, and by formalizing Syrian hegemony through a treaty relationship. The patient pursuit of these goals was likely to meet with success; but it exacted an immediate price that the Ba'thi regime, especially when in the midst of a severe domestic crisis, was hard put to pay.

And then there were other immediate difficulties. The alliance with the Lebanese Front was artificial, but another about-face would provoke a conflict with the most important domestic Lebanese force. That force, the Syrians knew very well, maintained close ties with Israel, whose interests and involvement in Lebanon had already curtailed Syria's freedom of action. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict in Lebanon presented Syria with yet another dilemma. The Syrian regime had no desire to prevent the PLO from launching raids against Israel from southern Lebanon but found it increasingly difficult not to react to Israel's preemptive and punitive strikes, aerial reconnaissance, and raids into Lebanon. Still, despite the apparent radicalization and ideological nature of the regime and the chronic state of Syrian-Israeli relations, Syria conducted its contest with Israel in Lebanon with remarkable pragmatism. Syria's and Israel's long-term goals in Lebanon were conflicting. For a brief period in 1976, they both supported the same party, but as a rule they backed rival protagonists in the struggle for Lebanon's future. In this struggle, Syria carefully calculated Israel's interests, sensitivities, and capabilities and sought to minimize direct contact. The first clash between Syria and Israel in Lebanon occurred in the spring of 1979, when the Syrian air force challenged its Israeli counterpart and lost. For the next two years, direct Syrian-Israeli conflict in Lebanon was confined to a series of similarly unsuccessful Syrian attempts.

Most significant, though, were the domestic repercussions of Syria's involvement in Lebanon. The regime headed by Hafiz al-Asad, which from 1970 to 1976 had enjoyed domestic and external successes, encountered difficulties in 1977 which developed into a serious crisis that the regime has not yet been able to overcome. Its eruption was to a large extent a side-effect of Syria's 1976 intervention in Lebanon, which fanned Syria's communal tensions, caused friction in the regime's upper echelons, compounded economic difficulties, and embittered the public. It was against this background

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that radical elements in the Syrian Muslim brotherhood decided to follow Iranian tactics in a renewed attempt to topple the regime. Their successive challenges—a campaign of personal terror in 1977, the massacre of the Alawi artillery cadets in 1979, the revolt in Syria's northern cities later that year, and the attempt on Asad's life in 1980—nearly brought down the regime.¹⁴

The protracted domestic crisis imposed, in turn, serious constraints on Syria's policy in Lebanon. In 1979 and 1980, the Ba'thi leadership found it increasingly difficult to attend to Lebanon and was sometimes even hard-pressed to spare the necessary troops when it was using large military formations to suppress the opposition in northern Syria. Furthermore, Syrian public opinion was less likely to tolerate Syrian casualties over the Lebanese crisis than over the conflict with Israel. And when Saudi Arabia and its client states changed their attitude toward Syria's role in Lebanon and reduced their financial support for Syria's military presence there, the cost of keeping a large military contingent in Lebanon became more burdensome. Finally, although in the long run control over Lebanon would enhance Syria's defensive and offensive posture vis-à-vis Israel, for the time being the maintenance of some thirty thousand troops in Lebanon without the necessary military infrastructure weakened Syria's position, which had already been undermined by the Egyptian-Israeli negotiations and subsequent peace treaty.

Early in 1980, these considerations persuaded Asad to announce a partial withdrawal and a redeployment of Syrian forces in Lebanon. The announcement produced one of the telling ironies in the Lebanese crisis, because even some of the harshest Lebanese critics of Syria's role in Lebanon expressed their dismay at the prospect of an early Syrian withdrawal. With the fundamental issues of the crisis still unresolved, a withdrawal was likely to result in a recrudescence of an all-out crisis, for which the Lebanese Front, for instance, was not ready.

## The Palestine Liberation Organization

The Lebanese civil war had a paradoxical effect on the PLO and on its standing in Lebanon. In the war's immediate aftermath, its consequences from the PLO's vantage point appeared negative. For the

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second time within six years, Palestinians clashed with an Arab state and were defeated politically and militarily. Syria stopped short of consummating her victory but continued trying to subdue and harness the PLO in more subtle ways during the final months of 1976 and early 1977. The organization's only autonomous territorial base and only direct access to Israel's borders were in danger of being lost.

But a few months later, the situation began to change. The opening of the Israeli-Egyptian peace process led Syria and the Palestinians to mend fences. Tension and conflict between them remained, but the PLO's virtual freedom of operation in Lebanon was restored. This enabled the PLO to take full advantage of the disintegration of the Lebanese state to expand and develop the territory of Palestinian autonomy. In the early 1970s, it had practically expropriated the refugee camps and Lebanon's southeastern corner (Fatahland). By the end of the decade, the organization was the actual government in a continuous area stretching from West Beirut to the Litani River. The paraphernalia of government and statehood offended the Lebanese, who referred to it angrily as al-watan al-badil (the alternative homeland). It was limited to the western sector of Lebanon's southern half. In the eastern sector, PLO units were under Syrian control, and in the central sector they were kept at arm's length by the Druze population, a tenacious defender of its own territory and autonomy. Most of the area south of the Litani was held by the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), which was dispatched to the south in 1978, and Major Haddad's militias.

A number of social and political processes were generated by the establishment of PLO dominion over a sizable territory and a sizable population. Among the Palestinian population of southern Lebanon the patterns established between 1948 and 1970 were disrupted by the changes of the early 1970s. During the 1950s and 1960s the Palestinians seem to have become an intermediate class between the traditional elite and the mostly Shi'i peasantry. But the influx of Palestinian refugees from the Jordanian civil war of 1970 created a new Palestinian elite, affluent and armed. As the area became a battleground between the PLO and Israel, with the imposition of greater PLO control, the organization's authority over the Palestinian population became complete.

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Built into this process was a conflict with the local Lebanese political forces in the south. The development of the PLO's political power and territorial base was part of the wave of change that in the late 1960s and early 1970s undermined the position of the traditional Lebanese leadership. Later, the development of the PLO's position proceeded at the expense of its local allies, the Lebanese opponents of the beleaguered or ousted traditional elite. The PLO's predominance over most of its Lebanese partners in the revisionist coalition was felt still more acutely in southern Lebanon, where much of its physical presence and attention were concentrated. The most significant aspect of the antagonism between the Palestinians and their erstwhile allies there was their conflict with al-Amal, the organization that had displaced the Shi'i Zu'ama of the south. Thus the Palestinians were pitted against the single largest group in southern Lebanon, the Shi'is—which also had an important representation in Beirut.¹⁵

For the PLO in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the autonomous territorial base stretching from West Beirut to the vicinity of the Lebanese Israeli border had a number of important functions. It provided the organization with a comparatively firm foundation for developing its power and standing as an actor in Palestinian, Arab, and Lebanese politics. The Palestinian leadership was aware, on the basis of experience, of the difference between an organization depending on the support and good will of one or several Arab countries and one that enjoyed many of the advantages inherent in virtual statehood without some of the limitations that normally entailed.

At its northern edge, in Beirut, the PLO's territorial base put it on the scene in an important center of regional and international politics and communications. Its presence in Lebanon's political center was, and was perceived as, essential for maintaining its influence on Lebanese politics. At the other end, proximity to Israel's northern border was vital for a continuation of the "armed struggle" against Israel. Having formally renounced terrorist activities in 1974, the PLO came to depend almost exclusively on operations launched through Lebanon to preserve its character as a fighting movement.

But its leadership was also aware of the price exacted by the creation and maintenance of a large territorial base. Conflict with former allies was but one aspect of the transformation undergone by

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a movement which came to exercise power over population and territory. Other repercussions affected the PLO's posture vis-à-vis Israel, which became increasingly a stance based on regular or semi-regular formations deployed in southern Lebanon. The organization's doctrine was developed to accommodate the new reality: Israel remained the target but a large-scale conflict in southern Lebanon was depicted as an interim phase. In the summer of 1981 such a clash appeared inevitable and imminent. The PLO's preparations for it are described in chapter 5.¹⁶

## Israeli Policies

The outbreak and evolution of the Lebanese civil war ended the third phase of Israel's relationship with the Lebanese state.

During the first few years of Israeli independence, Israel's outlook on Lebanon was still influenced by the close relationship between Palestine's Jewish community and several Maronite religious and political leaders of the 1930s and 1940s. Such Maronite leaders as the Patriarch Antun Arida, archbishops Ignatius Mubarak and Abdallah al-Khuri, and President Emile Eddé, seeing a community of fate between Maronites and Jews against the pressure of Islam and Pan-Arab nationalism, supported the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.¹⁷ The political department of the Jewish Agency cultivated relations with non-Maronite politicians as well, but its most significant achievements were among Maronites. This suited and reinforced a concept dominant among Zionist—and subsequently Israeli—leaders, of an alliance of minorities, a belief that the Yishuv (the Jewish community in mandatory Palestine) and, later on, Israel could break out of isolation by joining forces with other foes and victims of Pan-Arab nationalism.¹⁸ In 1946, the relationship with the Maronite community in Lebanon was formalized by an agreement between the Jewish Agency and the Maronite church, but the agreement's limited value was reflected in the latter's insistence that the treaty be kept secret, and the ensuing controversy between Patriarch Arida and his emissary, Tawfiq Awwad, who both sought to disassociate themselves from it.¹⁹ Indeed, when the other Arab states decided to participate in the first Arab-Israeli war,

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the Lebanese government bowed to domestic and external pressure and joined the war effort. The Lebanese army in fact fought well in the Galilee.²⁰

David Ben-Gurion's 1948–49 diaries and the recently opened files of the Israeli Foreign Ministry shed light on the extent of Israel's relationship with various Lebanese politicians in the late 1940s as well as on Israeli contacts with a Phalangist emissary in the war's immediate aftermath. The Israelis were not averse to a Phalangist (or another variety of “Christian”) takeover in Lebanon; they were, however, dubious as to its prospects. As late as 1954–55, Israeli leaders like Ben-Gurion and Moshe Dayan believed that Israel could take advantage of separatist Maronite sentiments (which had become marginal in the 1940s), to bring about a pro-Israeli change in Lebanon. Other Israelis, most notably Moshe Sharett, understood that most Maronites had accepted the post-1943 pluralistic Lebanese system and that Israel, too, ought to accept it as an established fact.²¹

This, indeed, was done for the next twenty years, during which Israel's relations with Lebanon were a marginal aspect of its Middle Eastern policies. Lebanon was perceived as Israel's one harmless Arab neighbor, a state that since 1949 had not taken part in Arab-Israeli wars and would perhaps improve relations and even make peace if it were up to the Christians. But the Maronite community's standing was being eroded and Israel, as a supporter of the status quo, could only offer discreet aid to its friends.

It became increasingly difficult, however, for Israel to tread softly in a country that after 1970 was the PLO's principal base. Israel was, in fact, in a harsh dilemma. In establishing itself in Lebanon and in expanding its autonomy and activity, the PLO took advantage of the Lebanese state's weakness and contributed to its disintegration. Israel, by staging preemptive and punitive raids, reduced PLO pressure on its own border but played into the hands of those who sought to weaken the Lebanese state further and transform it into an entity far less acceptable to Israel.

In the winter of 1975–76 such a transformation appeared imminent. The collapse of the Lebanese state and political system, the ascendancy of the PLO and its Lebanese allies, and the specter of Syrian intervention persuaded the Israeli government that the sta-

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tus quo in Lebanon could be preserved no longer. It considered three possible policy lines. First, Israel could decide to intervene in the crisis and was in fact invited to do so by the Maronite leaders with whom it was now dealing directly. But Prime Minister Rabin declined. His regional policy was focused on Egypt and predicated on Israel's coordination with the United States. In September 1975, the interim agreement on the Sinai was signed, and in January 1976, Rabin returned from Washington with an agreement in principle on the next stage of the Israeli-Egyptian settlement process. He believed that a massive Israeli intervention on behalf of the status-quo militias was bound to lead to war with Syria and disrupt the fragile peace process. Rabin's attitude toward the status-quo militias was skeptical. He was willing to help them but not to commit Israeli troops to fight on their behalf.

Second, if Israel did not intervene and the traditional Lebanese entity was doomed, then a Syrian takeover was preferable to domination by the PLO and its allies. Syria's standing in the region and vis-à-vis Israel would be enhanced, but Israeli deterrence of Syria would then have to include not only the Golan front, but Lebanon as well. The third policy line was an intermediate one, accepting Syrian intervention but with limitations (the red line) arranged through the United States. Syria would not dispatch forces south of the Litani River, would not use its air force, and would not deploy ground-to-air missiles on Lebanon's territory. Israel would continue its relationship with the status-quo militias. This is the policy Israel adopted.³²

The ground for a radical change in Israel's policy toward Lebanon was prepared by the 1977 Israeli elections and the rise to power of Menachem Begin and the Likud bloc. Begin's foreign policy was bolder and more activist than Rabin's; he reduced the level of coordination with the Carter administration, and he sympathized with Lebanon's Christian communities. They fitted into his world view, which emphasized the similar course of their history with that of the Jewish people and assigned Israel a role as protector of Western and Christian interests more enthusiastic and committed than the Christian and Western powers themselves. But these factors did not come into play immediately. During Begin's first two years in power his regional policy, like Rabin's, was predicated on Egypt and governed

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by the negotiations that culminated with the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty in 1979.

In 1977 and 1978, Israel's preoccupation with the Palestinians in southern Lebanon overshadowed interest in the Lebanese crisis as a whole. Syria's relations with the PLO gradually improved, easing PLO operations in southern Lebanon. Israel built an elaborate defense system along the Lebanese border, supported three enclaves of Major Sa'd Haddad's militias, and struck Palestinian targets in Lebanon. It was a generally effective strategy, but the occasional Palestinian penetration of the defensive system was dramatic, even traumatic. In March 1978, a Palestinian squad originating in Lebanon infiltrated Israel's naval patrols, landed near the coastal highway south of Haifa, took over a bus full of passengers, and was only stopped near Tel Aviv. The heavy casualties and Israel's obvious vulnerability persuaded the Israeli government to launch the massive Litani operation later that month.

The operation was based on the assumption that the problem of southern Lebanon could be solved, or at least neutralized, by destroying the PLO's military strength south of the Litani without attempting to resolve the larger Lebanese crisis. It caused numerous casualties and much destruction and failed to solve the problem. But it did have several important consequences: Haddad's territory became a continuous strip along the Israeli border; a large Shi'i element was added to Haddad's militias and to the population they controlled; and UNIFIL was introduced to the region.

But although Israel conducted an operation of such magnitude, it resisted the temptation to become involved in the conflict that developed in 1978 between Syria and the Lebanese Front in Beirut. Israel supported the Front with arms and military training, and the Israeli air force flew warning missions above Beirut, but the Begin government was determined not to be drawn into war with Syria over Lebanon's future.

Only late in 1980 did a change in that policy become detectable. Israel's new attitude to the Lebanese crisis manifested itself in a closer alliance with Bashir Jumayyil, now the unquestioned leader of the Lebanese Front, in Israel's greater commitment to the Front, and in its determination to bring about Syria's departure from Lebanon. When and precisely how the change occurred is difficult to

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determine, but it is clear that many of the reservations about Israel's relationship with the Lebanese Front that had been held by the Rabin government, and by the Begin government itself during its first two years in power, disappeared during its third year.

Several developments combined to bring about the new direction and set Begin on a policy course in Lebanon that suited his own predilections. Both Moshe Dayan and Ezer Weizman, the foreign and defense ministers who as a rule had exerted a moderating influence, resigned from Begin's first cabinet. Begin became his own defense minister and the chief of staff, General Rafael Eytan, an advocate of a forceful Israeli policy in Lebanon, gained influence in the formulation and conduct of Israel's national security policies. A number of regional developments had a similar impact.

By the end of 1979, Israel's regional and foreign policies were no longer governed, as they had been in the previous two years, by the negotiations with Egypt and the transformation of the settlement process into a peace process. The new relationship with Egypt had followed its course, and its limitations had become fully apparent; other aspects of Israel's regional policy now took on greater prominence. The weakening of Asad's regime in Syria and its apparent difficulties in maintaining Syria's position in Lebanon, plus the new set of attitudes displayed by the Reagan administration, induced the Israeli government to believe that the time might have come to seek Syria's eviction from Lebanon.

But perhaps most important were the development of Bashir Jumayyil's personality and leadership, the build-up of his party's and militia's power, and the dynamics of the relationship between him and his Israeli allies. By 1980, Bashir Jumayyil had developed, at least in some Israeli eyes, from the charming and volatile younger son of a veteran political leader into the mature head of the single most powerful political and military force in Lebanon, a real ally of Israel, and a man with the capacity to change the paradigms of both the Lebanese crisis and the Lebanese polity.

### The Crisis, 1977–82

The evolution of the Lebanese crisis from the end of the civil war to the war of June 1982 can be conveniently divided into seven phases:

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### From Riyad to Shtura, October 1976 to July 1977

In this transitional period, patterns were fixed that characterized the Lebanese crisis until its transformation in 1982. Syria invested considerable efforts consolidating its position. Its relations with the Maronite leaders were no longer intimate, but they were still good. Junblatt's assassination blunted the left's opposition to Syria and facilitated its subordination to Syrian authority. Elyas Sarkis began his term as president in September, and in December, Salim al-Huss, his confidant and economic adviser, formed a "technocrats'" cabinet. Syrian influence and aims were apparent in the first measure taken by the Huss cabinet, the censorship of the Lebanese press. As a result, several leading publishers and journalists (along with anti-Syrian politicians) moved to Europe, where, in a freer atmosphere, they published their magazines and newspapers for the large Arab communities which had formed there after 1973. One publisher, Salim al-Lawzi of *Al-Hawadith*, made the mistake of returning to Lebanon where he was kidnaped, killed, and mutilated, apparently by Syria's emissaries.²³

Less sinister was Syria's success, in cooperation with the Sarkis-Huss administration, in restoring a measure of public order in Lebanon and launching a process of rebuilding and economic rehabilitation. They were not so successful, however, in devising a formula for national reconciliation and in disarming the militias of the Lebanese Front and of the PLO and its Lebanese allies. The Lebanese Front refused to disarm as long as the PLO remained an armed presence in Lebanon. A compromise formula applying the principles of the Cairo Agreement was finally arrived at. But all attempts to implement it failed, and the various militias retained their weapons and their high political profiles.

During the same months, southern Lebanon, which had enjoyed the benefits of benign neglect when the civil war was being fought in the center and the north, became again a focus of tension, not only because of renewed Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but also because the PLO's drift southward and conflicts between Lebanese factions reversed the earlier trend. The level of violence in the south escalated while the center and the north passed through a period of relative calm. Israel's policy of giving humanitarian aid to the civilian population on the one hand and building up Major Haddad's militia on the other.

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APPENDIX

Damascus during the past weeks." This message was given to my political adviser, Adib ad-Dawudi. I read the message he sent me, and I wrote my reply on a piece of paper so he would convey it. I said: First, Syria feels that the contents of the message constitute an ultimatum. It categorically rejects this ultimatum. [applause] Second, Syria is not ready now and will not be ready in the future to accept any ultimatum from any quarter in the world. [applause] Third, what is happening in Lebanon is an internal Arab affair. The Arabs alone are entitled to deal with this matter. Fourth, the only consideration which has defined and defines, now and in the future, the dimensions of the Syrian intervention in Lebanon, including the size and the positions of the Syrian forces—including the size of the Syrian forces and the positions of the Syrian forces—is the interest of the people of Lebanon, because our history is one, our future is one and our destiny is one. [applause] This was my reply to the message we got from the United States, to the ultimatum we received from the United States. The reply is clear. I have read out these two communications to you and I do not want to comment. It is up to the people to judge after this and to understand how Syria deals with all peoples with honor and sincerity. [applause] Syria will remain a bright beacon to guide all the struggling of our Arab nation. [applause] We in this country shall remain noble and dignified, acting on the basis of our principles and ideals. We do not flatter or compromise our aims and principles. We embody the pride, dignity and message of our Arab nation. [applause] Every hand that attempts to harm the dignity and pride of this great people, who are sacrificing all they have for the sake of their pride and the pride of their nation, shall be severed. [applause] I shall relentlessly and unhesitatingly struggle as long as I live to safeguard the trust you have placed in me. [applause] Whoever traverses the path of the people will not get lost. Whoever traverses your path—the path of the people—will not get lost because the path of the people is the road of right and reality. Brothers, let us have faith in God and have confidence in the people. Whoever believes in God and has confidence in the people and works for the sake of the people, he will inevitably triumph. Peace be upon you. [applause]

236

Notes

Chapter 1. The Lebanese Paradox

1. See Iliya Harik, *Lebanon: Anatomy of Conflict* (Hanover, N.H.: American Universities Field Staff, 1981).

2. On this point, see the instructive criticism by Albert H. Hourani of Kamal Salibi's book, *The Modern History of Lebanon* (London: Weidenfeld, 1965). The review was published under the title "Lebanon from Feudalism to Modern State," *Middle Eastern Studies*, 2 (1966), 256-63. Salibi's interpretation of Lebanon's modern history can also be found in two of his essays: "The Lebanese Identity," *Journal of Contemporary History*, 6 (1971), 76-86; and "The Personality of Lebanon in Relation to the Modern World," in L. Binder, ed., *Politics in Lebanon* (New York: Wiley, 1966), pp. 263-70. In Salibi's later work on the origins of the civil war, *Crossroads to Civil War: Lebanon, 1958-1976* (Delmar, N.Y.: Caravan Books, 1976), a change of perspective can be discerned.

3. On the history of the autonomous Mutasarifiyya, see John P. Spagnolo, *France and Ottoman Lebanon, 1861-1914* (London: Ithaca Press, 1977).

4. On the demands of the Maronite nationalists, see John P. Spagnolo, "Mount Lebanon, France and Dâûd Pasha: A Study of Some Aspects of Political Habitation," *International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies*, 2 (1971), 148-67; Meir Zamir, "Smaller and Greater Lebanon—The Squaring of a Circle?" *Jerusalem Quarterly*, 23 (Spring 1982), 35-53; and C. M. Andrew and A. S. Kanya-Forstner, *France Overseas* (London: Thames & Hudson, 1981), pp. 177-79.

5. See Zamir, "Smaller and Greater Lebanon," and E. Kedourie, "Lebanon: The Perils of Independence," in his *Islam in the Modern World* (London: Mansell, 1980), pp. 85-91.

6. Quoted by Meir Zamir, "Emile Eddé and the Territorial Integrity of Lebanon," *Middle Eastern Studies*, 14 (May 1978), 232-35. On Emile Eddé's role in Lebanese politics in the interwar period, see Salibi, *Modern History of Lebanon*, pp. 171-78.

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 1

7. In a meeting of the directorate of the Jewish Agency on February 11, 1945, Weizmann, the president of the agency, reported that, "The son of the former president came to me. A Christian under a strong French influence—he came with a proposal . . . that he would like to hand over to us, to the national home, Tyre and Sidon . . . because there are there a hundred thousand Muslims. I responded by saying that my grandfather used to say that he would not receive a 'biting' gift; but he would not relent, and said that he will come again" (minutes of the Jewish Agency Directorate General; I am grateful to Dr. Z. Ganin for bringing this quotation to my attention).

8. Compare Salibi, "Lebanese Identity"; N. A. Faris, "Lebanon, Land of Light," in James Kritzeck and R. B. Winder, ed., *The World of Islam* (London: Macmillan, 1960), pp. 336-50; and Albert H. Hourani, "Ideologies of the Mountain and the City," in R. Owen, ed., *Essays on the Crisis in Lebanon* (London: Ithaca Press, 1976), pp. 33-41.

9. The standard work on the evolution of Lebanon's political institutions is still Pierre Rondot's *Les institutions politiques du Liban* (Paris: Maisonneuve, 1947).

10. See Arnold Hottinger, "Zu'ama in Historical Perspective," in Binder, ed., *Politics in Lebanon*, pp. 85-105.

11. Peter Gubser, "The Zu'ama of Zahlah: The Current Situation in a Lebanese Town," *Middle East Journal*, 27 (Summer 1973).

12. Ibid., p. 181.

13. When it was still considered a success story, the Lebanese political system was often cited as a distinctive example of a consociational democracy at work. See particularly David R. Smock and Audrey C. Smock, *The Politics of Pluralism* (New York: Elsevier, 1975). On the concept of consociational democracy, see Arend Lijphart, "Consecional Democracy," *World Politics*, 21 (January 1969), 207-25.

14. See Michael Hudson, *The Precarious Republic: Modernization in Lebanon* (New York: Random House, 1968), pp. 105-8.

15. On the 1958 civil war, see Salibi, *Modern History of Lebanon*, pp. 198-204; Hudson, *Precarious Republic*, pp. 108-16; Malcolm Kerr, "Lebanese Views on the 1958 Crisis," *Middle East Journal*, 15 (Spring 1961), 211-17; and Camille Chamoun, *Crise au Moyen Orient* (Paris: Gallimard, 1963).

16. On Shihab's presidency and reforms, see Kamal Salibi, "Lebanon under Fouad Chehab 1958-1964," *Middle Eastern Studies*, 2 (1966), 211-26; and Hudson, *Precarious Republic*, pp. 297-331.

17. Titles of works on Lebanon published in the late 1960s and early 1970s reflect the same extremes of optimism and pessimism. See Leila Meo, *Lebanon, Improbable Nation: A Study in Political Development* (1965; rpt. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1976); Hudson, *Precarious Republic*; and Elie A. Salem, *Modernization without Revolution: Lebanon's Experience* (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973). The state-of-the-art volume on Lebanese politics in the mid-1960s is the collection of essays edited by Binder, *Politics in Lebanon*.

18. J. Zuwiyya, *The Parliamentary Elections of Lebanon, 1968* (Leiden: Brill, 1972); H. Zamir, "The Electoral Campaign and the Elections (Jan.-Apr.)," in D. Dishon, ed., *Middle East Record*, 4 (1968), 624-42.

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 2

19. On the Faranjiyya family, see Hottinger, "Zu'ama in Historical Perspective."

20. Halim Barakat, *Lebanon in Strife: Student Preludes to the Civil War* (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1977), pp. 185-99; and Barakat, "Social and Political Integration in Lebanon: A Case of Social Mosaic," *Middle East Journal*, 27 (Summer 1973), 301-318.

21. Iliya Harik, "The Economic and Social Factors in the Lebanese Crisis," *Journal of Arab Affairs*, 1 (1982), 209-241. Ironically, Harik mentions that his conclusions derive in part from a study he conducted together with Halim Barakat.

Chapter 2. The Second Civil War, 1975-76

1. The most comprehensive description of the events that led to the Lebanese civil war of the mid-1970s is Kamal Salibi, *Crossroads to Civil War: Lebanon, 1958-1976* (Delmar, N.Y.: Caravan Books, 1976).

2. See Iliya Harik, *Lebanon: Anatomy of Conflict* (Hanover, N.H.: American Universities Field Staff, 1981).

3. *Death in Beirut*, tr. Leslie McLoughlin (Washington, D.C.: Three Continents Press, 1978).

4. Fuad I. Khuri, "Sectarian Loyalty among Rural Migrants in Two Lebanese Suburbs: A Stage Between Family and National Allegiance," in R. Antoun and I. Harik, eds., *Rural Politics and Social Changes in the Middle East* (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1972), pp. 198-213.

5. See Itamar Rabinovich, "The Limits of Military Power: Syria's Role," in P. E. Haley and L. W. Snider, eds., *Lebanon in Crisis: Participants and Issues* (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1979), pp. 55-73; and Adeed I. Dawisha, *Syria and the Lebanese Crisis* (London: Macmillan, 1980).

6. See *Al-Hayat* (Beirut), February 24, 1973, April 4, 1973, and July 6, 1973; and *Al-Nahar* (Beirut), July 6, 1973.

7. Jean Aucagne, "L'Imam Moussa Sader et la Communauté Chiite," *Travaux et Jours* (October-December 1974), pp. 31-51; Tom Sicking and Sherwin Khairallah, "The Shi'a Awakening in Lebanon: A Search for Radical Change in a Traditional Way," *Ceman Report* 1974 (Beirut: Center for the Study of the Modern Arab World, 1976), pp. 85-126. On the connection between the Iranian revolution and southern Lebanon, see Joseph Alpher, "The Khomeini International," *Washington Quarterly*, 3 (Autumn 1980), 54-74.

8. Quoted in Sicking and Khairallah, "The Shi'a Awakening in Lebanon: A Search for Radical Change in a Traditional Way."

9. See Michael Hudson, "The Palestinian Factor in the Lebanese Civil War," *Middle East Journal*, 32 (1978), 261-78; and Michael W. Suleiman, "Crisis and Revolution in Lebanon, *Middle East Journal*, 26 (1972), 11-24.

10. Kamal Salibi, "Right and Left in Lebanon," in G. Stein and U. Steinbach, eds., *The Contemporary Middle Eastern Scene* (Opladen: Leske, 1979), pp. 97-103. See also Salah Khalaf, "Changing Forms of Political Patronage in Lebanon," in E. Gellner and J. Waterbary, eds., *Patrons and Clients in*

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## NOTES TO CHAPTER 3

*Mediterranean Societies* (London: Duckworth, 1977), pp. 185-205; and M. Johnson, "Political Bosses and Their Gangs: Zu'ama and Qabadayat in the Sunni Muslim Quarters of Beirut," ibid., pp. 207-24.

11. See F. Stoakes, "The Supervigilantes: The Lebanese Kataeb Party as Builder, Surrogate, and Defender of the State," *Middle Eastern Studies*, 11 (1975), 215-36.

12. See Rabinovich, "Limits of Military Power."

13. Thus Emile Eddé in 1932 wrote in a memorandum to the Quai d'Orsay that "France has a great economic and political interest in consolidating her position, at least on the Syrian coast. . . . In order to reach this kind of consolidation it would be wise to keep and develop French administration at both Alexandretta and the Alawi region and expedite the territorial reduction of Lebanon." See Meir Zamir, "Smaller and Greater Lebanon—The Squaring of a Circle?" *Jerusalem Quarterly*, 23 (Spring 1982), 35-53.

14. Itamar Rabinovich, "The Greater Syria Plan and the Palestine Problem—Historical Roots, 1919-1939," *Jerusalem Cathedra*, 2 (1982), 259-71; Elizabeth Picard, "L'évolution récente du Parti Populaire Syrien," *Maghreb Machrek*, 78 (1977), 74-76.

15. Kamal Junblatt, *Hadhi-hi Wisayati* (This is my legacy) (Beirut, 1978), p. 28.

16. *Observer* (London), March 6, 1977.

17. See Galia Golan and Itamar Rabinovich, "The Soviet Union and Syria: The Limits of Co-operation," in Y. Ro'i, ed., *The Limits of Power: Soviet Policy in the Middle East* (London: Croom Helm, 1979), pp. 213-31; I. Kass, "Moscow and the Lebanese Triangle," *Middle East Journal*, 33 (1979), 164-87; and R. Freedman, "The Soviet Union and the Civil War in Lebanon, 1975-76," *Jerusalem Journal of International Relations*, 3 (Summer 1978), 60-93.

18. See "The Syrian Invasion of Lebanon: Military Moves as a Political Instrument," (in Hebrew) in the Israeli army's monthly, *Ma'arachot*, July 1977.

19. Radio Damascus, July 20, 1976. On April 12, Asad had delivered on Radio Damascus another revealing speech in which several of the themes that were fully developed in July appear in an embryonic form. For the text of the July 20 speech see the appendix to this volume.

### Chapter 3. Political Parties and Factions

1. See the interesting characterization of the Maronite community by Walid Khalidi, *Conflict and Violence in Lebanon* (Cambridge, Mass.: Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, 1979), pp. 68-72; and Elizabeth Picard, "Rôle et évolution du Front Libanais dans la guerre civile," *Maghreb Machrek*, 90 (1980), 16-39.

2. On the Phalange see John P. Entelis, *Pluralism and Party Transformation in Lebanon: Al-Kata'ib 1956-1970* (Leiden: Brill, 1974); F. Stoakes, "The Supervigilantes: The Lebanese Kataeb Party as Builder, Surrogate, and Defender of the State," *Middle Eastern Studies*, 9 (1975), 215-36; and Marius Deeb, *The Lebanese Civil War* (New York: Praeger, 1980), pp. 21-25. Note: the Western press transliteration of Jumayyil is Gemayel. In rendering Arabic

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## NOTES TO CHAPTER 3

and Israeli names I have used an intermediate system, not quite as loose as that employed by most of the Western press, but not so rigid as academic systems.

3. Quoted by Fuad I. Khuri, "Sectarian Loyalty among Rural Migrants in Two Lebanese Suburbs: A Stage between Family and National Allegiance," in R. Antoun and I. Harik, eds., *Rural Politics and Social Changes in the Middle East* (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1972), pp. 198-213.

4. *Greater Lebanon—A Half Century’s Tragedy* (in Arabic), University of Kaslik, October 1975.

5. See Deeb, *Lebanese Civil War*, pp. 25-28.

6. Chamoun's account of the civil war is given in Crise au Liban (Beirut, 1977).

7. An interesting and ironic description of Faranjiyya's modus operandi can be found in a PLO leader's account of the deterioration of Palestinian-Lebanese relations. See Abou Iyad, *Palestinien sans patrie: Entretiens avec Eric Rouleau* (Hebrew edition, Jerusalem: Mifras, 1978).

8. See Itamar Rabinovich, "Syria," in C. Legum and H. Shaked, eds., *Middle East Contemporary Survey 1976-77* (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1978), pp. 604-21; and Elizabeth Picard, "La Syrie de 1946 à 1979," in A. Raymond, ed., *La Syrie d'aujourd'hui* (Paris: Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1980), pp. 143-84.

9. Qassiss has been replaced by Father Bulus Na'aman.

10. On the earlier phases of Lebanon's military politics, see J. C. Hurewitz, *The Middle East Politics: The Military Dimension* (New York: Praeger, 1969).

11. See Deeb, *Lebanese Civil War*, pp. 30-31.

12. Kamal Junblatt, *Hadhi-hi Wisayati* (This is my legacy) (Beirut, 1978), p. 102.

13. On the history of the Lebanese Communist party, see Elyas Murqus, *A History of the Communist Parties in the Arab Homeland* (in Arabic) (Beirut: Dar al-Tali'a, 1964); and J. Coland, "Le Parti Communiste libannaise 50 ans après," *Maghreb Machrek*, 68 (1975), 61-75. On the more recent developments of the 1970s, see *The Lebanese Communists and the Tasks of the Present Phase* (Beirut: Lebanese Communist Party, 1972).

14. See John F. Devlin, *The Ba'th Party: A History from Its Origins to 1966* (Stanford: Hoover Institution Publications, 1976), pp. 110-11 and 204-06.

15. See Walid Kazziha, *Revolutionary Transformation in the Arab World* (London: C. Knight, 1975).

16. On the history of the PPS in Syria and Lebanon, see Labib Zuwiyya Yamak, *The Syrian Social Nationalist Party: An Ideological Analysis* (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969); M. Van Dusen, "Political Integration and Regionalism in Syria," *Middle East Journal*, 26 (1972), 123-36; and Hisham Sharabi, *Ashes and Embers* (in Arabic) (Beirut: Manshurat Ibn Rushd, 1978), a memoir of the author's membership and activity in the party in the 1940s.

17. A detailed description of the abortive coup can be found in Y. Oron, ed., *Middle East Record*, 2 (1961), 398-404.

18. See Elizabeth Picard, "L'évolution récente du Parti Populaire Syrien," *Maghreb Machrek*, 78 (1977), 74-76.

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 4

19. See M. Farouk-Sluglett and P. Sluglett, "Aspects of the Changing Nature of Lebanese Confessional Politics: Al-Murabitun, 1958-1979," *Liban, Remises en Cause Peuples Mediterraneens*, 20 (1982), 59-73.

20. Later in the 1970s, a rivalry developed between the Palestinian organizations in southern Lebanon and Mustafa Sa'd and other local leaders who refused to accept the hegemony of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

21. The traditional political system of Tripoli is described in J. Gulick, *Tripoli, a Modern Arab City* (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967).

22. For an illuminating study of the Sunni politics of Beirut, see M. Johnson, "Factional Politics in Lebanon: The Case of the 'Islamic Society of Benevolent Intentions' (Al-Maqāsid) in Beirut," *Middle Eastern Studies*, 14 (1978), 56-75.

23. See Salah Khalaf, "Changing Forms of Political Patronage in Lebanon," in E. Gellner and J. Waterbury, eds., *Patrons and Clients in Mediterranean Societies* (London: Duckworth, 1977).

24. Kamal Junblatt, *Hadhi-hi Wisayati*, p. 105.

25. Legum and Shaked, eds., *Middle East Contemporary Survey 1976-77*, p. 185.

26. See Khalidi, *Conflict and Violence in Lebanon*, pp. 79-82.

Chapter 4. The Lingering Crisis

1. See W. Quandt, *Decade of Decisions* (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), pp. 281-84; and R. Stookey, "The United States," in P. E. Haley and L. W. Snider, eds., *Lebanon in Crisis: Participants and Issues* (Syria, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1979), pp. 225-48.

2. Quoted in Fuad Ajami, *The Arab Predicament* (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 157.

3. On the evolution of the Reagan administration's outlook on Israel and the Lebanese crisis, see the revealing piece by Z. Schiff, "The Green Light," *Foreign Policy* (March 1983), 73-85.

4. U.S. International Communication Agency press release, Tel Aviv, April 6, 1981.

5. Itamar Rabinovich, "The Foreign Policy of Syria: Goals, Capabilities, Constraints and Options," *Survival* (July 1982), 175-83.

6. TASS (Moscow), May 22 and 28, 1981.

7. See Ali E. Hillal Dessouki, "The New Arab Political Order: Implications for the 1980's," in Malcolm Kerr and El Sayed Yassin, eds., *Rich and Poor States in the Middle East* (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1982), pp. 319-47.

8. Dina Kehat, "Syria," in C. Legum and H. Shaked, eds., *Middle East Contemporary Survey, 1977-78* (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1979), pp. 732-38.

9. Itamar Rabinovich and H. Zamir, "Lebanon," in ibid., pp. 603-27. This interpretation is different from the one presented by Walid Khalidi in *Conflict and Violence in Lebanon* (Cambridge, Mass.: Center for International

242

NOTES TO CHAPTER 4

Affairs, Harvard University, 1979), pp. 121-43, where he argues that the process of reconstruction and reconciliation was impressive and that it was Israel's Litani operation that obstructed this development.

10. Elizabeth Picard, "Rôle et évolution du Front Libanais dans la guerre civile," *Magreb Machrek*, 90 (1980), 16-39.

11. See for instance *Al-Mauqif al-Arabi* (Beirut), June 8, 1981; and *Sabah al-Khayr* (Beirut), September 12, 1981. See also the illuminating piece by Percy Kemp, "La stratégie de Bashir Gemayel," *Hérodote*, 29/30 (1983), 55-82.

12. For accounts of Tony Faranjiyya's murder, see *New York Times*, June 14, 1978; and *International Herald Tribune* (Paris), same date. The Phalangist version was given by their radio station on June 13, 1978.

13. *Al-Nahar* (Beirut), July 7, 1980; *As Safir* (Beirut), July 7, 1980; *Washington Post*, July 10, 1980.

14. A. Drysdale, "The Asad Regime and Its Troubles," *Merip Reports*, 12 (1982), 3-11.

15. This analysis of the PLO's buildup in southern Lebanon draws on a study conducted in Palestinian refugee camp by Zvi Lanir of Tel Aviv University's Center for Strategic Studies. See his "The PLO's concept of 'Armed Struggle' as Tested in the 'Peace for Galilee' War" (in Hebrew) *Ma'arachot*, September 1982.

16. See Dan Schuftan, "The P.L.O. and the Lebanon War—An Interim Assessment," in *The Lebanon War—Between Protest and Compliance* (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1983), pp. 80-98; and Matti Steinberg, "Trends and Changes in the P.L.O.," in ibid., pp. 61-79.

17. On these relationships, see the memoirs of two Arab experts of the Jewish Agency's political department: Eliahu Elath, *Zionism and the Arabs* (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1974), pp. 294-314; and Eliahu Sasson, *On the Road to Peace* (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1978), pp. 122-29. The heads of the Maronite church in Lebanon spoke to the United Nations commission that looked into the future of Palestine, supporting the notion of a Jewish national home in Palestine. See A. Podet, "Husni al-Barazi on Arab Nationalism in Palestine," in E. Kedourie and Sylvia Haim, eds., *Zionism and Arabism in Palestine and Israel* (London: Frank Cass, 1982), pp. 171-81 and particularly pp. 180-81. On the Jewish relationship with the Lebanese Sunni politician Khair al-Din Ahdab, see Sasson, pp. 115-16. David Gurion's recently published diaries of the 1948-49 period (Tel Aviv: Ministry of Defence Publishing House, 1983) indicate a close cooperation between the Jewish Agency and Riad al-Sulh, Lebanese prime minister and prominent Sunni leader.

18. M. Brecher, *The Foreign Policy System of Israel* (London: Oxford University Press, 1972), pp. 45-58.

19. On the Maronite-Jewish treaty of 1946, see Bernard Joseph, *A Faithful City* (Hebrew edition, Tel Aviv: Schoken, 1960), pp. 215-16. The text of the treaty can be found in the Central Zionist Archives.

20. See E. Oren, "The Battles for the Galilee in the War of Independence," in A. Shmueli, A. Sofer, and N. Kliop, eds., *The Book of the Galilee* (Tel Aviv: Aretz Geographic Research, forthcoming). The essay sheds an interesting light on the Lebanese army's attitude to Christian and Muslim Arabs in the Galilee.

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 5

21. See chapter 6.

22. A cryptic account is found in Yitzhak Rabin's memoirs, *A Service Diary* (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Maariv Books, 1979), pp. 502–04. During the public debate on the war in Lebanon in 1982, Ariel Sharon, an adviser to Rabin in 1976–77, criticized the Israeli government's attitude of 1976.

23. The assassination of Salim al-Lawzi is depicted by Fuad Ajami (*Arab Predicament*, p. 2) as a symbol of a qualitative change that had taken place in Arab politics in the late 1970s.

24. Compare Zvi Lanir, *Israel's Involvement in Lebanon: A Precedent for an "Open" Game with Syria?* (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, Center for Strategic Studies, paper no. 10, April 1981); and R. Avi-Ran, "Is a Syrian-Israeli Settlement in Lebanon Possible? The Israeli-Syrian Understanding of 1976, a Possible Model for the Future" (in Hebrew) *Ma'arachot*, February 1983.

25. Later evidence revealed that in the fall of 1978 the Lebanese Front had exerted strong pressure on Israel to intervene on its behalf, arguing that otherwise the Front was likely to collapse under Syria's pressure.

26. See Kehat, "Syria."

27. See Itamar Rabinovich, "The Problem of South Lebanon," in Legum and Shaked, eds., *Middle East Contemporary Survey 1978-79* (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1980), pp. 673–76.

28. Picard, "Rôle et évolution du Front Libanais"; and also Kemp, "Le stratégie de Bashir Gemayel."

29. See chapter 6 for detailed discussion.

30. See Itamar Rabinovich, "The Lebanese Missile Crisis of 1981," in Legum and Shaked, eds., *Middle East Contemporary Survey, 1980-81* (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1982), pp. 167–81.

Chapter 5. War, June–September 1982

1. Statement by cabinet secretary Dan Meridor in Israeli government press bulletin, Jerusalem, June 6, 1982.

2. See, e.g., "The I.D.F.'s Action in Lebanon—Defence of the Peace of Israel and Her Citizens," background material issued by IDF, June 1982.

3. See David Shipler, "Israel Likely to Seek Power Shift in Lebanon," *International Herald Tribune*, June 11, 1982. Sharon discussed the subject in an interview on Israeli television on June 16, 1982.

4. For a critic of the Israeli government's aims see Yitzhak Rabin's two pieces *The War in Lebanon* (in Hebrew; Tel Aviv, 1983), and "Political Illusions and Their Price," in *The Lebanon War—Between Protest and Compliance* (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1983), pp. 13–22.

5. On the PLO's doctrinal approach to the nature of the prospective armed conflict with Israel in southern Lebanon, see the findings of the study conducted by Zvi Lanir, in *Ma'arachot*, September, 1982. For an essay expounding the view that nothing short of an operation reaching as far as Beirut would have removed the PLO challenge to Israel from southern Lebanon, see Dan Schuftan, "The PLO and the Lebanon War—An Interim Assessment," in *The Lebanon War*, pp. 80–98.

6. *Davar* (Tel Aviv), May 13, 1982; *Maariv* (Tel Aviv), May 17, 1982.

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 5

7. *Maariv*, April 18, 1982, April 6, 1982, and June 1, 1982.

8. See Sharon's interview with Oriana Fallaci, *Washington Post*, August 21, 1982.

9. See *Al-Amal* (Beirut), May 27, 1982; and *La Revue du Liban*, May 5, 1982.

10. Z. Schiff, "The Green Light," *Foreign Policy* (March 1983), pp. 73–85.

11. See "The War That Almost Was," Israeli government press office "Selections from the Hebrew Press," February 7, 1982. On General Sagi's visit to Washington, see *Haaretz* (Tel Aviv), February 10, 1982.

12. See Z. Schiff, "The Green Light."

13. U. S. *Department of State Bulletin*, July 1982, pp. 44–47.

14. For Begin's interpretation of the Camp David accords and for criticism of his approach by a former supporter, see Shmuel Katz, *Lo 'Oz velo Hadar* (Neither valor nor splendor) (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1981) and Uzi Benziman, *Rosh Memshala Bamatzor* (Prime minister under Siege) (Jerusalem: Adam, 1981).

15. Sharon's views on the policy to be conducted in the West Bank were spelled out in an interview published by *Der Spiegel* (Hamburg), April 5, 1982.

16. Cf. Mordechai Gazit, "The Middle East Peace Process," in *Middle East Contemporary Survey 1981-82* (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1984).

17. General Sagi made this point on more than one occasion. See for instance his interview in *Bamahane*, the IDF's weekly magazine, May 5, 1982.

18. *Haaretz*, March 30, 1982. For an earlier version see Z. Schiff, "Sharon's Red Lines," *Haaretz*, November 22, 1981.

19. Sharon's text, originally prepared as a lecture, was published in the Israeli press. For criticism of his approach, see *Maariv* and *Yedioth Ahronoth* (Tel Aviv), December 18, 1982; and M. Amit, "There Is Nothing New in Ariel Sharon's Strategic Gospel," *Maariv*, December 25, 1981.

20. For the evolution of the war plan see Amir Oren, "The Road to Beirut," in *The Lebanon War*, pp. 35–41.

21. Sharon alluded to these aims in several interviews and pronouncements during the summer of 1982; see, for instance, *Maariv*, September 17, 1982.

22. *Maariv*, September 17, 1982.

23. A particularly detailed and accurate report was given by John Chancellor on NBC News. For an Arab scenario, see *Al-Mustaqbal* (Beirut), May 22, 1982.

24. The most notable effort by Syria to signal its intentions to Israel was made on February 12, 1982, through Louis Fares, Radio Monte Carlo's correspondent in Damascus. The Ba'thi regime has used Fares on numerous occasions to transmit its outlook.

25. Politically the Israeli government was aided in its decision to fight Syria in Lebanon by the fact that Syrian forces opened fire on Israeli troops. Still, the scale was so small as to justify the argument that Syria was not interested in full-fledged fighting.

26. See *Yedioth Ahronoth*, June 10, 1982; *Haaretz*, June 10 and 11, 1982.

27. A decision made by the Israeli cabinet on June 15 entrusted that role to the Lebanese Forces. See the Kahan Commission's Report.

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 6

28. Since its contacts with Israel began in 1976, the Phalange presented the Palestinian problem in Lebanon as an "Israeli" problem. From their vantage point, Israel was responsible for the "injection" of the Palestinian refugees into the Lebanese body politic in 1949 and had a special responsibility to help Lebanon deal with the refugees as a necessary step in a reconstruction of the Lebanese state. See the interviews granted by "senior sources" in the Phalange to Israeli journalists in *Maariv* and *Haaretz*, June 23, 1982. See also David Hirst's piece in the *Guardian* (Manchester), July 3, 1982.

29. See B. Gwertzman on Haig's resignation in the *New York Times*, June 28 and July 2, 1982, and the list of Haig's grievances in *Middle East Policy Survey* (Washington), July 2, 1982.

30. *The Times* (London), June 18, 1982.

31. See Yair Evron, "United States and the War in Lebanon," in *The Lebanon War—Between Protest and Compliance*, pp. 99-114.

32. Galia Golan, "The Soviet Union and the Israeli War in Lebanon," and Amnon Sella, "The Soviet Attitude Towards the War in the Lebanon-Mid-1982," The Soviet and East European Research Center, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Research Papers 46 and 47, October and December 1982.

33. See the statement published by the Syrian Progressive National Front; also the information minister's statement, Radio Damascus, June 19 and 20, 1982.

34. The dissatisfaction with the Soviet Union was expressed through Louis Fares, Radio Monte Carlo, June 25, 1982.

35. This point of view was articulated by Salah Khalaf in an interview granted to *al-Huriyya* (Beirut), May 17, 1982.

36. *The Economist* (London), February 13, 1982, p. 55.

37. See *Al-Nahar* (Beirut), June 30, 1982; see also the evasive position taken by al-Amal's leader, Nabih Beri, in *Agence France Presse*, July 1, 1982 and *Le Matin* (Paris), July 5, 1982.

Chapter 6. An Interim Assessment

1. See Cecil Hourani's two interesting pieces on Bashir Jumayyil and his policies in *Al-Majalla* (London), August 28, 1982, and *Middle East International* (London), September 3, 1982.

2. In the weeks following his election, Amin Jumayyil presented his views in several speeches and interviews. See his speech of September 30 (Radio Beirut), his address to the UN Security Council on October 18 (Radio Beirut), and the interview broadcast by Radio Beirut on November 30, 1982. The views of a prominent member of the president's inner circle can be found in Ghassan Tweni, "Lebanon: A New Republic?" *Foreign Affairs* (Fall, 1982), pp. 84-99.

3. See Sa'ib Salam's interviews with *Al-Mustaqbal* (Beirut), September 11, 1982, pp. 28-32 and on Voice of Lebanon radio the same day.

4. G. H. Jansen, "Quenching the Chouf and Tripoli Fires," *Middle East International* (London), December 23, 1982, pp. 6-7. *The Economist*, November 13, 1982.

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 7

5. See A. H. Hourani, "Ideologies of the Mountain and the City," in Roger Owen, ed., *Essays on the Crisis in Lebanon* (London: Ithaca Press, 1976), pp. 33-41.

6. From file of documents on Israeli Foreign Ministry contacts with the Phalange through Rababi, recently released to the Israeli State Archives. These files were studied by Benni Morris who published some of his findings in the *Jerusalem Post Magazine*, July 1, 1983.

7. Ben-Gurion's position is reflected in several places in Moshe Sharett's *Personal Diary* (Tel Aviv: Maariv Books, 1978), most fully in the exchange of letters between the two, published as an appendix to the diary on pp. 2397-2400.

8. Ben-Gurion's letter to his son Amos, July 27, 1937, published in his *Memoirs* (Tel Aviv: Ami Oved, 1974), vol. 4, pp. 324-333.

9. Sharett, *Personal Diary*, pp. 996, 1024.

10. App. to Sharett, *Personal Diary*.

11. See note 6, above.

12. Divrei HaKnesset (minutes of the Israeli parliament), June 3, 1981.

13. See the Kahan Commission Report.

14. *Maariv*, September 17, 1982.

15. See Fuad Ajami, *The Arab Predicament* (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), and Malcolm Kerr and El Sayed Yassin, eds., *Rich and Poor States in the Middle East* (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1982).

Chapter 7. The Lebanese Crisis, 1983-85

1. For general assessments of Amin Jumayyil's administration and policies, see G. Bayram's article in *Al-Mustaqbal*, December 4, 1982, and the January 1983 issue of *Middle East Insight* (Washington, D.C.).

2. Radio Damascus, July 23, 1983. As for the reference to "little Lebanon," cf. pp. 158-59 above.

3. For a detailed and very sympathetic description of the Lebanese Forces see L. W. Snider, "The Lebanese Forces: Origins and Role in Lebanon's Politics," *Middle East Journal*, 38 (1984), 1-33.

4. Itamar Rabinovich, "Israel and Lebanon in 1983," in C. Legum, H. Shaked, and D. Dishon, eds., *Middle East Contemporary Survey*, 1983-84 (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1985).

5. See Thomas L. Friedman, "The Power of the Fanatics," *The New York Times Magazine*, October 7, 1984.

6. On Amin Jumayyil's desperate message to Israel see *Maariv*, February 16, 1984.

7. On the Shi'i community in post-1982 Lebanon, see Helena Cobban, "The Shia Community and the Future of Lebanon," *The Muslim World Today*, Occasional Paper of the American Institute for Islamic Affairs (Washington, 1985); Augustus R. Norton, "Political Violence and Shia Factionalism in Lebanon," *Middle East Insight*, 3 (August-October 1983), 9-16, and Fouad Ajami, "Lebanon and Its Inheritors," *Foreign Affairs*, 63 (Spring 1985), 778-99.

8. For a perceptive analysis of Israel's failure to build bridges to the

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## NOTES TO CHAPTER 7

Shi'i community, see Moshe Shemesh, "Shi'i Terrorism: A Different Angle," *Haaretz*, March 12, 1985. Uri Lubrani, by then appointed coordinator of Israeli policy in Lebanon, himself explained this policy in a revealing interview that appeared in *Koteret Rashit* (Tel Aviv), February 22, 1984, pp. 11–13.

9. For critiques of U.S. policy in Lebanon written from two contradictory vantage points, see R. G. Neumann, "Asad and the Future of the Middle East," *Foreign Affairs*, 62 (Winter 1983/84), 237–56, and Michael Ledeen, "The Lesson of Lebanon," *Commentary*, May 1984, pp. 15–22.

10. For manifestations of this tension in the American and Israeli press see, for instance, *The Baltimore Sun*, January 20, 1983, *Washington Post*, February 3, 1983, and *Maariv*, January 21, 1983.

11. An unusually detailed and authoritative account of this episode was published in the *Wall Street Journal*, April 14–15, 1983.

12. *Maariv*, May 7, 1983. Rabin's full-fledged analysis of this issue in the Knesset's Foreign Defense Affairs Committee was reported by Israel's radio on April 29, 1983.

13. Cf. *The International Herald Tribune*, June 4, 1983, and March 1, 1984.

14. The most authoritative political profile of Asad at the height of his success was published by the Phalangist leader Karim Padradouni, who had been his party's emissary to and liaison man with Syria, in *Le Monde* (Paris) on November 20/21, 1983. The article, titled "Hafiz al-Assad—the Arabs' Bismarck," was distilled from the author's illuminating book *La paix manquée* (Beirut, 1983).

15. Cf. Asher Susser, *The PLO after the War in Lebanon* (Tel Aviv, 1985).

16. Cf. Itamar Rabinovich, "The Politics of Fragmentation and Anticipation: Inter-Arab Relations in the Early 1980's," *Occasional Papers Series* (The Dayan Center, Tel Aviv University, 1984).

17. See A. Drusdale, "The Succession Question in Syria, *Middle East Journal*, 39 (1985), 246–57.

18. The lengthy interview was published by *Maariv* on December 17, 1982.

19. For an analysis of the rival schools of thought in the Israeli government regarding policy vis-à-vis the Druzes, see Amir Oren's "The Last of the Firemen," *Koteret Rashit*, September 20, 1983.

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## Glossary

**ALAWIS (OR NUSAYRIS):** A Muslim sect, an offshoot of Shi'a Islam. Most of the Alawis live in Syria, where they form some 12 percent of the population. Once a marginal, rural, underprivileged community, Syrian Alawis have undergone a dramatic transformation in the past twenty years, as members of the community advanced through the army and the Ba'thi party to positions of dominance.

**AL-AMAL (HOPE):** A Shi'i political movement cum-militia. It developed originally as the military arm of the Movement of the Disinherited, the radical organization formed by Imam Musa al-Sadr, the religious leader who transformed Lebanon's Shi'i politics in the 1970s. After his disappearance he was replaced by Nabih al-Beri and the movement was taken over by al-Amal.

**BATH (RENAISSANCE):** A Pan-Arab socialist party with branches in several Arab countries, most notably Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Jordan. The party emerged during World War II, was formally established in 1947, and has been influential in Arab politics since the early 1950s.

**CAIRO AGREEMENT:** An agreement reached in November 1969 between the Supreme Commander of the Lebanese Army and the PLO in an effort to regulate the relationship between the Lebanese government and the PLO and the latter's activity in and from Lebanon.

**DRUZE:** A Muslim sect, an off-shoot of Shi'a Islam. The Druzes are divided into two roughly equal communities in Syria (where they constitute some 3 percent of the population) and Lebanon (some 6 percent of the population), with a smaller group in Israel. In all three states, because of their

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GLOSSARY

territorial concentration, solidarity, military skill, and political acumen, they enjoy a political influence well beyond their numerical strength.

ERETZ ISRAEL: The Hebrew term designating the Land of Israel, the ancestral homeland distinct from and larger than the State of Israel. The term is sometimes used as the Hebrew equivalent of Palestine.

AL-FATH: The largest and most important of the organizations that make up the PLO. Fath, which means conquest in Arabic, was founded in secret in the late 1950s and appeared publicly on the scene in 1965. In 1968 it took over the PLO, and its leader Yasir 'Arafat became the organization's chairman. Unlike its Marxist rivals/partners, the Fath focuses on Palestinian issues and does not seek to revolutionize Arab politics.

HARAKAT AL-MAHRUMIN: The Movement of the Disinherited or Dispossessed, Shi'i protest movement formed by Imam Musa al-Sadr.

IDF: Acronym for Israeli Defense Forces, the official English-language designation for Israel's armed forces.

AL-ISHA 'A AL-LUBNANI (Lebanese illumination): A concept developed by Lebanese intellectuals who sought to bolster the notion of a supra-munal Lebanese entity which has made a special contribution to human civilization as a mediator between East and West.

JEWISH AGENCY: Organization formed in 1929 as the formal representative of the Jewish community vis-à-vis the British mandatory government. It gradually acquired the attributes of a proto-government for the Jewish community. After the establishment of the State of Israel, the Jewish Agency shifted its focus to issues common to the State and to Jewish communities abroad.

LABOR PARTY: Israeli political party formed by the union of three parties: Mapai, Achdut Ha'avoda, and Rafi. It is aligned with a fourth party, Mapam, in the Labor Alignment. Until the 1977 elections, the Labor party (under different names) had held power since independence and had dominated Jewish public and political life in mandatory Palestine.

LEBANESE FORCES: The military arm of the Lebanese Front, formed in August 1976, which brought four militias—the Phalanges, the National Liberals, the Tanzim, and the Guardians of the Cedar—under a joint command. The Lebanese Forces subsequently became the power base of Bashir Jumayyil.

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GLOSSARY

LEBANESE FRONT: The political backbone of the status quo coalition in the Lebanese civil war. It was formed in 1976 by a group of Christian leaders, including Camille Chamoun (its president), Pierre Jumayyil, Father Bulus Na'aman, head of the permanent congress of the Lebanese monastic orders and two intellectuals, Charles Malik and Fu'ad Ephrem Boustani.

LEBANON'S ARAB ARMY: A group of predominantly Muslim officers and soldiers who under the leadership of Lieutenant Ahmed al-Khatib seceded from the Lebanese army in 1976 and fought with the revisionist militias in the Lebanese civil war. Originally anti-Syrian, it eventually became a pro-Syrian force.

LIKUD: Israeli political alignment, including the nationalist populist Herut party and the centrist Liberal party, plus several smaller parties. The Likud has been in power in Israel since 1977.

MALKERT AGREEMENT: An agreement made in 1973 as one of several abortive attempts to implement the 1969 Cairo Agreement.

MANDATORY PERIOD: The period of direct French control in Lebanon, 1918-45. Formally France had a mandate from the League of Nations to prepare Lebanon for independence.

MARONITES: Members of the largest Uniate church in the Arab world. The Uniate churches at various periods accepted the Vatican's authority but retained a measure of autonomy. The Maronites who migrated to northern Lebanon from inland Syria drew closer to Latin Europe and to Catholicism after the Crusades. By the eighteenth century the Maronites' growing numbers, early modernization, and effective church organization and leadership made them the leading community in Mount Lebanon. The same century saw the community's southward expansion and the emergence of a proto-national consciousness in its ranks.

MUJTAHIDUN: Shi'i men of religion.

MUTASARIFIYYA: A subprovince in the Ottoman Empire. In the Lebanese context, the autonomous subprovince of Mount Lebanon, 1861-1915.

NATIONAL BLOC: A small Maronite political party representing the outlook and influence of the Eddé family.

NATIONAL LIBERALS: A Lebanese political party established by Camille Chamoun, which reflects his style and policies. In recent years his son Dany has played an increasingly prominent role in its leadership.

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GLOSSARY

NATIONAL PACT: The oral agreement made in 1943 by Bishara al-Khuri and Riad al-Sulh, leaders of the Maronite and Sunni communities in Lebanon, on the nature and governance of the Lebanese state: Lebanon was neither part of Catholic Latin Europe nor was it an Arab state, but it did have an "Arab face"; political and administrative power was divided among the major communities according to their estimated numerical strength.

PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION (PLO): Umbrella organization, a coalition of groups including the Fath, the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and several others. The PLO was formed in 1964 by the first Arab summit conference as the embodiment of the notion of a Palestinian entity. It was originally controlled by the Arab states but after the 1967 war was taken over by genuine Palestinian nationalist groups and became autonomous.

PHALANGES LIBANAISES (al-Kataib al-Lubnaniyya): The largest and most important Christian-Maronite party in Lebanon. Founded in 1936 by Pierre Jumayyil as a vigilante youth movement dedicated to the preservation of a Christian Lebanon, it later developed into a political party with a sophisticated and elaborate organization and a quite complex concept of the Lebanese entity and its problems.

REAGAN INITIATIVE OR PLAN: The plan for settling the Palestinian dimension of the Arab-Israeli conflict, issued by President Ronald Reagan on September 1, 1982. It sought to return the bulk of the West Bank to Jordan. Both the plan's timing and its essence were influenced by the course of the war in Lebanon.

REDLINE AGREEMENT: The informal and indirect understanding negotiated in 1976 by the United States between Syria and Israel, which defined the limits of Syria's intervention in Lebanon and made it acceptable to Israel.

SHI'IS: Adherents of Islam's heterodoxy, the Shi'a (literally, faction). The Shi'a originated among the supporters of Ali, the Prophet's cousin and son-in-law, and his descendants. Eventually, important doctrinal differences developed between the Shi'a and the Sunna. Shi'is are divided into Zaydis, Twelvers, and Isma'ilis. The Alawis and the Druzes are offshoots of the Isma'iliyya.

SIX-DAY WAR: The third Arab-Israeli war, fought from June 6 to June 11, 1967.

SUNNIS: Adherents of Islamic orthodoxy, the largest group in Islam. Sunnis accept the Islamic tradition (sunna) and the legitimate authority of the caliphs as the Prophet's successors.

2

GLOSSARY

SYRIAN SOCIALIST NATIONALIST PARTY: A political party established in the 1930s that advocated secular, territorial Syrian nationalism. It had branches in Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine, and has undergone several transformations in the past fifty years. Its largest faction in Lebanon is a pro-Syrian force.

TREATY OF FRIENDSHIP AND COOPERATION: One of a series of treaties that the Soviet Union has signed since the early 1970s with its clients and friends in the Middle East. The treaty with Syria was signed in October 1980.

AL-WATAN AL-BADIL: The Alternative Homeland, a sardonic term used by Lebanese opponents of the PLO to refer to the establishment of a Palestinian state in southern Lebanon.

ZA'IM (PL. ZU'AMA): Literally a leader; a term referring to a rural or urban notable who mediates between his clientele and the formal political structure.

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CHAPTER NINE

Beyond Disengagement?
Ford and Kissinger, 1975

Gerald Ford was an unlikely president. He had not sought the office. As a long-time member of the House of Representatives, his political ambition had been to become Speaker of the House—until Richard Nixon selected him as vice-president in October 1973. Less than a year later, in early August 1974, the final act of the Watergate scandal brought Ford to the White House.

There is a strong presumption in American politics that it does matter who occupies the Oval Office. Immense sums are spent on presidential election campaigns. And in no other area is presidential discretion thought to be so great as in foreign policy, or at least so it seemed in the pre-Vietnam, pre-Watergate era.

This president, however, was different from his predecessors. He had not been elected. His initial popularity stemmed from his apparent honesty and openness, not from confidence in his ability or leadership, and even that popularity began to wane after he pardoned Richard Nixon. Foreign policy was obviously not his field of expertise, and it seemed likely that he would defer to his prestigious secretary of state and national security affairs adviser, Henry Kissinger. But could Kissinger be as effective as he had been in the past without a strong president to back his initiatives? Although Kissinger may have harbored misgivings about Nixon, he had admired Nixon's decisiveness and his willingness to take risks. Would Ford have the same attributes?

Little was known of Ford's views on foreign policy generally. As a congressman he had supported a strong defense and had backed Nixon in his Southeast Asian policy. He was known to be a good friend of Israel, but otherwise his ideas on the Middle East were uncertain. It would probably be some time before a distinctive Ford foreign policy would take shape. For the moment, Kissinger would remain in charge.¹

Kissinger had adopted step-by-step diplomacy as the means to deal with the problems created by the October 1973 war and to establish the United States as the key diplomatic broker between Israel and the Arabs.

223

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Despite some reservations, Egypt, Syria, and Israel had all gone along with Kissinger's approach, and he had even been able to enlist the support, or tacit agreement, of Saudi Arabia, Algeria, and Jordan. By mid-1974 two disengagement agreements stood as testimony to the success of Kissinger's efforts. But the issues between Israel and its Arab neighbors went well beyond the disengagement of military forces, and subsequent diplomatic moves would have to address many more complex political issues than those considered in the first round of step-by-step diplomacy.

Kissinger may well have had his doubts about the wisdom of continuing to seek political agreements on each Arab front separately. But what were the alternatives? A global negotiation at Geneva was sure to fail unless carefully prepared in advance. The Israelis were wary of Geneva, and Kissinger himself was opposed to bringing the Soviet Union back into the peacemaking moves. A U.S.-Soviet imposed settlement would require both a higher degree of superpower agreement than existed and a strong American president. A suspension of U.S. diplomacy was a possibility, but it ran the risk of weakening the "moderate" Arab coalition Kissinger had been trying to encourage.

By a process of elimination Kissinger came back to step-by-step diplomacy, with all of its obvious limitations, as the best means to keep the peace process alive. But where to begin? The answer, never fully thought through, was the Jordan-Israel front. The unstated belief was that it was worth trying to bring Jordan into the diplomacy as a way of undercutting the more radical PLO. Kissinger would also continue to press for a second step between Egypt and Israel.²

## A JORDANIAN-ISRAELI SETTLEMENT?

Negotiations on the Jordanian-Israeli front presented Kissinger with unprecedented problems. "Disengagement" was hardly an appropriate concept here, since there had been no military engagement between the two countries in the October war. Rather than separate military forces along cease-fire lines, Kissinger would have to deal with sensitive political issues such as sovereignty and the status of the Palestinians. Despite the tacit cooperation that existed on some levels between Jordan and Israel, the prospects for reaching agreement were unusually dim, largely because of domestic Israeli politics and inter-Arab pressures on King Hussein. Israel was now led by an untried and untested leader, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. On foreign-policy matters he was obliged to work closely with his popular defense minister, Shimon Peres, and his foreign minister, Rabin.

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Yigal Allon. Unfortunately for Rabin these two key figures in his cabinet did not often see eye to eye. The only consensus Rabin was able to develop regarding the West Bank was essentially negative: he would call elections before agreeing to anything affecting the former Jordanian territory.

The pressures on Hussein were equally confining, but less focused. His own sense of responsibility, and his understandable fear of being accused of selling out to the Israelis, led him to insist on negotiating terms that he could defend before other Arabs and before the Palestinians. Despite Hussein's own "moderate" inclinations, and his genuine acceptance of Israel's right to exist, he was not in a position to capitulate to Israeli demands. He needed to prove to his people and to the Arab world that he, like Presidents Asad and Sadat, could recover Arab territory held by Israel. Above all, he could not accede to the Israeli position of administering the populated areas of the West Bank while Israel retained military control of the area.

Kissinger recognized the danger that negotiations might fail on the Jordan-Israel front. If they did, the momentum he had hoped to develop through step-by-step diplomacy might be dissipated, precious time might be lost, and Kissinger's own reputation might suffer. An alternative strategy did exist; namely, to concentrate on another quick step on the Egyptian-Israeli front and then to move on to more comprehensive negotiations at Geneva during 1975. Kissinger wavered, but finally opted for a half-hearted attempt at a Jordanian-Israeli agreement.

Within days of becoming president, Ford was conferring with Middle East diplomats and leaders, while Kissinger tried to bring him up to date on the intricacies of the Arab-Israeli negotiations. First to arrive for talks with Ford was Egyptian Foreign Minister Fahmy.³ A few days later King Hussein met with Ford, Kissinger, and Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger. The king was told that the United States would accord priority to the search for a Jordanian-Israeli agreement, while also exploring possibilities for another step in Sinai. Next Syrian Foreign Minister Abd al-Halim Khaddam arrived to see Kissinger, on August 22. Not to be outdone, Prime Minister Rabin came to Washington on September 10 for discussions with the new president. Rabin made it clear he favored another interim step with Egypt, not one with Jordan.

The upshot of all these preliminary consultations was another Kissinger trip to the Middle East. Israel was still reluctant to pull back from the Jordan River, and Hussein would accept nothing else.⁴ The alternative

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Peace Process

of Israeli withdrawal from the town of Jericho, and perhaps even from the important Nablus area, had been suggested, but neither side was enthusiastic. Kissinger therefore began his travels with little chance of success. In talks with Sadat he tried to press for Egyptian support of Jordan at the forthcoming Arab summit conference in Rabat. That support had slipped somewhat during September, and the dynamics of inter-Arab politics might well produce a ringing endorsement of the PLO, to the exclusion of Jordan, which Kissinger wanted to prevent. As bait he discussed with Sadat the outlines of another agreement between Egypt and Israel. Sadat's position was firm: in a second step he must recover the Mitla and Giddi passes and the oil field at Abu Rudeis. Nothing less would justify the risks for Egypt of entering into a second agreement with Israel.

In Amman Kissinger and Hussein reviewed the bleak prospects for an agreement and discussed the possibility that at Rabat the PLO would be endorsed as the sole negotiator for the West Bank and as the only spokesman for the Palestinians. If that happened, the king would withdraw from the negotiations entirely. Many Jordanians would be delighted to wash their hands of the whole Palestinian problem. It would be far better to concentrate on developing the East Bank and on building ties to Syria and Saudi Arabia than to run the risk of isolation and violent opposition that might result if the king signed an unpopular agreement with Israel. For the time being Hussein and Kissinger agreed to await the outcome of the Arab summit in Rabat. With support from Sadat, Kissinger felt sure that Hussein would emerge with a mandate to negotiate for the West Bank.

To Kissinger's considerable annoyance and dismay, the Arab heads of state who assembled in Rabat during the last week of October did not behave as he anticipated. On October 28 the conference unanimously endorsed the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. Hussein had no more right in the eyes of the Arab world to negotiate for the West Bank than any other Arab leader. Faced with such an overwhelming consensus, even Hussein had accepted the final resolution. Sadat had tried to bring about a more ambiguous outcome but had failed. Saudi Arabia, ostensibly a moderate Arab state, and Syria had been among the most vocal champions of the PLO.

The Rabat summit, followed shortly by the appearance of PLO Executive Committee Chairman Yasir Arafat at the United Nations on November 13, suddenly propelled the Palestinians to the front and center of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Kissinger was unprepared for this turn of

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events. He had hoped to put off the Palestinian issue until later, while trying to strengthen King Hussein at the expense of the PLO. He had expected Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and perhaps even Syria to recognize the practical necessity of keeping Jordan in the negotiations. Now his carefully constructed policy had been derailed. *American public opinion, which* had strongly supported his efforts until then, began to express skepticism of step-by-step diplomacy, as well as firm opposition to pressure on Israel to deal with the PLO. Some felt that Rabat symbolized the failure of Kissinger's diplomacy, that Egypt and Syria were now preparing to back Arafat in his demands for dismantling the Zionist state, and that the proper response of American policy was to throw all its weight behind Israel, while invoking any sanctions available against the Arabs.⁵

In fact, the Rabat action was much less decisive than it appeared at the time, but it did cause problems for Kissinger. To salvage his policy and his reputation, he needed another success. Because it could not be on the Jordan front, it would have to be in Sinai. Egypt, however, was not the strong leader of the Arab world that it had been under Nasser—the Rabat meeting had shown that to be true—and would have to move carefully in any next step. At the same time Israel was hardly in the mood to make concessions, nor did the new government seem to have any clear diplomatic strategy. Golda Meir may have been tough and difficult to deal with, but at least she was in control of the government. It was less clear that Rabin could guide the divided country through a complex set of negotiations, particularly with his defense minister, Shimon Peres, eager to take his place if he should falter. To reach any agreement would definitely take time. Meanwhile other Middle East issues demanded attention.

## OIL PRICES AS AN ISSUE

Issues have a curious way of coming and going in American politics, and that is especially true of complex problems such as the energy crisis. Few people understand the economics and politics of oil and energy, or the nature of the international petroleum market.

The Arab oil embargo was at least a concrete act that could be isolated from other issues and dealt with accordingly. It had a clear beginning and end. Yet the crisis did not seem to go away when the embargo was lifted in March 1974. In fact, it seemed as if the embargo per se had not really had much impact on the U.S. economy. But then what about the price of oil?

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Oil prices became a major issue in the latter part of 1974, when the price of Persian Gulf oil reached almost $10 a barrel. At that price the United States would be spending approximately $20 billion a year on petroleum imports. Even if the United States could afford such a drain on its economy, Europe and Japan might not be able to handle the cost. The sheer magnitude of the financial transactions between oil importers and exporters might overwhelm the international financial system.

New terms like *petrodollars* and *recycling* began to appear. The rush to sell goods to Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, and other oil-rich countries was on. Despite pious calls for cooperation among oil consumers and between consumers and producers, the reality was one of fierce competition. How long could that situation go on?

Kissinger began to worry about the international economic repercussions of the high price of oil sometime in the fall of 1974. The continued sluggishness of the Western economies, combined with high rates of inflation and unemployment, were apparently linked to oil prices. American public opinion tended to blame the Arabs for these economic ills, failing to note that other OPEC members, such as Iran and Venezuela, were more militant on prices than Saudi Arabia was. The net effect of this shift in mood was to make it even more difficult for Kissinger and Ford to pursue a diplomatic strategy aimed at promoting an Arab-Israeli settlement. After all, why do favors for the Arabs when they were threatening to bring down the economies of the Western democracies by their irresponsible behavior?

Kissinger made several efforts to try to persuade the Saudis and the Iranians to take the lead in lowering oil prices. At the same time the United States worked out an agreement with the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries of Europe and Japan for the sharing of oil in an emergency.⁶ In addition, a producer-consumer dialogue was begun. Behind these efforts was the realization that in the event of another war between Israel and the Arabs, another embargo might occur, followed by oil-price increases. No one was quite sure, but it seemed plausible that progress toward a settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict would remove the incentive for Arab oil producers to manipulate supplies and prices as a means of pressuring the United States.⁷ Meanwhile the public concern over oil prices and possible embargoes was weakening the support for Kissinger's diplomacy, and an alternative strategy of counterpressure against the Arabs, including the use of force, began to receive a hearing.⁸ A number of rather lurid pictures of

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impending financial chaos were painted. If OPEC did not collapse, the economies of the industrialized west were bound to do so. Neither, of course, happened, but throughout the next phase of Kissinger's diplomacy, petroleum and its financial ramifications were very much part of public and official preoccupation. Only gradually did the intense concern over the issue wane, as prices stabilized at a high level, adjustments were painfully made, and economic recovery began in the latter part of 1975.⁹ By 1976 the issue had all but disappeared as a topic of public debate.

A SECOND EGYPTIAN-ISRAELI STEP

Kissinger's technique for arranging limited agreements between Israel and the Arabs was by now well developed. It began by eliciting proposals from each side, getting preliminary reactions, identifying obstacles, and then starting the diplomatic process that would eventually bridge the substantive gaps. This process would include a heavy dose of reason and persuasion, as Kissinger would explain the dire international consequences of failure to reach an agreement; it also involved marshaling forces that might influence the parties, such as other Arab countries or the U.S. Congress. Then Kissinger would commit his own prestige to bringing about an agreement, shuttling back and forth between the two sides. At this last stage Kissinger was likely to involve the president if additional pressure on Israel or commitments on future aid were needed.

Even before the Rabat meeting, Kissinger had obtained a fairly good idea of the Egyptian and Israeli objectives in a second step. Egypt wanted Israel to withdraw beyond the strategically important Mitla and Giddi passes and to relinquish control over the Abu Rudeis and Ras Sudr oil fields, which were providing Israel with about 50 percent of its total oil needs. Sadat wanted this step to be treated as another military disengagement, with only minimal political overtones. He felt he could not afford to be seen in the Arab world as having withdrawn from the conflict with Israel.

Israel's objectives in a second agreement with Egypt were quite different. Israel hoped to split Egypt from Syria and thus reduce the prospects of a combined Arab offensive such as had occurred in October 1973. To do so would require that Egypt make substantial political concessions as the price of further Israeli withdrawals. Israel would demand that Egypt renounce the state of belligerency, that the new agreement be of long duration, and that Israeli withdrawal would not include the passes or the oil fields.

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During November and December 1974 Kissinger was able to clarify each side's position. He was convinced that Sadat would settle for nothing less than Mitla, Giddi, and the oil fields and that he would not formally renounce the state of belligerency. He so informed the Israelis, urging them to concentrate instead on the "functional equivalents" of nonbelligerency, such as the end of the economic boycott.

As Egypt and Israel began to show readiness for a second agreement, two potentially dangerous sources of opposition appeared. The Syrians were well aware that Israel was trying to isolate Egypt, which would then leave Syria alone to confront the militarily superior Israeli forces. Asad was therefore opposed to a second step on the Egyptian front. To underscore his attitude, Asad ordered his armed forces on high alert in mid-November, just on the eve of the renewal of the mandate of the UN forces. The crisis subsided, but not before Asad had made his point.

The second source of opposition to Kissinger's strategy was the Soviet Union. By now the Soviets saw clearly that one of Kissinger's primary goals was to weaken Soviet influence in the Middle East, especially in Egypt. President Ford and General Secretary Brezhnev met in Vladivostok on November 23-24, 1974, primarily to discuss a second strategic-arms agreement but also to consider the Middle East. The two sides remained far apart, the Soviets insisting on reconvening the Geneva conference and Ford favoring a continuation of step-by-step diplomacy, at the request, of course, of Egypt and Israel.¹⁰ On the whole, U.S.-Soviet relations were cooling, as would become clear on January 14, 1975, when the Soviet Union rejected the offer of most-favored-nation trading status on terms that would have required a liberalization of emigration for Soviet Jews.

Meanwhile, despite Syrian and Soviet opposition, Kissinger pressed forward, his task complicated by the curious unfolding of the Israeli negotiating position. On December 3, 1974, in an interview with the newspaper Haaretz, Prime Minister Rabin openly stated that Israel's goal was to separate Egypt from Syria and delay negotiations until after the U.S. elections in 1976. Because of the oil crisis, Rabin said, there would be seven years during which Israel would be subjected to heavy pressures for concessions, but by the early 1980s alternatives to petroleum would have been found, thus weakening the power of the Arab world. Rabin added that it was unrealistic to expect Egypt to offer nonbelligerency at this stage of the negotiations.¹¹

A few days after the Rabin interview, Foreign Minister Allon arrived

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in Washington for talks with Kissinger. For several hours on December 2 they discussed a ten-point proposal Allon had brought with him.¹² The points included an end to the state of belligerency, the demilitarization of evacuated territory, an end to economic and propaganda warfare by Egypt against Israel, a duration of twelve years for the agreement, and a number of other demands similar to those written into the January disengagement accord. In return for these demands, Israel would withdraw thirty to fifty kilometers, but would remain in control of the passes and oil fields.

Kissinger and Ford were unimpressed by Israel's offer. Allon hinted that it was only a bargaining position and might be changed. For example, the duration of the agreement could be five years instead of twelve. Kissinger's main problem with the Israeli proposal, however, was the demand for nonbelligerency, which Rabin himself had termed unrealistic, and the refusal to cede on the passes and oil fields. The Israeli points were nonetheless transmitted to Sadat, and Sadat's expected rejection was duly received. Kissinger then asked the Israelis to make a new proposal.

As frequently happens in Arab-Israeli affairs, external events impinge on the local parties in unanticipated ways. In late December an important development took place in Soviet-Egyptian relations. After a short visit to Moscow by Egypt's foreign minister and its chief of staff, it was announced on December 30 that the expected visit by Brezhnev to Cairo had been canceled. Kissinger had been planning to await the results of the Brezhnev visit before pressing ahead with his own strategy. Now it seemed as if Egyptian-Soviet relations were indeed very poor; more than ever, Sadat needed to demonstrate that his turning to the United States had not been foolish. Without Soviet arms he would not easily be able to make war, but with American support he might recover his territory anyway and get on with the urgent task of developing the Egyptian economy.

When Allon arrived in the United States for another round of discussions with Kissinger, he acknowledged that the cancellation of the Brezhnev visit had created a new situation, but during his talks with Ford and Kissinger on January 15-16, 1975, he had nothing new to offer except an invitation to Kissinger to return to the area. Kissinger repeated his warning to Allon that an agreement could not be reached on the basis of the Israeli proposal.¹³ He would nonetheless make another trip to see if the gap could be narrowed. After an exploratory round of talks in

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February, he would return in March to complete the negotiations, but Israel would have to drop the demand for nonbelligerency and be more forthcoming over territory.

Before Kissinger's departure Sadat publicly endorsed his efforts, adding that the United States now held virtually all the trump cards.¹⁴ These words were precisely what Kissinger wanted to hear from Sadat. From the Syrians and the Soviets, however, he was continuing to encounter resistance to his efforts. As Sadat seemed to move forward toward another agreement, Syria began to band together with Jordan and the Palestinians in opposing him, with growing support from the Soviet Union.¹⁵

Even though Syria and the Soviet Union were aligning against Sadat, Israel at least seemed to be softening somewhat in its demands. On February 7 Rabin gave an interview to John Lindsay, former mayor of New York, in which he stated that "in exchange for an Egyptian commitment not to go to war, not to depend on threats of use of force, and an effort to reach true peace, the Egyptians could get even the passes and the oil fields."¹⁶ Kissinger was appalled at Rabin's carelessness in revealing Israel's position in such a forum—he would no doubt have preferred to appear responsible for achieving such an Israeli concession—but at least the chance for an agreement now seemed brighter. On this somewhat optimistic note, Kissinger left for the Middle East on February 9.

Kissinger's February trip was admittedly exploratory. He did not expect to reach agreement, but he did hope that Egypt and Israel would each recognize the constraints the other was operating under and modify some elements of their proposals. Instead he found little new. The Israelis seemed to ease up a bit on the issue of nonbelligerency, and Sadat indicated a willingness to end some hostile actions against Israel, but a substantial gap remained. Nor did Kissinger succeed in persuading the Syrians to drop their opposition to a second step in Sinai.¹⁷ The only positive note of the trip came from Kissinger's talks with the shah of Iran in Zurich on February 18, when the shah said he would be prepared to provide Israel with oil if it gave up Abu Rudeis and Ras Sudr.

For the next several weeks Kissinger continued to urge the parties to moderate their positions, for he wanted an agreement, and soon. But he did not want to embark on a third "shuttle" until he was virtually certain of success. Assuming that the parties now understood the minimum terms required for a successful negotiation, Kissinger left for the Middle East once again, arriving in Egypt on March 8.

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Kissinger's task was complicated by a number of domestic and international developments. Both he and Ford were experiencing a decline in their popularity. Congress was becoming more assertive in its demands to guide foreign policy. Indochina was progressively coming under communist domination. A leftist coup in Portugal had created a potentially dangerous situation in the western Mediterranean. U.S.-Turkish relations were at a low point because of a congressional ban on arms to Turkey. Only on the Egyptian-Israeli front was there the chance of another Kissinger spectacular. The Israelis seemed apprehensive that Kissinger was a bit too anxious for success. They, after all, would be asked to make the major concessions, and that was more than Rabin's weak government was anxious to do.

Kissinger did succeed in obtaining new Egyptian proposals during the March shuttle. Sadat was prepared to say the following: the conflict with Israel would not be solved by military means; Egypt would not resort to force; it would observe the cease-fire and would prevent all military and paramilitary forces from operating against Israel from Egyptian territory; a new agreement would remain in effect until superseded by another agreement; hostile propaganda against Israel in Egyptian-controlled media would be reduced; and the economic boycott would be selectively eased.¹⁸

Israel's position, as first conveyed informally by Rabin to Kissinger on the evening of March 9, consisted of seven points entitled "Proposal on Main Elements of Agreement between Israel and Egypt." Israel sought a separate agreement with Egypt that would not depend on agreements with other Arab parties. The agreement must be a step toward peace in some practical aspects, such as the free passage of Israeli cargoes through the Suez Canal, the end of the economic boycott, and the free movement of persons between Egypt and Israel. Egypt must agree to the end of the use of force through a "renunciation of belligerency clearly and in its appropriate legal wording." A real buffer zone must be created between the military forces of both sides. Some solution must be found for the "dilemma of vagueness" about the duration of the agreement. An understanding must be reached on the relationship between an interim agreement in Sinai and what might happen later at Geneva. Finally, Israel would agree to discuss the question of the line of withdrawal only after Egypt had responded to the first six points.¹⁹

Kissinger was dismayed that Israel was still holding out for nonbelligerency. Sadat was prepared to meet some of Israel's demands but insisted on knowing whether Israel would remain in the passes. He also flatly

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refused to agree to nonbelligerency, though he would consider a formula based on the "nonuse of force." After several days of shuttling, Kissinger managed to persuade the Israelis to accept the nonuse-of-force formulation, but Rabin and his negotiating team were adamant that Israel would not withdraw from the passes for anything less than nonbelligerency. At best they might consider pulling back to a line halfway through the passes, but at no point in the negotiations did the Israelis provide Kissinger with a map showing a line they would accept. Complicating the bargaining further was Israel's insistence on maintaining control over an electronic intelligence station at Umm Khisheiba at the western end of the Giddi pass. Sadat would not agree to Israel's keeping the station, even if it was formally placed in the UN zone. Consequently the negotiations deadlocked on the issues of nonbelligerency and its functional equivalents, on the extent of Israeli withdrawal in the passes and the oil fields, and on the status of the Umm Khisheiba facility.

After ten days of shuttling between Egypt and Israel, with side trips to Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, Kissinger was still not able to get the Israelis out of the passes. Israel agreed to cede the oil fields but refused to give Egypt control over a road connecting the fields to the Egyptian zone. On Friday, March 21, Kissinger arrived in Israel with Sadat's final word: Israel could not keep the intelligence station, and the mandate of the UN forces would be renewed only for a second year. Without further Egyptian concessions the Israelis would not budge. Even a tough letter from President Ford, which reached Israel on March 21, was unable to change the situation(20) It may, in fact, have stiffened Israel's will to resist. In any event, the cabinet met Friday night and rejected virtually all Sadat's demands. Kissinger conveyed Israel's rejection to Egypt and awaited Sadat's reply. Meanwhile he spent the day of March 22 touring the historic site of Masada, where, nearly two thousand years earlier, Jews had taken their own lives rather than surrender to the Romans. The symbolism of Masada hung over the talks later that evening when Kissinger met with Rabin and other top Israeli officials. Kissinger was deeply concerned. According to the notes of his remarks, he stated:

> The Arab leaders who banked on the United States will be discredited. ... Step-by-step has been throttled, first for Jordan, then for Egypt. We're losing control. We'll now see the Arabs working on a united front. There will be more emphasis on the Palestinians, and there will be a linkage between moves in the Sinai and on Golan. The Soviets will step back onto the stage. The United States is losing control over events. ... Our past strategy was worked out carefully,

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and now we don't know what to do. There will be pressures to drive a wedge between Israel and the United States, not because we want that but because it will be the dynamics of the situation. Let's not kid ourselves. We've failed. ...

An agreement would have enabled the United States to remain in control of the diplomatic process. Compared to that, the location of the line eight kilometers one way or the other frankly does not seem very important. And you got all the military elements of nonbelligerency. You got the 'nonuse of force.' ...

This is a real tragedy. ... We've attempted to reconcile our support for you with our other interests in the Middle East, so that you wouldn't have to make your decisions all at once. ... Our strategy was to save you from dealing with all those pressures all at once. ... If we wanted the 1967 borders, we could do it with all of world opinion and considerable domestic opinion behind us. The strategy was designed to protect you from this. We've avoided drawing up an overall plan for a global settlement. ... I see pressure building up to force you back to the 1967 borders—compared to that, ten kilometers is trivial. I'm not angry at you, and I'm not asking you to change your position. It's tragic to see people dooming themselves to a course of unbelievable peril.²¹

This was vintage Kissinger. He could have made virtually the same remarks at any point from October 1973 on. The emphasis on U.S. control of the diplomacy, on breaking issues into manageable parts, and on avoiding an overall peace plan were all basic elements of the strategy developed in the midst of the October war. Now that strategy seemed to have failed. The next day Kissinger left Israel, having announced that his negotiating effort was being suspended.²² After Kissinger returned to Washington on March 24, President Ford ominously announced that there would now be a reassessment of U.S. policy toward the Middle East.²³

REASSESSMENT

Kissinger's disappointment with the Israelis for thwarting his efforts to arrange a second agreement in Sinai was genuine. He felt the Israeli leadership was shortsighted, incompetent, and weak. In his view Israel had no foreign policy, only a domestic political system that produced deadlock and stalemate. A David Ben-Gurion or a Golda Meir might be able to lead Israel, but not the Rabin-Peres-Allon triumvirate, in which each man pulled in a different direction. In his less guarded moments Kissinger suggested that the Israelis were trying to bring him down. Reassessment, however justified, became in part an instrument for Kissinger to vent his exasperation with Israel.

President Ford, whatever his sentimental attachment to Israel might have been in the past, was also irritated at Israel, and publicly blamed

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Rabin for his lack of flexibility.²⁴ He lent his weight to a serious reassessment of policy during which new military and economic agreements with Israel were suspended. Like each of his predecessors, Ford found that his sympathies for Israel and his perception of American global and regional interests did not always mesh. When the two seemed to come into conflict, Ford was as capable as Nixon of putting pressure on Israel for concessions. The test, however, would be whether pressure could produce the desired results—and whether Israeli counterpressure might not raise the cost of the effort.

Israel, after all, was not without influential friends and supporters in the United States, nor did it lack effective spokespersons who could defend it before the American public against the charge of inflexibility. If the administration insisted on withholding needed aid, Israel could appeal to Congress to support its requests. The Israeli case did seem plausible: in return for making important economic and territorial concessions, Israel was merely asking that Egypt renounce belligerency. Why was that unreasonable or inflexible? Should Israel risk its security for anything less?

Kissinger's case against Israel was less convincing to many Americans. He claimed that the Israeli leaders had misled him into undertaking the shuttle when they knew that nonbelligerency could not be achieved, and yet they continued to insist on it. Israel had refused to make the minimal territorial concessions in the passes and around the oil fields. Kissinger argued that an agreement was necessary to preserve the delicate balances he had brought into being after the October 1973 war. On occasion, he implied that the alternative to an agreement might be war and another Arab oil embargo.

During the nearly three months of reassessment that followed the collapse of the Egyptian-Israeli talks on March 22, American foreign policy witnessed the final denouement of the Southeast Asia conflict and the beginning of a tragic civil war in Lebanon. In both cases the United States seemed powerless to act constructively. The Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh fell to communist forces on April 17. Shortly thereafter, on April 29, Saigon also came under communist control. So much for the peace with honor in Indochina that Nixon and Kissinger had proudly proclaimed in January 1973. Events in the Middle East, too, did not hold out the hope of peace. On March 25 one of the mainstays of American policy in the area, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, was assassinated. A period of uncertainty began. Was Saudi Arabia on the verge of revolution?

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Would the new rulers continue the same foreign policy of friendship for the United States and support for Sadat? It would be some time before anyone would know. Meanwhile the always tense situation in Lebanon was about to explode. On April 13 right-wing Christian gunmen had opened fire on a busload of Palestinians, killing twenty-two of them. Not long afterward a vicious cycle of reprisals and counterreprisals was under way.

Against this disquieting background Kissinger carried out the promised policy reassessment. On April 1 he met with a group of prominent men from the foreign-policy establishment—Dean Rusk, McGeorge Bundy, George Ball, Douglas Dillon, Cyrus Vance, George Shultz, Robert McNamara, David Bruce, Peter Peterson, John McCloy, William Scranton, and Averell Harriman. Some of the group, such as Ball, had been openly critical of Kissinger's step-by-step policy and Israel. Ball favored a more comprehensive agreement in which the United States and the Soviet Union would work out the guidelines for a settlement, which would then be negotiated by all the parties at Geneva. He had criticized Kissinger for ignoring the Soviets and trying to divide the Arabs. He did not shy away from the notion of an imposed settlement.²⁵ Others at the meeting also favored a return to the Geneva conference and a major effort to work out an American peace plan.

Over the next several weeks Kissinger heard essentially the same recommendations from his closest aides, from eminent academics, and from American ambassadors to the key Middle East countries.²⁶ The time for step-by-step diplomacy was past. A more ambitious strategy was needed. The Palestinians could no longer be ignored. The Soviets would have to be brought into the negotiations. It all sounded reasonable in the abstract, but Kissinger was haunted by the fear that this approach, too, would fail. No one could detail the steps that would be required to ensure success. And it would be costly in domestic political terms, since it would surely require heavy and sustained pressure on Israel. Ford and Kissinger were not at all certain they wanted to take on that battle unless the results were sure to warrant the effort.

By the third week of April reassessment had produced three basic options for the president. The first, supported by many in and outside the government, was a return to Geneva with a detailed American peace plan. The United States would call for Israeli withdrawal, while offering strong guarantees of Israel's security. The Soviets would be invited to cooperate. A second option would aim for a virtually complete settlement,

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especially on the Egyptian-Israeli front, but would fall short of calling for full withdrawal and final peace. The third option was to resume step-by-step diplomacy where it had left off in March.²⁷ Ford referred publicly to these three options in a general way on April 21.²⁸

For several weeks it seemed as if a new American approach to peace in the Middle East might emerge, but gradually the realization set in that nothing of the sort could be expected. Kissinger's consultations with Allon, King Hussein, and the Soviets had not given him any reason to be optimistic about a new policy. American public support for a global initiative was not strong, and Congress was beginning to respond to arguments that Kissinger was exerting too much pressure on Israel. On May 21 seventy-six senators sent a letter to President Ford, urging him to be "responsive to Israel's economic and military needs." This was a clear sign that continued pressure on Israel would be politically counterproductive. Ford and Kissinger realized that the only viable strategy, in light of these realities, was to resume step-by-step diplomacy.²⁹ Ford himself would participate in talks with Sadat and Rabin to explore the prospects for an agreement. Sadat helped to improve the atmosphere by unexpectedly announcing that the Suez Canal would be reopened on June 5 and that the mandate of the United Nations Emergency Force would be extended. The Egyptian president still seemed to want to reach an agreement.

On June 1-2 President Ford and Sadat met for the first time, in Salzburg. The two men got on well together, feeling relaxed in each other's company and finding it easy to talk. Sadat appealed for a public statement from Ford that Israel should withdraw to the 1967 lines, but Ford demurred, reportedly repeating instead Nixon's private commitment of the previous year to work for that goal.³⁰ Ford then sounded out Sadat on his willingness to try again for a limited agreement in Sinai. Sadat was favorably disposed, but his terms were still those of the previous spring: Israel must leave the passes and the oil fields and must not demand nonbelligerency. Sadat was still opposed to the idea of the Israelis' keeping the intelligence-gathering facility at Umm Khisheiba, but he did say he might accept an American presence there.³¹ The idea of an American military contingent in the buffer zone had been raised earlier in the spring, but Kissinger had been unenthusiastic. The more modest concept of an American civilian presence, however, soon began to emerge as the solution to one of the problems in the negotiations.³²

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SINAI II

By the time Prime Minister Rabin reached Washington for talks with President Ford and Secretary Kissinger on June 11-12, the decision to continue with step-by-step diplomacy had basically been made. The alternative of Geneva, of a U.S.-Soviet imposed settlement, or of a withdrawal from the peacemaking effort had all been rejected. Ford and Kissinger felt the situation in the Middle East required continued diplomatic progress; as had been shown early in 1974, that could best be done through U.S. mediation. If progress toward a settlement was not made during the next few months, the United States might not be able to launch a new initiative until 1977. After all, 1976 was an American election year, and Middle East politics could hardly hope to compete for attention with a presidential campaign.

Ford, now very much involved in the conduct of Arab-Israeli diplomacy, asked Rabin to be more forthcoming in the negotiations and pressed for a new Israeli line of withdrawal to the eastern ends of the passes. Rabin was anxious to end the painful and costly confrontation with the United States. His refusal of Kissinger's demands in March had greatly contributed to his prestige within Israel. Now he might be able to negotiate with more confidence. A new line therefore was drawn to demonstrate Israel's good will, and this was seen as a modest step in the right direction. Ford reciprocated by promising that after the next interim agreement between Egypt and Israel, "the overall settlement can be pursued in a systematic and deliberate way and does not require the U.S. to put forward an overall proposal of its own in such circumstances. Should the U.S. desire in the future to put forward proposals of its own, it will make every effort to coordinate with Israel its proposals with a view to refraining from putting forth proposals that Israel would consider unsatisfactory."³³

Despite these assurances from Ford, Rabin was unable to win cabinet authorization to make further concessions. A week later he was obliged to return to Israel's previous offer of withdrawal halfway through the passes.³⁴ Once again Ford and Kissinger were angry at Rabin for his apparent inflexibility and his awkwardness.

During the next six weeks Kissinger remained in Washington while Israeli and Egyptian positions were refined and transmitted through him to the other side. Israel's ambassador in Washington, Simcha Dinitz, was

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his channel to the Israeli government, and the American ambassador to Egypt, Hermann F. Eilts, shuttled back and forth between Cairo and Washington with messages and clarifications.

Sometime in the last half of June the Israeli leaders apparently decided it would be impossible to obtain the desired political concessions from Sadat and undesirable to resist the United States indefinitely. If Egypt would not make peace, then at least Israel could bargain with the United States on issues involving Israeli security. If the Americans wanted an agreement so badly, they could pay for it. Israel would agree to withdraw to the eastern slopes of the passes but would maintain control over the high ground above the passes. At the urging of Defense Minister Peres, Israel also sought to make the buffer zone between the two sides into a genuine barrier to military surprise attack by stationing American civilians there to monitor early-warning stations. The Americans could also serve as a cover for continued Israeli use of the intelligence facility. If Sadat objected, the Americans could offer to build a comparable facility for him as well.

Sadat was also prepared to be somewhat more forthcoming. He would agree to three annual renewals of the mandate of the UN forces and to the continued Israeli use of the intelligence facility, provided he was given one facing the Israeli lines. He accepted the idea of easing the boycott of some companies dealing with Israel and promised to tone down anti-Israeli propaganda. And finally, he would be willing to have most of the terms of the agreement published.

It remained for the United States and Israel to work out their own understanding of the American commitments necessary to gain Israel's consent to a new agreement. Early in July Dinitz met with Kissinger in the Virgin Islands to present the full package of Israeli proposals and requests.¹⁵ In addition to a promise of about $2 billion in aid, the United States agreed to drop the idea of an interim step on the Jordan-Israel front and to accept that only "cosmetic" changes could be expected on the Golan Heights in another step. Israel also wanted a clear commitment that the United States would prevent Soviet military intervention in the Middle East.¹⁶

During the next several weeks further discussion of these and other points took place.¹⁷ By the time Kissinger left for Israel on August 20, an agreement was within reach. Only the exact location of the Israeli line, the levels of U.S. aid, and the technical aspects of the American civilian presence in the passes remained to be negotiated.

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Kissinger was received in Israel with unprecedented hostility, mainly from the right-wing opposition parties, and demonstrators accosted him at each stop. Nevertheless, his discussions with the leadership progressed. This time Rabin wanted an agreement. Kissinger continued to harbor misgivings about the American presence in Sinai, which by now was an essential ingredient of the Israeli package, but he was prepared to go along with the idea. Sadat was willing to accept this condition, but some quibbling still went on over the exact location of the line.¹⁸

By August 25 Kissinger was working with the Israelis on the language of a draft agreement. Gradually Israel began to soften its position on the line of withdrawal, finally agreeing to give Kissinger a map for Sadat's consideration late in the second week of talks. Squabbling over withdrawal in the Giddi pass continued, as well as over the oil fields. Only at the very last minute did Israel agree to complete withdrawal from Giddi. Very detailed discussions on force limits and on the American presence were also required. Then, in a nonstop session in Jerusalem lasting from 9:30 p.m. August 31 to 6:00 a.m. the following day, the United States and Israel worked out the fine points of their bilateral military relationship, assurances on Israel's supply of oil, and an understanding on the need for consultations in the event of Soviet military intervention in the Middle East. Israel was disappointed with the weak language on Soviet intervention but otherwise could point to a very impressive list of American commitments. Later that afternoon both Egypt and Israel initialed the text of the agreement. It was formally signed in Geneva on September 4, 1975.

Unlike the January 1974 accord, Sinai II was greeted with a sigh of relief, but with little real enthusiasm by the parties to the negotiations. Within both Israel and the Arab world, many were violently opposed to the agreement, although for entirely different reasons.

The agreement itself was modeled in part on the previous disengagement pacts.¹⁹ The two parties committed themselves to resolve the conflict between them by peaceful means and not to resort to the threat or the use of force against each other. The UN force would continue its function, and the lines for each side's military deployments were designated on a map. Egypt agreed to allow nonmilitary cargoes destined for or coming from Israel to pass through the Suez Canal, which had been reopened to traffic the previous June. The agreement would remain in force until superseded by a new agreement.

Attached to the agreement was a detailed annex dealing with military

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deployments and aerial surveillance. At Sadat's insistence the forces allowed in the limited zone under the agreement were slightly larger than those permitted in January 1974: up to 8,000 men in eight battalions, with 75 tanks and 72 short-range artillery pieces. Neither party, however, was permitted to locate any weapons in areas from which they could reach each other's lines.

The arrangements for U.S. manning and supervision of the early-warning systems in the buffer zones were also spelled out in detail. Israel and Egypt would be allowed to have up to 250 technical and administrative personnel at their respective surveillance stations. U.S. civilians would operate three other smaller watch stations and would establish three unmanned sensor fields as well. Israel's willingness to implement the terms of the agreement was contingent on U.S. congressional approval of the U.S. role in Sinai. The United States also signed five secret agreements, four with Israel and one with Egypt. A sixteen-point U.S.-Israeli memorandum of understanding dealt with military assistance, oil supply, economic aid, and several political points. The United States and Israel agreed that the next step with Egypt should be a final peace agreement. The same should be true on the Jordan front. The United States also agreed to consult promptly with Israel in the event of any threat to Israel from a "world power," namely, the Soviet Union. In an addendum on arms the United States gave a vague commitment to provide a "positive response" to Israeli requests for F-16 aircraft and the Pershing missile with a conventional warhead.⁴⁰ In effect, the freeze on new arms agreements, which had begun the previous April, was ended.

A special memo dealing with Geneva was signed, which spelled out the policy of the United States with respect to the Palestinians: no recognition of and no negotiation with the PLO until it recognizes Israel's right to exist and accepts UN Resolutions 242 and 338. The United States would also carefully coordinate its strategy at Geneva with Israel and agree to keep the negotiations on a bilateral basis. In addition, Ford wrote a letter to Rabin stating: "The U.S. has not developed a final position on the borders [between Israel and Syria]. Should it do so it will give great weight to Israel's position that any peace agreement with Syria must be predicated on Israel remaining on the Golan Heights. My view in this regard was stated in our conversation of September 13, 1974."⁴²

As for Egypt, the United States merely committed itself to try to bring about further negotiations between Syria and Israel, to provide

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assistance for the Egyptian early-warning system in the buffer zone, and to consult with Egypt on any Israeli violations of the agreement.

REACTIONS TO SINAI II

In his more optimistic moments Kissinger had justified step-by-step diplomacy as a process by which parties to a negotiation would gain confidence, become committed to achieving results, and be carried along by the momentum of peacemaking to resolve issues that had previously seemed intractable. But Sinai II came closer to confirming his more somber vision of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The issues were so complex, the emotions so deeply involved, that peace between the two sides was unattainable in this generation. Although some agreements might be reached, they would be modest and imperfect at best. The diplomat aspiring to mediate between Israel and the Arabs would have to be content with small achievements. These, at least, were better than nothing. The stabilization of the region, the reduction of the chances of war, and the end of the oil embargo were far preferable to renewed hostilities and superpower confrontation. Egypt, in any case, seemed firmly committed to a moderate course.

Kissinger had not consciously sought to provoke dissension among the Arabs. On the contrary, he was deeply concerned that Saudi Arabia continue to back Sadat's policies. He also recognized that Syria played a vital role in inter-Arab politics, and he genuinely wanted to draw Syria toward a moderate settlement with Israel.⁴³ The objective situation, however, thwarted his efforts. Golan was not Sinai, and a second step there would be difficult to manage unless Israel was prepared to give up the settlements beyond the post-1967 cease-fire lines. Israel had just demonstrated a remarkable capacity to hold out against American pressures and to exact a high price for eventual compliance. Was it worth the effort for a few kilometers on Golan? Sadat had very much wanted a second agreement, whereas Asad, by contrast, was lukewarm to the idea. He did not entirely reject the concept of a second step, but he made it clear that he was not prepared to pay much of a price for it. Instead Asad began to attack Sadat for having forsaken the struggle against Israel and to press for international recognition of the PLO. Inter-Arab politics had a dynamic of its own that was unleashed by Sinai II. Short of abandoning step-by-step diplomacy, it is not clear what Kissinger could have done to keep Egypt and Syria from drifting apart.

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Kissinger's most serious effort to demonstrate his continuing willingness to work for a comprehensive peace agreement came before Syria's renewal of the UN disengagement observation force in late November 1975. On November 10, 1975, the UN General Assembly had passed a resolution defining Zionism as "a form of racism or racial discrimination." The United States had voted against the resolution, and the U.S. ambassador to the UN, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, had stated that "the United States . . . does not acknowledge, it will not abide by, it will never acquiesce in this infamous act." American public reaction had been strongly supportive of Moynihan's tough words. Many expressed their contempt for those nations who had presumably succumbed to Arab oil blackmail. In this atmosphere it was particularly remarkable that on November 12 the deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, Harold H. Saunders, appeared before a House of Representatives subcommittee to make a policy statement on the Palestinians.

The Saunders document, as it came to be called, infuriated the Israelis and encouraged the Arabs. It spoke of the Palestinian dimension of the Arab-Israeli conflict as being, in many ways, the "heart of that conflict." Saunders went on to state that "the legitimate interests of the Palestinian Arabs must be taken into account in the negotiation of an Arab-Israeli peace." It was a question of how, not whether⁴⁴ Although there was little new in the statement, its timing was significant. It was meant to symbolize a continuing willingness on the part of the administration to work for a peace settlement. Kissinger had gone over the draft carefully, had checked the wording, and had reportedly cleared it with President Ford. When confronted with Israel's hostile reaction, however, he dismissed the Saunders statement as an academic exercise. Nonetheless, the United States seemed to take a somewhat more flexible position than in the past when the issue of PLO participation in the UN debate scheduled for January 1976 came up. Briefly, Arab hopes were raised, but they were to be disappointed. Behind the symbolic shift in American policy there was no real substance.

Public opposition to dealing with the PLO was only one aspect of a broader disenchantment with Kissinger's foreign policy. Détente, once the hallmark of the Nixon-Kissinger policy, was increasingly being attacked, not only by such inveterate cold warriors as Henry Jackson but also by former defense secretary James Schlesinger and by Moynihan, once he had ceased to be the UN ambassador. Furthermore, the Nobel-

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prize-winning Russian author who had been forced into exile by the Soviet government, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, was drawing considerable attention by his gloomy warnings about the dangers of détente with the Soviet Union. All these opponents of détente proved to be ardent supporters of Israel: Israel was anti-Soviet; Israel was in the forefront of defending the human rights of Soviet Jews; Israel was democratic. American pressure on Israel for the sake of détente or Arab oil was especially to be deplored, in the eyes of these critics.

Congress, for its part, was not very pleased with Sinai II as an example of Kissinger's diplomatic prowess. At a minimum, U.S. aid to the Middle East in fiscal year 1976 would exceed $3 billion, $2.25 billion of which would go to Israel, thereby cutting deeply into aid funds available for the rest of the world.⁴⁶ Moreover, Congress initially balked at the idea of sending American civilians to monitor the buffer zone between Egypt and Israel. The Vietnam analogy was raised, although it was not sufficiently compelling to cause Congress to reject the idea. Then, too, even the most ardent supporters of Israel were dismayed to find Pershing missiles among the military items requested by Israel. It seemed doubtful that Congress would authorize the sale of Pershings to Israel, and in December 1975 Israel withdrew its request, at least for the time being.

As the election year 1976 began, it became apparent that President Ford would be preoccupied with domestic politics. His position within his own party was precarious, and it was not certain that he would even be nominated at the Republican convention in August. Ronald Reagan, former governor of California, was mounting a strong challenge, with the support of the most conservative elements in the party. Kissinger and his foreign policy were emerging as a campaign issue for the Reagan Republicans as well as for the Democrats. And although the Middle East was not initially one of the issues in the campaign, the criticisms aimed at Ford and Kissinger did drive them to a tougher stance toward the Soviet Union, as symbolized by American policy in Angola, and precluded an ambitious new initiative in the Arab-Israeli arena.

Despite these election-year pressures, however, President Ford persevered in the attempt to improve U.S.-Egyptian relations. In October 1975 Sadat had been the first Egyptian president to pay an official visit to the United States. During that visit Sadat had appealed for American economic and even military assistance. A complex debate between Congress and the administration ensued, with Ford reducing requested

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aid for Israel in fiscal year 1977 from $2.25 billion to $1.8 billion and simultaneously urging Congress to consider the approval of a limited sale of six C-130 transport planes to Egypt.

Congress not only favored higher levels of aid to Israel but also felt that Israel should receive a supplemental grant to cover the "transitional quarter" from July 1976 to October 1, 1976, the beginning of the new fiscal year. In one of the rare instances of public disagreement between Ford and Kissinger, Ford opposed on budgetary grounds additional aid to Israel for the transitional quarter, whereas Kissinger said the administration would not mind if Congress chose to vote an additional $500 million.

The consideration of arms for Egypt took a new turn in mid-March 1976, when President Sadat announced the abrogation of the fifteen-year treaty of friendship and cooperation with the Soviet Union. Against the background of the news that Israel, according to CIA analysts, possessed from ten to twenty operational atomic weapons,⁴⁷ opposition to the sale to Egypt faded, although Congress preferred that it be handled purely as a commercial transaction. Eventually Egypt got the planes, worth about $50 million, and Israel received the supplementary aid, worth many times more.

Ford's willingness to take a hard line on aid to Israel and to oppose in the United Nations the Israeli policy on settlements in the occupied territories lasted through the first part of the election campaign. By the fall, however, when Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia, the Democratic candidate, was enjoying a huge lead in the polls, the president began to play up his credentials as a strong supporter of Israel. In the last month of the campaign the Middle East became a topic of occasional debate, wherein Carter and Ford tried to outdo each other as the better friend of Israel, and Carter in particular hinted at very severe action against any future Arab oil embargo.

Carter's narrow victory over Ford on November 2, 1976, settled the issue of who would be the next president, but neither the Israelis nor the Arabs had any clear idea of what the next president's policies would be. Both expected new initiatives, and both were apprehensive.

## THE LEBANON CRISIS

Throughout the early part of 1976, as the Americans turned their attention inward, inter-Arab relations continued to deteriorate in the absence of progress toward a settlement. Egypt was trying to emerge from the

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isolation produced by Sinai II, but only Saudi Arabia offered support. Syria and Jordan were moving together, and the Palestinians were still denouncing Sadat as a traitor to the cause.

In January 1976 the ongoing crisis in Lebanon grew more acute as hundreds of casualties were registered every day. Conspiratorial interpretations of the events in Lebanon abounded, producing a particularly suspicious and mistrustful mood in the Arab world. The only party that seemed to be profiting from the Lebanon crisis, in the eyes of many Arabs, was Israel. Some would also add the United States and Egypt. Lebanon was deflecting attention from Sinai II and was ensuring that combined Arab pressure could not be brought to bear on Israel or the United States. In addition, the right-wing Christian groups in Lebanon, armed and supported by the West and even Israel, were inexplicably pressing their attacks against the Lebanese left, and the Palestinians in particular. Some saw these attacks as part of a master plan, orchestrated in Washington, to destroy the PLO. Then Egypt, Syria, and Jordan could make peace with Israel under U.S. auspices.

Syria's objective in Lebanon appeared to be to bring the fighting to an end. Initially Syria allowed several battalions of the Palestine Liberation Army to enter Lebanon. The tide of the battle seemed to turn in ensuing months, to the point where the left, headed by Kamal Jumblatt, spoke of an impending military victory over the right. This possibility concerned the United States, because a leftist Lebanon might allow Palestinian guerrilla attacks against Israel, which could eventually lead to war. Syria, and perhaps even Egypt, would be drawn in. During this period, then, the United States played a very active role in urging restraint on Israel and Syria.⁴⁸ Above all, the United States feared that large-scale Syrian intervention on the side of the Palestinians would provoke an Israeli military reaction, thus threatening to upset the fragile stability of the agreements so laboriously negotiated by Kissinger.

The warnings to Syria may have struck home. Asad was perfectly aware that a leftist- or Palestinian-dominated Lebanon would cause him problems. It might invite Israeli attacks, drawing Syria into premature military action against Israel. Or it might align itself with Syria's bitter rival, Iraq. What Asad most wanted was a Lebanon responsive to Syria's leadership, but as the fighting went on it became clear that the left and Palestinians were not about to take orders from Damascus. The American assessment of Syria's interests in Lebanon began to change, and by May the United States, with the encouragement of Jordan's King Hussein,

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was saying that a limited Syrian military intervention in Lebanon might help to stabilize the situation and restore security. Inasmuch as the United States, and presumably Israel as well, no longer opposed a Syrian move, Asad ordered his armed forces into Syria on a large scale in early June to protect the embattled Christians and rightists against the left and the Palestinians.

Soon most of Lebanon was under Syrian control, but the fighting raged on, especially in Beirut. Syria's intervention in Lebanon was roundly condemned by other Arab states, especially Egypt, which joined forces with Iraq, Libya, and the PLO to thwart the Syrian moves. New conspiracy theories began to emerge, linking Syria's action to Kissinger's diabolical policies: Syria would crush the PLO and would be rewarded by the return of the Golan Heights. Jordan would recover the West Bank. A Pax Americana would then descend over the area. Radical forces and Soviet influence would be banished. Saudi oil money would finance the flow of American technology.

The only flaw in the theories was that they bore little resemblance to reality. American officials, rather than having a grand policy for dealing with the Lebanon crisis or the Palestinians, were confused and perplexed by the internecine war in Lebanon. Kissinger dealt with the crisis chiefly as an extension of the Arab-Israeli conflict; hence the warnings to both Israel and Syria not to intervene during the spring of 1976. The conflict had a logic of its own, however, as did Syrian policy, once the commitment to Lebanon was made early in 1976. Asad was not playing the American or Israeli game in Lebanon, whatever the superficial appearances. Kissinger and Ford, quite simply, had no game in mind, other than to prevent a full-scale Arab-Israeli war. Apart from urging the evacuation of Americans in Lebanon, the United States did little.⁴⁹

The fighting in Lebanon continued into the fall, and the Christians consolidated their control over a small coastal strip between Beirut and Tripoli. For all intents and purposes this became an autonomous region with its own government and armed forces. Even the newly elected president, Elias Sarkis, had little sway over the Christians. Syria helped them by removing the Palestinians from the mountainous areas to the east of the Christian-held areas, gradually and methodically pushing them toward their stronghold around the port of Sidon. The Palestinians, with help from the Iraqis, Libyans, and Egyptians, fought against great odds but could not withstand the Syrian offensive.

At the moment of impending Syrian victory, Saudi Arabia flexed its

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diplomatic and financial muscles, summoning President Asad and Sadat, along with PLO Chairman Arafat, to Riyadh in late October 1976 for an urgent conference to end the bloodshed in Lebanon. Asad conducted himself with considerable sophistication, seeking a reconciliation with Sadat in return for Egypt's endorsement of Syria's predominant role in Lebanon. Within hours the course of events in the Arab world reversed direction. A hastily convened Arab summit meeting in Cairo a few days later ratified the agreements reached in Riyadh, the key element of which was the creation of an Arab peacekeeping force, consisting mainly of Syrians, which would restore law and order in Lebanon. The PLO, reading the new Arab consensus correctly, concluded that it had no alternative but to acquiesce. By November most of Lebanon was under effective Syrian control, and the eighteen-month-long civil war seemed to be at least at a temporary end. Only in southern Lebanon, where Syrian troops were constrained by Israeli threats, was the situation still explosive, but even there neither Syria nor Israel seemed to be anxious for a confrontation.

The Arab coalition, which had fallen apart over Sinai II, now seemed to be resurrecting itself. With Saudi encouragement, Egypt and Syria were back on speaking terms, Jordan maintained good relations with Syria, and the PLO, chastened by its severe setbacks in Lebanon, gave off signals that some interpreted as a willingness to pursue more moderate policies in the future. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Arabs seemed to be putting their own house at least partly in order to be better able to confront the new American president with a coherent position. The divisions that had so crippled them throughout the American election year were apparently forgotten, although in other times and in other circumstances they would almost certainly come to the surface again. For the moment, however, the renewed sense of Arab solidarity could be a valuable asset in a new round of diplomacy, just as it could raise the risks of war if diplomacy failed.

## THE KISSINGER LEGACY

Henry Kissinger's impact on American foreign policy will be debated endlessly. Of the accomplishments credited to him, few were not also in part the product of circumstances or the actions of others. But Kissinger will undoubtedly be regarded as one of the most powerful and most successful of American statesmen in the post-World War II era. How he managed to achieve such prominence is a story in its own right, revealing

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Kissinger's remarkable talents as a bureaucratic maneuverer and politician. His more enduring legacy, however, will be his policies and the concepts behind them.

After several false starts Kissinger finally developed a coherent approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict after the October 1973 war. He started from the premise that the United States need not choose between a pro-Arab or pro-Israeli policy. In fact, it was the American special relationship to Israel that compelled the Arabs to deal with Washington instead of Moscow when it came to diplomacy. Consequently, if an alternative to war could be offered to the Arabs, their interests, quite apart from their sentiments, would lead them to deal with the United States. A credible diplomatic process was therefore essential to the weakening of Soviet influence in the Middle East. This view, once stated, seems unexceptional, perhaps obvious; even so, it was often ignored, on occasion by Kissinger himself.

Kissinger's second contribution to American diplomacy in the Middle East was the development of specific negotiating techniques designed to produce limited agreements between Arabs and Israelis. If Kissinger's grand strategy often seemed fairly conventional, his tactical skills as a negotiator and mediator were unsurpassed. Here his originality, his sense of timing, his intelligence, and even his personality served him especially well.

Kissinger demonstrated that, in practice, successful negotiations require an ability to break issues into manageable pieces that can then be imaginatively recombined into viable agreements. Mastery of detail is essential to success, as is a sense of context and nuance. A sustained, high-level effort, fully supported by the president, is the only American approach to negotiations likely to produce results. Kissinger showed that such an effort could succeed, as well as how difficult it could be.

Finally, Kissinger translated into practice his belief that power and diplomacy must always go hand in hand. The United States can never rely solely on force or on negotiations in the Middle East. The test of statesmanship is to find the critical balance of the two. Arms supplies to the Israelis or the Arabs must be viewed as part of the diplomatic process, not as a technical military issue. Whatever troubles Kissinger may have had in practice with this principle, he clearly saw that political considerations outweighed narrowly military ones in decisions of this sort.

Kissinger's successors no doubt pondered the value of these views and reflected on both the strength and the limits of the Kissinger approach.

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Kissinger was unable to decide how to deal with the Soviets in the Middle East. He wavered between exaggerating their role and then minimizing it. Similarly, his views on a comprehensive approach to negotiations seemed to fluctuate between a recognition that some kind of framework was essential and a belief that each step could and should be taken in isolation from the others. Behind this ambiguity seems to have been a doubt whether peace between Arabs and Israelis could really be established in his lifetime. At times he acted as if he believed it could be, whereas on other occasions he seemed to be prepared to settle for a stable status quo.

Lastly, Kissinger had a blind spot toward the Palestinian issue. He knew that at some point the problem would have to be confronted. He even appeared to be tempted by the idea of dealing directly with the PLO leadership. But he geared much of his diplomacy to trying to circumvent this crucial issue, to putting off the moment of truth, and to weakening the appeal of the Palestinian movement, all the while hoping that some alternative would appear. Perhaps with time, with better luck, and with a strong president behind him, Kissinger would have helped find acceptable solutions to all these unanswered problems. But Ford's defeat brought Kissinger's public career to an end and left to the Carter administration the unenviable task of shaping an American policy toward the Arab-Israeli conflict.

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if presidential authority had not been so badly undermined. In brief, American influence might have made a difference, but it was not available from mid-1974 on.

## CHAPTER NINE

1. Ford shared Kissinger's suspicion of the Soviet Union. See Gerald R. Ford, *A Time to Heal: The Autobiography of Gerald R. Ford* (Harper and Row, 1979), p. 183: "Even before I became President, Kissinger had achieved significant success in easing the Soviets out of the Middle East. I thought they didn't want a bona fide settlement there and that their only aim was to promote instability, so I wanted to keep them out."

2. See Cecilia Albin and Harold H. Saunders, "Sinai II: The Politics of International Mediation," FPI Case Study 17, Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies, Washington, 1991, for the best detailed account of these negotiations. The authors point out that Ford himself was inclined to concentrate on the Egyptian-Israeli front, in part because it seemed more feasible in political terms (pp. 37-38).

3. Fahmy told Ford that Egypt was prepared to go ahead with another partial agreement with Israel before an Israeli-Jordanian agreement was reached. He also expressed the opinion that simultaneous negotiations on these two fronts was impossible. Ibid., pp. 29-30.

4. Ibid., p. 30, indicates that King Hussein made an important concession by accepting the idea that Israeli forces could remain behind in designated locations along the Jordan River after a disengagement agreement. This is referred to as the "leopard spots" concept.

5. See, for example, William Safire, "Arab Council of War," *New York Times*, October 31, 1974, p. 41. A more thoughtful analysis can be found in Richard H. Ullman, "After Rabat: Middle East Risks and American Roles," *Foreign Affairs*, vol. 53 (January 1975), pp. 284-96.

6. In November 1974 the International Energy Agency was established under OECD auspices. It agreed upon a program to build up oil stocks, to plan for reducing demand in the event of oil-supply interruptions, and to share oil if any member of the group was subjected to a selective embargo. By agreeing to these terms, the United States in theory became as vulnerable to an embargo as Europe or Japan.

7. For a discussion of the link between the Arab-Israeli conflict and the energy crisis, see William B. Quandt, "U.S. Energy Policy and the Arab-Israeli Conflict," in Naiem A. Sherbiny and Mark A. Tessler, eds., *Arab Oil: Impact on the Arab Countries and Global Implications* (Praeger, 1976), pp. 279-94. In a major address on energy at the University of Chicago on November 14, 1976, Kissinger maintained that the price of oil would come down only when the objective situation changed. In other words market forces, not political favors, would be the means of reducing prices.

8. Kissinger was pressed by an aggressive interviewer to state that the use of force against oil producers could not be excluded in the event of actual "strangula-

Notes to Pages 229-35

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tion" of the Western economies. "Kissinger on Oil, Food, and Trade," *Business Week*, January 13, 1975, pp. 66-76. Detailed discussions of the circumstances in which force might appropriately be used appeared in Robert Tucker, "Oil: The Issue of American Intervention," *Commentary*, vol. 59 (January 1975), pp. 21-31; and Miles Ignotus [presumably Edward Luttwak], "Seizing Arab Oil," *Harper's*, March 1975, pp. 45-62.

9. An article by Hollis Chenery, vice-president of the World Bank, marked an important turning point in the debate over oil prices. See "Restructuring the World Economy," *Foreign Affairs*, vol. 53 (January 1975), pp. 242-63.

10. The joint communiqué issued on November 24, 1974, said that the search for peace in the Middle East should be based on UN Resolution 338, "taking into account the legitimate interests of all the peoples of the area, including the Palestinian people, and respect for the right to independent existence of all States in the area." *Department of State Bulletin*, vol. 71 (December 23, 1974), p. 880.

11. Matti Golan, *The Secret Conversations of Henry Kissinger: Step-by-Step Diplomacy in the Middle East* (Quadrangle Books, 1976), p. 229.

12. Ibid., pp. 229-30; and Haaretz, December 17, 1974.

13. Ford also weighed in with advice to the Israelis to be more flexible. See Ford, *Time to Heal*, pp. 245-46, for his view that Israel was sufficiently strong to be able to make concessions.

14. *Le Monde*, January 21, 1975.

15. On February 3, 1975, Syria and the Soviet Union issued a joint communique calling for the reconvening of the Geneva conference.

16. Golan, *Secret Conversations of Kissinger*, p. 232.

17. Asad's position on a second step in the Golan Height remained ambiguous. He did not appear particularly anxious for such an agreement, but neither did he preclude it.

18. Wolf I. Blitzer, "Kissinger Reveals Sadat's Twelve 'Concessions,'" *Jerusalem Post*, May 12, 1975, p. 1. According to Albin and Saunders, "Sinai II," p. 58, Sadat also gave Kissinger a fallback position to use as needed. This became a standard Sadat tactic in later negotiations.

19. Edward R. F. Sheehan, *The Arabs, Israelis, and Kissinger: A Secret History of American Diplomacy in the Middle East* (Reader's Digest Press, 1976), p. 156. See also Albin and Saunders, "Sinai II," pp. 56-58 for a summary of these points.

20. See Golan, *Secret Conversations of Kissinger*, pp. 236-38, although he incorrectly gives the date of the letter as March 19. Yitzhak Rabin, *The Rabin Memoirs* (Little, Brown, 1979), p. 256, provides a partial text of the letter, in which Ford threatens "reassessment" of U.S. policy, including relations with Israel. Ford, *Time to Heal*, p. 247, said that he was "mad as hell" at the Israelis over their negotiating tactics.

21. Sheehan, *Arabs, Israelis*, pp. 160-62, contains parts of the transcripts of these talks. It should be noted that the transcripts are not verbatim records but reconstructions of the conversations in dialogue form based on notes taken during the sessions by one of Kissinger's aides. A slightly different version of Kissinger's soliloquy can be found in Albin and Saunders, "Sinai II," pp. 69-70.

22. Before his departure Kissinger called on Golda Meir. Although she

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publicly supported Rabin, she privately implied to Kissinger that Rabin had mishandled the negotiations and that she would have known how to get the cabinet and the Knesset to support an agreement.

23. Ford met with Max Fisher on March 27, 1975, to express his irritation with Israeli policy. Fisher was a wealthy Detroit businessman, a Republican, and a leader in the American Jewish community. He often served as an informal channel of communication between the United States and Israel. See Ford, *Time to Heal*, pp. 247, 286.

24. Ford interview with the Hearst newspaper chain, March 27, 1975. See Bernard Gwertzman, "Ford Says Israel Lacked Flexibility in Negotiations," *New York Times*, March 28, 1975, p. 1.

25. George Ball, "How to Avert a Middle East War," *Atlantic Montbly*, January 1975, pp. 6-11.

26. During this period Stanley Hoffmann brilliantly argued the case that it was in Israel's own interest to come up with a comprehensive peace initiative. The major flaw in his argument was that such a policy would require a strong Israeli government backed by a broad public consensus. That apparently was lacking. See "A New Policy for Israel," *Foreign Affairs*, vol. 53 (April 1975), pp. 405-31.

27. Sheehan, *Arabs, Israelis*, p. 166; and Albin and Saunders, "Sinai II," p. 79.

28. He also referred to U.S. policy as "evenhanded."

29. Ford, *Time to Heal*, p. 287, says that he publicly welcomed the letter from the senators, but "in truth it really bugged me. The Senators claimed the letter was 'spontaneous,' but there was no doubt in my mind that it was inspired by Israel. We had given vast amounts of military and economic assistance to Israel over the years and we had never asked for anything in return."

30. Sheehan, *Arabs, Israelis*, pp. 176-77.

31. Golan, *Secret Conversations of Kissinger*, p. 59; and Ford, *Time to Heal*, pp. 290-91.

32. Ford, *Time to Heal*, p. 291, says that he also offered Sadat significant amounts of economic assistance ($800 million) and C-130 transports. Offensive military equipment was ruled out because of Israel's strong objections.

33. Ford letter to Rabin, September 1, 1975, referring to their meeting of June 12, 1975. Reproduced in Michael Widlanski, ed., *Can Israel Survive a Palestinian State?* (Jerusalem: Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, 1990), pp. 120-21. According to Albin and Saunders, "Sinai II," p. 92, Ford told Rabin that he was inclined to put forward a U.S. plan.

34. Golan, *Secret Conversations of Kissinger*, p. 245; and Terence Smith, "Israel Offers Compromise to Egyptian Sinai Accords," *New York Times*, June 25, 1975, p. 1. Rabin, *Rabin Memoirs*, p. 267, states that the proposed map was approved by the Israeli negotiating team and conveyed to Egypt, where it was rejected.

35. Golan, *Secret Conversations of Kissinger*, p. 248, although he mistakenly gives the date of this meeting as early August. Bernard Gwertzman, "Kissinger Visited by Israeli Envoy for Secret Talks," *New York Times*, July 4, 1975, p. 1.

36. Albin and Saunders, "Sinai II," p. 86, note that Israel was very intent on

getting more military assistance to Israel. Matmon-B.

37. Rabin and Ford met in Jerusalem on March 1, 1975, to discuss a new negotiating plan. In a letter to Terence Smith, in Sinai, "*New York Times*, July 13, 1975, Warns Majority in UN on UN-Egypt's reply was forthcoming. Israel then presented an "absence to Sadat via Eilts on July 14. Belgrade on August 3, and position. During the next few days, Israel and Egypt will be in August United States and Israel. Ford then instructed Kissinger to pin down the details of an attack on Israel."

38. Sheehan, *Arabs, Israel*.

39. The text of the agreement, signed September 22, 1975, published in "U.S. Documents," September 17, 1975, and September 18, 1975, of State.

40. Kissinger had kept making to Israel but did not have any success in getting Egypt and other Arab countries to interpret his actions as not having mentioned them.

41. According to Allmand, Kissinger sought much stronger and more interpreted this commitment.

42. This letter remains survive?

43. On September 1, 1975, the United Nations Humanitarian Committee of the United Nations, led by the Syrian-Israeli second consider ways of working together to refine his thinking on the best way to be met. "Furthering the work of the Department of State Bulletin."

44. The Saunders, "The Palestinian Issue," p. 797-800.

45. Schlesinger was the first to note that Kissinger was relieved of his任务 by Donald Rumsfeld, the U.S. ambassador to Israel. Kissinger was relieved of his任务 in 1975.

Notes to Pages 240-44

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getting more military assistance to fund its ten-year modernization program called Matmon-B.

37. Rabin and Ford met in Bonn on July 12, after which the Israeli cabinet authorized a new negotiating position. See *Arab Report and Record*, July 1-15, 1975, p. 401; Terence Smith, "U.S. Is Considering Proposal That It Man Posts in Sinai," *New York Times*, July 13, 1975, p. 1; and Kathleen Teltsch, "Kissinger Warns Majority in UN on U.S. Support," *New York Times*, July 15, 1975, p. 1. Egypt's reply was forthcoming on July 21, but was rejected by Israel on July 27. Israel then presented an "absolutely final" position to Kissinger, who transmitted it to Sadat via Eilts on July 31. The Egyptian response reached Kissinger in Belgrade on August 3, and by August 7 Dinitz had responded with the Israeli position. During the next few days, further exchanges took place, and by mid-August United States and Israeli officials had completed work on a draft agreement. Ford then instructed Kissinger to undertake another trip to the Middle East to pin down the details of an agreement.

38. Sheehan, *Arabs, Israelis*, p. 184.

39. The text of the agreement can be found in *Department of State Bulletin*, vol. 73 (September 22, 1975), pp. 466-70. The secret part of the agreement was published in "U.S. Documents Accompanying the Sinai Accord," *New York Times*, September 17, 1975, p. 4, and "U.S.-Israeli Pact on Geneva," *New York Times*, September 18, 1975, p. 16. The map was also released by the Department of State.

40. Kissinger had kept Sadat informed of most of the commitments he was making to Israel but did not mention the Pershing missile. This irritated the Egyptians and raised doubts about other secret agreements that Kissinger might not have mentioned.

41. According to Albin and Saunders, "Sinai II," p. 100, the Israelis had sought much stronger language. The American negotiating team at the time interpreted this commitment as leaving room for contacts with the PLO.

42. This letter remained secret until published in Widlanski, ed., *Can Israel Survive?* pp. 120-21.

43. On September 29, 1975, Kissinger spoke to the Arab representatives at the United Nations. He said that the United States was prepared to work for a Syrian-Israeli second step, if that was wanted; that the United States would consider ways of working for an overall settlement; and that he would begin to refine his thinking on how the legitimate interests of the Palestinian people could be met. "Furthering Peace in the Middle East," Toast by Secretary Kissinger, *Department of State Bulletin*, vol. 73 (October 20, 1975), pp. 581-84.

44. The Saunders statement can be found in "Department Gives Position on Palestinian Issue," *Department of State Bulletin*, vol. 73 (December 1, 1975), pp. 797-800.

45. Schlesinger was dismissed by Ford on November 2, 1975, to be replaced by Donald Rumsfeld; CIA Director Colby was replaced by George Bush; and Kissinger was relieved of his position as national security affairs adviser, to be replaced by Brent Scowcroft. Moynihan resigned on February 2, 1976.

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Notes to Pages 245-56

46. Even without Sinai II, of course, the level of aid for Israel and Egypt would have been substantial. The marginal cost of Sinai II should be measured as several hundreds of million dollars, not several billion. For an account of the congressional debate on Sinai II, see Bernard Gwertzman, "Senate Unit Asks Word from Ford," *New York Times*, October 1, 1975, p. 14. The House and Senate voted in favor of United States technicians in Sinai by large majorities, on October 8 and 9, respectively. Ford, *Time to Heal*, pp. 308-09, provides his rationale for increased aid to Israel: "If we provided the hardware, we could convince Israelis that they were secure. Then they might be willing to accept some risks in the search for peace."

47. Bernard Gwertzman, "Israel Indicates a Cool Reaction to Egypt's Ideas," *New York Times*, March 15, 1975, p. 1.

48. In late March the State Department repeatedly warned Syria against military intervention in Lebanon. On March 31 the former ambassador to Jordan, L. Dean Brown, was sent to Lebanon to try to promote a political settlement. Shortly thereafter a modest number of Syrian troops did enter Lebanon. The United States and Israel both augmented their military capabilities in precautionary measures. Throughout April, while Syria was working to achieve agreement that Elias Sarkis should replace President Suleiman Frangieh, riots broke out on the West Bank after the victory on April 12 of Palestinian nationalists in the municipal elections. Despite the increase of tensions, however, both the United States and Israel began to perceive the Syrian role in Lebanon as potentially stabilizing. Sarkis was elected as Lebanon's new president on May 8 but was not scheduled to take office until September. As fighting continued, Syria increased its military involvement in Lebanon in late May and early June. On June 5 Syria and Egypt withdrew their diplomatic representatives in each other's capitals.

49. A new ambassador, Frank Meloy, took over from Brown in late April. Subsequently, Brown criticized Kissinger for having discouraged Syria from sending troops into Lebanon. "We reined in the Syrians too much, in order to please the Israelis. It resulted in a lot more killing." *Arab Report and Record*, May 16-31, 1976, p. 321. Meloy was kidnapped and assassinated, presumably by dissident Palestinians, on June 16, 1976. He was replaced by an experienced Arabist, Talcott Seelye, but in short order the American diplomatic community in Beirut was reduced to a token force and Seelye returned to Washington. Two evacuations by sea were successfully carried out on June 20 and July 27, 1976, with the cooperation of the PLO. Throughout this period, discreet contacts between the United States and the PLO were undertaken in the interests of arranging for local security.

## CHAPTER TEN

1. *Toward Peace in the Middle East*, Report of a Study Group (Brookings, 1975). This report was subsequently credited with steering the Carter administration toward a comprehensive approach to an Arab-Israeli peace agreement, with the Geneva Conference as the centerpiece of the strategy. It is true that Vance and Carter both read the report and many of its suggestions were incorporated into

CONFLICT AND VIOLENCE IN LEBANON

FROM THE END OF GENERAL HOSTILITIES TO
THE ISRAELI INVASION

1. An Auspicious Beginning 103

2. The Harvest of War 106

3. The Mood of the Protagonists 109

4. National Reconciliation and the Palestinians 112

5. Centripetal Forces Gather Momentum 114

103

THE ISRAELI INVASION AND ITS AFTERMATH

123

1. Israel's Motives and Objectives 123

2. The Security Council Intervenes 131

3. UNIFIL Deploys South of the Litani 133

4. The Impact on the PLO 137

5. The Impact on the Lebanese 139

145

THE OUTLOOK

1. Lebanon and Palestine 145

2. The Crisis of Identity 146

3. Grounds for Optimism 148

4. Syria's Role 150

5. UNIFIL's Role 152

6. Prudence is Compassion 154

159

NOTES

APPENDIXES

183

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am grateful to many people for their help. It was Benjamin H. Brown, Adviser to the Fellows of the Center for International Affairs and its Acting Director during the first half of 1978, who first suggested to me the idea of writing on the Lebanese Civil War. Eric Nordlinger suggested the organization of the first four chapters and read an early draft of them. Early drafts of the same chapters were also read by Kamal Salibi, Tarif Khalidi, Michael Simpson, Ahmed Khalidi, and Rashid Khalidi. I benefited greatly from their comments. Mary Neznek, Nawwaf Salaam, Riyad Ashkar, and May Kadi gave valuable assistance with the gathering of data and documents. Eva Morvay and Deb Forrester stoically typed endless versions of the manuscript.

Maury Feld and Peter Berry were ever ready to assist at the Center's Library. Sally Cox and Jean Allison briskly solved every problem of life brought to their doorsteps during my two years (1976-78) of residence in Cambridge. The first year I was a Fellow of the Center for International Affairs and Visiting Lecturer in Government; the second, Research Associate at both the Center for International Affairs and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. To Raymond Vernon, Director of the former, and Benjamin Brown, as well as to Muhsin Mahdi and A. J. Meyer of the latter my heartfelt thanks for their hospitality, help, and encouragement. A very special debt of gratitude I owe to Peter Jacobsohn, the Center for International Affairs' Editor of Publications, not only for his painstaking work on the manuscript but also for the warmth of his companionship during many hours of discussion and joint revision of the text.

9

GLOSSARY

sion. Secondly, the Maronites are the largest single Lebanese Christian community, constituting about one half the number of Lebanon's Christians (and about one third of its total population). There are more than twice as many Maronites as there are Greek Orthodox. They have held the reins of political and economic power since the establishment of modern Lebanon in 1920. Of all the Christian communities in the country they are the most conscious of their group identity, the best organized politically and militarily, and the most articulate and militant. They are the pace-setters for all non-Maronite Lebanese Christians who empathize with them. Of course, a fuller and more detailed study would have to take into account the attitudes and perspectives of each Christian group, viz., the Greek Orthodox, the Greek Catholics, the Armenian Orthodox and Catholics, the Protestants, etc. But this seemed warranted given the nature and scope of this book.

**ADF**
See Arab Deterrent Force.

**Ahdab, Aziz, Brigadier**
Lebanese Sunnite (see Sunnite) army officer, commander of the Beirut garrison. On 11 March 1976, he declared a *coup d'état* against President Suleiman Franjeh (see Franjieh).

**Ain Rummaneh**
Christian suburb of Beirut, scene of massacre on 13 April 1975 of 28 Palestinians—the Sarajevo of the Civil War.

**Alawites**
A Syrian Shiite (see Shiite) schismatic sect to which President Asad of Syria belongs.

**ANM**
See Arab Nationalist Movement.

**Arab Army of Lebanon/ Army of Arab Lebanon**
Name given to rebel units of Lebanese Army after their mutiny under Lieutenant Ahmed Khatib (see Khatib) in January 1976. Khatib's forces joined the National Movement (see National Movement).

**Arab Deterrent Force (ADF)**
The Inter-Arab Force (30,000 strong) agreed upon at the Riyad and Cairo summits in October 1976 to enforce the cease-fire ordered by these summits. The Syrian contingents formed the bulk of the Force. (See Riyad Summit and Cairo Summit).

**Arab Nationalist Movement**
Pan-Arab party founded in late 1940s by Palestinian Christian leader Dr. George Habash (see Habash).

**Arafat, Yasir**
Leader of the Palestinian Fath (see Fath) movement and Chairman

15

<table><tr><td>Asad, Hafez</td><td>Baathist (see Baath) President of Syria since November 1970.</td><td>since February 1969 of the Executive of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).</td></tr><tr><td>As'ad, Kamel</td><td>Lebanese Shiite (see Shiite) traditional leader and Speaker of Parliament.</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Baath (Party)</td><td>Literally "Resurrection," the name of the Pan-Arab socialist party founded in the early fifties by the Syrian Christian leader Michel Aflak. Different factions of the party currently rule in both Syria and Iraq.</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Bekaa Valley</td><td>The fertile plain in eastern Lebanon lying between Mount Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon mountain ranges bordering Syria.</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Brown, Dean</td><td>U.S. diplomat and Washington's special envoy to Lebanon during the Civil War.</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Cairo Agreement</td><td>Signed in Cairo on 3 November 1969 by Lebanese army commander and Yasir Arafat, chief of the PLO. It aimed at the regulation and control of Palestinian armed presence and activity in Lebanon.</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Cairo Summit</td><td>A plenary summit of the heads of Arab states held on 25-26 October 1976 following the mini-summit at Riyad (see Riyad Summit). Both aimed at ending the Civil War in Lebanon.</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Chamoun, Camille</td><td>Veteran Maronite leader, President 1952-58, member of the Lebanese Front (see Lebanese Front).</td><td></td></tr></table>

Chehab, Fuad, General

Constitutional Document

Deuxième Bureau

Dhur Shuweir (Salient)

Druzes

Eddé, Emile

Front), leading Maronite hawk. His two sons Dory and Dany played active roles during the Civil War.

Leading Maronite figure, commander of the Lebanese army 1943-1958, President 1958-1964. Died in 1975.

Name given to reform program announced by President Suleiman Franjieh on 14 February 1976 in an attempt to end the Civil War.

Military Intelligence Branch of the Lebanese Army, first given significant political role during presidency of Chehab (see Chehab).

Town lying north of the Beirut-Damascus highway at the eastern approaches to Mount Lebanon (see Mount Lebanon)—the Maronite heartland. Together with its neighboring villages it constituted a salient in which heavy fighting took place at the height of the National Movement's (see National Movement) offensive in the spring of 1976.

The name of a schismatic Shiite Moslem sect which has followers in Lebanon and Syria and to a lesser extent in Israel—(see Jumblat, Shiites).

Leader of the Francophile Maronite faction in the early forties. During the Civil War his son, Raymond, several times a cabinet minister and member of Parliament.

Ehden

ment, was critical of President Franjieh and the other Maronite leaders.

Mountain stronghold of President Suleiman Franjieh in northern Lebanon. It was the scene of an attack on 13 June 1978 by Phalangist militiamen in which Franjieh's son, Tony, and the latter's wife and daughter were massacred (See Franjieh).

Erskine, Emmanuel, General

Commander of UNIFIL (see UNIFIL).

Fath

An inverted acronym for the "Movement for the Liberation of Palestine." In its inverted form it signifies "victory" in Arabic. The name of the largest Palestinian political and guerrilla organization, led by Yasir Arafat. It is the centrist backbone of the PLO (see Arafat, PLO).

✓Gemayel, Pierre

Leader of the Phalanges party—the largest political and paramilitary Maronite organization. Pierre is also a member of the Lebanese Front. His son Basheer, a leading hawk, is commander of the paramilitary forces of the Phalanges as well as of the United Forces of all Maronite militias in the country. Amin, Gemayel's younger son, has the reputation of being a moderate. (See Phalanges).

Geneva Conference

Refers to two things: a) The Geneva Middle East Conference held in December 1973 in the wake of the 1973 War. This was attended by Israel, Egypt, Jordan, the U.S., and the Soviet Union

Glossary

under the chairmanship of UN Secretary General Waldheim; b) The future convening of this conference with other Arab participants to pursue negotiations for an overall Middle East settlement.

Ghanem, Iskandar, General

Controversial Maronite commander of the Lebanese army protégé of President Franjieh. Lived of his duties in September 1975.

Golan I

The Syrian-Israeli disengagement agreement concluded in the wake of the 1973 War. The agreement was reached on 31 May 1974 and is still in effect.

Grand Liban

The name given by the French 1920 to the modern state Lebanon which they created that year. It was "grand" because the new state involved the addition of largely Moslem distri and cities to Mount Lebanon province, the Maronite heartland proper (See Mount Lebanon).

Greek Orthodox

The Eastern (originally Byzantine) Orthodox Church. Most of the Arab Christians of Syria and Jordan belong to this church. Lebanon they constitute the latest Christian community after the Maronites.

Haddad, Saad, Major

An officer of the regular Lebanese army (before its disintegration protégé of Israel and command of Maronite forces in "the 6-mi belt" near Israel's border).

Hafiz, Amin

Sunnite Prime Minister of Lebanon May-July 1973.

Helou, Charles

Maronite President 1964-1970.

Hoss, Salim

Sunnite ex-professor and banker, Prime Minister from 8 December 1976 and during the entire period covered in this book. His cabinet was composed largely of technocrats.

Jalloud, Abdul Salaam

Prime Minister of Libya. Jalloud paid several visits to Lebanon during the Civil War to mediate between Syria and the PLO.

Jumblat, Kamal

Traditional leader of the Lebanese Druze community, head of the Progressive Socialist Party, founder, leader, and main driving force behind the National Movement (see National Movement). He was assassinated in March 1977 and has been succeeded by his son Walid.

Kaddafi, Muammar

President of Libya.

Karami, Rashid

Sunnite traditional leader of Tripoli, several times Prime Minister before the Civil War, occupied this post again as from the summer of 1975, until the appointment of Hoss. (See Hoss). Rashid's father, Abdul Hamid, had also been Prime Minister in the 1950s.

Kassis, Sharbel, Father

Head of the Conference of Maronite Monastic Orders, and member of the Lebanese Front.

Khaddam, Abdul Halim

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Syria.

Khalid, Hassan, Sheikh

Sunnite Mufti (jurisconsult) of Lebanon, technically the head of the Sunnite religious establishment.

Glossary

Khatib, Ahmad, Lieutenant

Sunnite ex-officer in the regula Lebanese army, Khatib led the mutiny of pro-National Movement units in January 1976, creating the Arab Army of Lebanon (See Arab Army of Lebanon).

Khoury, Bishara, Sheikh

Leader of the Arabophile Maronite faction in the early 1940s President 1943-1952.

Lebanese Front

The highest Maronite political and military decision-making body. It is a coalition of the four leading Maronite figures: ex-Presidents Suleiman Franjieh, Camille Chamoun, Pierre Gemayel of the Phalanges, and Father Kassis of the Monastic Orders. The Front was formed in 1976. It maintained its cohesion until early 1978, when Franjieh withdrew from it.

Litani River

It flows southwards in the Bekaa Valley in the east and then westwards into the Mediterranean. For most of its course it runs parallel to the Israeli border at a distance of between 2 and 15 miles in the east and 15 and 17 miles in the center and the west. Somewhere north of it ran the Israeli Red Line (See Red Line). The river was the farthest limit of the Israeli invasion in March 1978.

Mandate

The trusteeship arrangements under the auspices of the League of Nations which enabled Britain and France at the end of World War I to legitimize their occupation of several Middle Eastern countries. The territories of Syria and Lebanon fell under the French Mandate.

VIOLENCE IN LEBANON

Glossary

23

<table><tr><td>Marj Uyun</td><td>A town in the eastern sector of the six-mile "security belt" inside Lebanon created by Israel. It is Major Haddad's main base of operations (see Major Saad Haddad).</td></tr><tr><td>Maronites</td><td>An eastern Catholic community named after their eponymous patron saint Marun (died c. 410 A.D.). They have been in full union with Rome since 1736. The largest and strongest Christian community in Lebanon.</td></tr><tr><td>Melkart Understanding</td><td>An agreement reached in May 1973 between the Lebanese Government and the PLO elaborating on some provisions of the Cairo Agreement and annulling others. So-called after the Beirut hotel in which it was concluded. (See Cairo Agreements).</td></tr><tr><td>Mount Lebanon</td><td>The mountainous hinterland of Beirut stretching from Tripoli in the north to Sidon in the south. It is inhabited largely by Maronites, the majority of whom live north of the Beirut-Damascus highway, and by Druzes, the majority of whom live south of it. As a result of inter-communal massacres in 1860 and under pressure from the European powers this area was accorded extensive local autonomy under the Ottomans.</td></tr><tr><td>National Movement</td><td>The highest political and military decision-making body during the Civil War of the Lebanese leftist-progressivist-radical Moslem alliance. Its leader was Kamal Jumblat. (See Kamal Jumblat).</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>National Pact (1943)</td><td>An unwritten understanding reached between the Christian and Moslem Lebanese in 1943. The Christians renounced their reliance on France, the Moslems their demand for union with neighboring Arab countries. The Pact became the basis of Lebanese independence the same year.</td></tr><tr><td>PLA (Palestine Liberation Army)</td><td>The regular army of the PLO, to be distinguished from the Palestinian guerrilla organizations. Units of this army were stationed in Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt. They are all technically under the command of Yasir Arafat. Several PLA units took part in the Civil War.</td></tr><tr><td>PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization)</td><td>Created by the Arab League in 1964, its leadership passed after the June War of 1967 from the hands of civilians into those of the guerrilla organizations, and particularly Fath. Yasir Arafat, leader of Fath, has been the chairman of the PLO's Executive Committee since 1969 (see Fath, and Arafat).</td></tr><tr><td>Phalanges Libanaises</td><td>A right-wing Maronite party (originally a Youth movement) formed by Pierre Gemayel in the mid-1930s. It has become the largest Maronite political and paramilitary organization (See Gemayel, and Lebanese Front).</td></tr><tr><td>Qabadai</td><td>Neighborhood strongman. In pre-Civil War days the power of traditional leaders, especially among the Sunnites, rested to a large extent on qabadais.</td></tr></table>

Red Line

Rejectionists/Rejection Front

Riyad Summit

Sadat, Anwar

Sadr, Musa, Imam

Saiqa

Salaam, Saeb

A putative line visualized by the Israelis somewhere north of the Litani and possibly along it, beyond which the troops of the Arab Deterrent Force were not to cross southwards in the direction of the Israeli border. (See ADF).

A general designation given to Palestinian groups and organizations as well as to certain Arab parties and Arab countries (e.g. Libya, Iraq, and South Yemen). These reject a Middle East settlement that involves recognition of Israel. The Palestinian rejectionists favor the establishment of a democratic secular state in all Palestine including Israel, in which Jews and Arabs (whether Christian or Moslem) would be equal citizens.

A mini-summit called by Saudi Arabia in October 1976. It was attended by Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, the PLO, and Kuwait. It brought about an end to general hostilities in Lebanon and created the Arab Deterrent Force (see ADF).

President of Egypt since 1970.

Populist head of the Shiite religious hierarchy. Founded the Shiite Movement of the Disinherited.

Literally "lightning." The name given to a Palestinian guerrilla group organized under the auspices of Damascus from Palestinian residents in Syria. The Saiqa is a member of the PLO.

Veteran Sunnite traditional leader, several times Prime Minister

Glossary

25

Sarkis, Elias

Security Council Resolutions 425 and 426

Shiites

Shtaura Accord

The Shuf

ister—the last time under the Franjieh administration from 1970 to 1973.

Elected President of Lebanon on 8 May 1976, he assumed his office on 23 September 1976, the day Franjieh's term as President ended (see Franjieh).

Both resolutions were adopted on 19 March 1978 after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. The first called for total Israeli withdrawal and the creation of a UN interim force. The second spelled out the force's terms of reference.

The second largest sect in Islam after the Sunnites. Called thus because Shiites were originally *Shiah* or partisans of Ali (d. 661 A.D.), first cousin of the Prophet Muhammad and husband of his only surviving daughter, Fatimah. The Shiites are probably the single most numerous sect in Lebanon—they are also the underdogs of the country. (See Sunnites, Druzes, Alawites).

An accord reached in July 1977 at Shtaura, a town in the Bekaa Valley, between the Lebanese Government, the PLO, and Syria. The accord involved a timetable for the implementation of the Cairo Agreement in the light of the Riyad and Cairo summits. (See Cairo Agreement, Riyad Summit, Cairo Summit, and Melkart Agreement).

The Druze heartland lying south of the Beirut-Damascus highway in the central mountain area.

26

MAPS

**Sinai II**
The second Egyptian-Israeli disengagement agreement after the 1973 War. The agreement was reached on 4 September 1975.

**Solh**
A prestigious Sunnite family. Its most distinguished member was Riyad Solh, co-architect with Bishara Khoury of the National Pact (1943). Two other members, Taqiyuddin and Rashid, served as Prime Ministers in succession on the eve of the Civil War (see Bishara Khoury, and National Pact 1943).

**Sunnites**
The "orthodox" sect in Islam, so-called after the "sunna" or lifestyle and rules of conduct of the Prophet Mohammad. The Sunnites were politically the most powerful of the Moslem sects in Lebanon (See Shiites, Druzes, Alawites).

**Tel Zaatar**
Palestinian refugee camp in the suburbs of Beirut. After a siege lasting 53 days, the camp was overrun by Maronite militiamen on 12 August 1976, with a heavy loss of Palestinian lives.

**Tyre Salient**
The city of Tyre and a coastal corridor linking it to the Litani river and the north was not occupied during the Israeli invasion in March 1978—hence the name.

* **UNIFIL**
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon created by Security Council Resolutions 425 and 426 of 19 March 1978, immediately after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

27

36

on the other hand, with few exceptions, were adamant in their boycott of the French mandate and their espousal of the cause of independence and union with Syria. But even among the Maronites, the struggle for power as well as French high-handedness produced in time a divergence of attitudes vis-à-vis the French which centered around two Maronite leaders: Emile Eddé, a Francophile, and Bishara Koury, who was more Arab-oriented.¹⁹

The fall of France during World War II sealed the fate of the French in the Levant. Under British tutorship,²⁰ Bishara Khoury and the Lebanese Sunnite pan-Arab leader Riyad Solh²¹ hammered out an unwritten agreement known as the National Pact which provided the basis for Lebanon's independence from the French in 1943.²²

The essence of this agreement was Moslem renunciation of the aim of Arab union (their enosis complex) in return for Christian renunciation of Western (French) protection (their metropolitan complex). Corollary to this was a reinterpretation of the constitutional provisions for the "equitable" distribution of seats in the executive and legislative branches of government in such a way as to approximate more closely to proportional representation. The ratio agreed upon was 6:5 in favor of the Christians. This may or may not have reflected the actual distribution of the population between Christians and Moslems. But it was based on the assumption that the Moslems had acquiesced in this weighting of the system in favor of the Christians, irrespective of demographic realities, in order to allay Christian minoritarian fears of engulfment by the overall regional Moslem majority.²³ The implied reason for this Moslem "concession" was that the relatively large Christian community of Lebanon made it *sui generis* among the predominantly Moslem Arab countries, requiring the adoption of a "noblesse oblige" attitude towards Lebanese Christian and particularly Maronite susceptibilities.²⁴

Shortly thereafter, however, in 1945, Lebanon joined the Arab League.²⁵ This did not signify Maronite acceptance of either "union" with the other Arab countries or of the Arab identity of Lebanon. The Arab League was, in fact, loosely confederal in structure and based on the principle of unanimity in decision-making.²⁶ What it did signify was a ceremonial bow in the direction of Pan-Arab Lebanese Moslem sentiment. The specific issue of the identity of Lebanon was ingeniously skirted in the National Pact by declaring that the country had an Arab "face."²⁷ It was presumably hoped that with time the Moslems and Christians would both acquire the taste of being Lebanese—no more, no less.

The Historical Background

37

## 2. From Independence to the Civil War: 1943-1975

### The Khoury Administration: 1943-1952

Under the administration of President Bishara Khoury the rules of the game of the confessional system were applied and developed in the new circumstances of independence. The leaders of the various sects were clearly the principal players and beneficiaries of the system. The three highest posts, in order of precedence according to protocol, of President, Speaker of the House, and Prime Minister went respectively to the Christian Maronites, Moslem Shiites, and Moslem Sunnites.²⁸ (The Speaker's role was more ceremonial than political.) It also became clear that none of the sects was monolithic and that intense rivalries existed among the leaders of each sect, generating cross-cutting influences which bolstered the system. The crucial role of the President²⁹ emerged, as well as the importance of a working rapport between Maronite President and Sunnite Prime Minister.³⁰ The President was faced with the challenge of preserving the privileged position of the Christians while appearing to transcend his loyalties to them. The Prime Minister had to reconcile his position as Number Two with his role as an equal partner to the President in his capacity as the representative of the Moslem party to the National Pact of 1943.

Khoury's foreign policy balanced moves popular in Moslem circles with moves popular with the Christians. His involvement in the Palestine War of 1948 and his admission of some 150,000 Palestinian refugees was of the first kind,³¹ although many Christians also approved these policies. The termination of the economic union with Syria in 1950 (a relic of the French joint mandate over both countries) was of the second kind.

With the end of economic union with Syria the laissez-faire and service-oriented trend in the Lebanese economy became firmly entrenched. The 1948 Palestine War brought with it a considerable influx of the talent and wealth of the Palestinian bourgeoisie, as well as the diversion of the regional transit traffic (because of the establishment of the state of Israel) from Haifa to Beirut. But Khoury's Achilles heel was his nepotism and the growing corruption of his administration. These, and his decision to amend the Constitution to secure his reelection, eventually rallied a powerful coalition of sectarian leaders, both Christian and Moslem, against him. When a national strike was declared demanding his resignation, Khoury called on the Maronite Army Commander General Fuad Chehab to break it. In a coup d'état by omission, Chehab

38

demurred and Khoury resigned. His successor was Camille Chamoun, a former supporter of Khoury under the French Mandate.

### The Chamoun Administration: 1952-1958

The interaction between domestic and foreign policy issues during Chamoun's administration revealed the country's high permeability to regional developments and influences. By 1956 the population had almost doubled as compared to 1932.³² The disparity of living conditions between Christians and Moslems was reflected in mounting Moslem grievances against the socio-economic order. These were exacerbated by inadequate governmental social services, administrative corruption, and the Maronite-dominated political system. Nasser's charismatic spell enabled him to establish direct "plebiscitary" links with the Moslem Lebanese urban masses, raising their level of expectations, and activating their feelings of pride and defiance. Nasser thus undercut the authority of the traditional Moslem leaders who hastened to pay their "homage" to Cairo, to the growing distaste and consternation of the Maronites.

Chamoun fell out with his Moslem Sunnite Prime Minister over the issue of the diplomatic action to be taken in support of Nasser during the 1956 Suez War. By pushing on with an anti-Nasser foreign policy, exemplified by his endorsement of the Eisenhower Doctrine propounded in early 1957 to contain both communism and radicalism in the Middle East, Chamoun only aggravated the Christian-Moslem cleavage.³³ Inspired by his own boldness, as much, perhaps, as by the promptings of anti-Nasser capitals both Arab (Baghdad and Riyad) and non-Arab (Washington, London, and Paris),³⁴ Chamoun proceeded with an electoral "reform" calculated to reduce the influence of the pro-Nasser Moslem sectarian oligarchy. As the result of the parliamentary elections of 1957 showed, he was only too successful. The elections eliminated leading pro-Nasser Moslem leaders (the Sunnite Saeb Salaam, the Shiite Ahmad Asad, and the Druze Kamal Jumblat) and returned pro-Chamoun Moslem deputies with no power base of their own. This seemed only to undermine still further the legitimacy of Chamoun's regime in the eyes of the Moslem masses. The ensuing civil war took a toll of some 2000 lives. But by the time the U.S. Marines had landed in July 1958 (in the aftermath of the anti-monarchical and anti-Western revolution in Iraq), a stalemate had already been reached. The country had been saved from an open religious conflict by Chamoun's genius for antagonizing Christian³⁵ as well as Moslem members of the establishment.

### The Historical Background

39

Another contributory factor was the Moslem leadership's fundamental commitment to the Lebanese political status quo, notwithstanding the general Moslem infatuation with Nasser.

But the title of savior of the republic must be awarded to the Maronite Army Commander, General Fuad Chehab. He now repeated his coup d'état by omission of 1952 by refusing to obey Chamoun's order to pit the army against the predominantly Moslem rebels. Chehab's policy greatly strengthened the trans-sectarian centripetal influences resulting from Christian opposition to Chamoun and paved the way for his own Presidency.

### The Chehab Administration: 1958-1964

Chehab's refusal to use the army in a repressive role endeared him to the Moslem if not the Maronite masses. But this welcome Christian-Moslem symbiosis through Chehab was tempered by a growing estrangement between the senior leader of the Moslem Beirut rebels, Saeb Salaam, and Chehab himself. This development was partly the result of idiosyncratic factors; it was also due to their differing conceptions of the relationship that should obtain between Maronite President and Sunnite Prime Minister. For the greater part of his term, Chehab relied for Moslem oligarchic support on Rashid Karami as his Prime Minister, as well as on the dynamic Druze leader Kamal Jumblat. (Karami had been the more pliant Sunnite rebel leader during the Civil War of 1958.)

Chehab conceived of a grand strategy for the invigoration and consolidation of the system. In foreign affairs he followed an avowed policy of détente with Nasser. Domestically, he aimed at a para-étatisme paternalistically centered on his person. In this way he hoped to bypass the bulk of the oligarchs both Christian and Moslem, whom he contemptuously dubbed "fromagistes"—cheese-eaters. He concentrated power in a kitchen cabinet led by a trusted Maronite technocrat, Elias Sarkis. Sarkis was to oversee a series of ambitious socio-economic reforms designed to improve the conditions of the deprived Moslem areas. The ultimate objective was to win over the Moslem population to the concept of Lebanese (as opposed to Pan-Arab) nationalism.

But the seemingly inherent immobilism of the system and the extent of administrative corruption soon caught up with Chehab. He sought to cut the Gordian knot by increasing resort to the Deuxième Bureau (Military Intelligence Branch of the Army) which was effectively under his command. The proliferation of Deuxième Bureau personnel into

10

ubiquitous mini-ombudsmen operating with less than maximum tact of-
tended the susceptibilities of the Maronite oligarchs. These had been
already piqued by Chehab's pro-Nasser bias and were harboring
mounting fears of his Caesarean ambitions.³⁶ An additional cause of their
displeasure was Chehab's sponsorship of the Phalanges Party, an
expanding countrywide Maronite "rational" political organization which
was rapidly supplanting the more traditional patron-client relationship
of the Maronite oligarchs based on clan or village loyalties.³⁷ Meanwhile
an activity of the Deuxième Bureau which was to have future relevance
as its systematic wooing of the network of Moslem neighborhood
strongmen (qabadais) on which Sunnite urban leadership was heavily
 dependent.

Small wonder that a grand Moslem-Christian coalition was eventually
formed whose aim was to block Chehab's alleged intent (by now a
stomary charge against an incumbent president) to seek reelection.
Too fastidious or weary to make a bid for himself, Chehab succeeded in
aving his nominee, Charles Helou, elected as the next president.

the Helou Administration: 1964-1970

With no power base of his own, Helou became the hostage of the
deuxième Bureau whose activities continued unabated. The rapport
between the Presidency on the one hand and Karami, Jumblat, and the
phalanges Party on the other was maintained, as was the "ostracism" of
reb Salaam. Helou ran up against the same forces of political immo-
lism and administrative corruption that had frustrated his formidable
redecessor. Except that with the slowing down of the pace of reform
during the Helou administration, little hope was entertained for the
ture in this respect.³⁸

A series of momentous regional developments was to absorb Helou's
ne and energies (such as they were). These developments began with
rael's diversion of the River Jordan in 1964 and climaxed in the 1967
ar. The political fallout of this war in Lebanon took the form of the
rupt intensification of the process of radicalization among the Moslem
telligentsia (particularly the student body) and the urban and rural
asses. Soon after the 1967 War, Palestinian commandos began to
iltrate Lebanon from Syria with the encouragement of Damascus, This
ulted in the steady polarization of Maronite and Moslem opinion
out the commandos' presence and activities. The vehemence of the
position to the Palestinian presence of certain Maronite oligarchs (e.g.,
ymond Eddé and ex-President Camille Chamoun) was partly aimed

41

The Historical Background

at Chehab, perceived to be the "efficient" power—through the loyalist
Deuxième Bureau—behind the "dignified" facade of Helou. The
Deuxième Bureau was seen as playing a subtle game of frightening the
Maronite oligarchs and even President Helou himself (because of the
latter's presumed attempt to shake off the Deuxième Bureau's tutelage)
with the Palestinian bogey, by turning a blind eye to Palestinian
commando infiltration into the country in the service of some ulterior
purpose of Chehab.³⁹

As Israeli retaliatory raids in response to Palestinian operations from
Lebanese soil extended their area of devastation, matters came to a head
between President Helou and his Prime Minister Karami.⁴⁰ Rather than
sanction army containment of the Palestinian commandos (whose
presence and activities were passionately supported by his Sunnite
constituency), Karami tendered his resignation in May 1969, while
accepting to continue to serve ad interim. When the Lebanese army,
stung by Maronite charges of collusion with the Palestinians, exploited
this hiatus in government and started a series of vigorous operations
against the Palestinian commandos, the indignation of Moslem and
radical opinion, now led by Jumblat, mounted ominously. Karami,
characteristically clinging to both his resignation and his premiership,
appealed in desperation to Nasser. On 3 November 1969 Nasser success-
fully mediated the so-called Cairo Agreement between the PLO and the
Lebanese army.⁴¹ The essence of the agreement was the legitimization
and control of the commando presence and of operations against Israel.
Palestinian armed presence was henceforth to be restricted to certain
localities while operations against Israel were to be secretly "coordi-
nated" with the Lebanese army.

There was an immediate Maronite outcry. The anti-Chehabist
Maronite oligarchs saw this as still very much in line with Chehab's old
policy of détente with Nasser in order to curry favor with the Moslems.
But the more important effect was that it strengthened the trend towards
the organization of militias by the Maronites. The Phalanges had already
had a militia of their own for many years but now the infection spread to
ex-President Camille Chamoun, Suleiman Franjieh (the Maronite leader
in northern Lebanon), and others. The Maronites' militia fever in turn
confirmed the worst suspicions of the Lebanese Moslems and radicals, as
well as those of the PLO.

At the presidential elections of 1970, a coalition of Maronite leaders
and the Sunnite Saeb Salaam again concentrated on preventing the
dreaded prophesied return of Chehab. In fact, Chehab again had a
nominee—his old aide, Elias Sarkis. Sarkis was defeated by this

42

coalition and, paradoxically, by the Chehabist Jumblat, whose bloc split its votes. Suleiman Franjeh, the mountain chieftain from the north, was elected President by a majority of one vote.

*The Franjeh Administration: 1970 to the Beginning of the Civil War, April 1975*

Franjeh called on the veteran Sunnite leader Saeb Salaam, an old friend and political ally, to form the cabinet. Their first move was to dismantle the Chehabist Deuxième Bureau. Salaam's cabinet of young, politically "untainted" but inexperienced technocrats soon lost its reformist zeal. After some 18 months of the experiment and with little to show for it, a new cabinet was formed based on the traditional oligarchical recipe (minus Jumblat, a veteran rival of Salaam). This, together with mounting rumors about Franjeh's favoritism towards his clansmen and their transgressions, snuffed out any residual illusions about possible reform. The outcome of the parliamentary elections of 1972 demonstrated how weighted the electoral system was in favor of the oligarchs. But the overwhelming victory of a young, altogether unknown neo-Nasserist candidate against an established conservative rival in Beirut was an index of the crystallizing Moslem and radical mood.⁴² This mood, however, was best exemplified by the vigor and intensity with which the National Movement (a coalition of radical and leftist parties organized by Jumblat in 1969) pressed during the elections for the deconfessionalization of the system—a frontal assault on the 1943 National Pact.

After the 1970-71 Civil War in Jordan, the PLO virtually transferred its center of activities to Lebanon. Israeli retaliatory raids against Lebanese border villages gave new momentum to the steady exodus of Moslem Shiite peasants towards the shantytowns and Palestinian refugee camps ringing Beirut in the east and to the consolidation of a "comradeship in misery" between the two communities.⁴³ The disillusionment of the Shiite intelligentsia (particularly the students) and rural masses with their traditional leaders paralleled the Sunnite disillusionment with their own leadership. The Shiite phenomenon was best reflected in the deep penetration of Shiite areas by radical, and particularly the Marxist, political organizations. It was also reflected in the increasing militancy of Musa Sadr, the populist head of the Shiite religious hierarchy, against the regime.

The appointment of Maronite General Iskandar Ghanem, a noted disciplinarian and close friend of Franjeh, as army commander, against a

*The Historical Background*

43

background of potential friction between the Lebanese army and the Palestinian commandos, heightened the suspicions of the National Movement and the PLO. Thus, when the Israelis carried out their raid of April 1973 into the heart of Beirut, assassinating three top leaders of the Palestinian Fath organization, monster anti-government demonstrations were staged by the National Movement. Prime Minister Salaam de-manded the resignation of General Iskandar Ghanem and, when Franjeh refused, himself resigned. This was the watershed of the Franjeh admin-istration, as the Maronites asked themselves: If Salaam cannot control the Moslem "Street," who can? And if Franjeh and Salaam, the old-time friends, cannot establish a working rapport between themselves as Presi-dent and Prime Minister, who can?

The spiraling tension between the Lebanese army and the PLO erupted in May 1973 in the most serious confrontation between them since 1969. The Lebanese Air Force was brought into action for the first time against Palestinian positions inside refugee camps. But the new Prime Minister, Amin Hafiz, Salaam's successor, mediated a new accord with the PLO (the so-called Melkart Understanding)⁴⁴ which partly reaffirmed and partly circumscribed the provisions of the 1969 Cairo Agreement.

In spite of Hafiz's success, he was unacceptable to the Sunnite oligarchs because he had been Franjeh's nominee and was considered a "second-tier" Sunnite (i.e., ineligible to membership in the Sunnite Prime Minis-terial "club").⁴⁵ The Sunnite establishment was engaged in a rearguard action, ostensibly against the Maronite establishment, but in fact in an outbidding game with the National Movement in an attempt to rehabilitate itself with its Moslem constituency that was now falling increasingly under Jumblat's sway.

Franjeh bowed before unprecedentedly solid ranks of the Moslem oligarchs demanding Hafiz's resignation. But he quickly turned the tables against them by asking Jumblat to bless Hafiz's successor. Two members of the politically respected Solh family, but themselves politically powerless, succeeded each other as Prime Minister: Taqiyuddin Solh (July 8, 1973, to October 31, 1974) and Rashid Solh (October 31, 1974, to May 23, 1975). The nominees of Jumblat and the National Movement participated in their cabinets alongside the Phalanges. This was an ironically anachronistic resurrection of the old Chehabist formula.

But it was also a dangerous ploy on the part of Franjeh. The arrangement served only to deepen the cleavage between the strategic allies of the system, the Maronite and Sunnite establishments. It also accelerated the outbidding game between the Sunnite establishment and the National Movement. It was at this point, for example, that Karami, a

44

phlegmatically self-composed master of the Lebanese political ring, first declared that he himself would run for President. His ostensible ground for doing so was that the allocation of the Presidency to the Maronites was only customary and not ordained by the Constitution. Likewise, the Moslem establishment raised the shrill cry of "musharaka," i.e., equal distribution of power between the President and Prime Minister, thus fanning the flames of intersectarian hatred. Not to be outdone, the Shiite Musa Sadr, himself now fighting a rearguard action against his own radicals, announced in March 1974 the establishment of the Shiite Movement of the Disinherited. He threatened to march on the capital at the head of his army of underdogs, there to squat in the palaces of the affluent, both Christian and Moslem.

The 1973 October War produced a temporary lull. But Kissinger's step-by-step diplomacy activated the Palestinian and Arab rejection fronts.⁴⁶ Meanwhile, continuing Israeli retaliatory raids against Palestinian incursions and clashes between the Lebanese military and the Palestinian commandos prompted Phalangist leader Pierre Gemayel to demand a national referendum to "revise" the 1969 Cairo Agreement, which he had earlier endorsed.

It was in this atmosphere that Maaruf Saad, the Sunnite leader of the Popular Nasserist Organization of Sidon, was shot when a demonstration he was leading in support of a strike by local fishermen confronted army units. The strike had been called in protest against the extraordinarily ill-timed formation of an offshore fishing monopoly sponsored by, of all people, ex-President Camille Chamoun. Maaruf Saad's death from his wounds on 6 March 1975 touched off a violent populist uprising in Sidon. Palestinian commandos joined radical Lebanese militiamen to thwart Lebanese Army attempts to control the city. The episode epitomized the dynamics of interaction between the various local factors that constituted the Lebanese crisis. From the National Movement perspective, the "Maronite" army was seen as acting on behalf of Maronite big business. From the Maronite perspective, Palestinian participation in the Sidon fighting was but a taste of what was to come and incontestable proof of Palestinian commitment to a Lebanese social and political revolution. At the governmental level the uneasy alliance between the National Movement cabinet members and their Phalangist colleagues reached the breaking point. The National Movement was now blamed by its own constituency as well as by the rival Moslem establishment for army brutality in Sidon. It tried to recover the initiative by calling for the immediate resignation of the Maronite Army Commander, General Iskandar Ghanem. Massive

The Historical Background

45

counter-demonstrations in favor of the army commander were promptly organized by the Maronites. The polarization of the country now engulfed the army—the one institution that had saved it in the earlier crises of 1952 and 1958.

2

THE CIVIL WAR

1. From Ain Rummaneh, April 1975, to the Franjieh-Karami Accord, November 1975

The Sarajevo of the Lebanese Civil War occurred at Ain Rummaneh, a Christian suburb of Beirut, on 13 April 1975. Unknown assailants fired at a Sunday church gathering attended by Pierre Gemayel, leader of the Maronite Phalanges, killing his bodyguard and two others. Maronite militiamen in blind retaliation ambushed a bus passing through the neighborhood a short while later, massacring the 28 passengers (mostly Palestinians) on board.

Widespread clashes immediately erupted in the country between Maronite militiamen on the one hand and National Movement and Palestinian militiamen on the other. But the political reaction of the National Movement came in the form of a declaration proscribing the Phalanges, with whom henceforth no political dealings would be countenanced.⁴⁷ As Maronite opinion instinctively rallied round the Phalanges, the latter threw down the gauntlet to the National Movement by withdrawing from Rashid Solh's National Movement-sponsored cabinet, thus forcing its resignation.

His lines of communication now broken with both the Sunnite establishment and the National Movement, Franjieh called on a retired gendarmerie brigadier, Nureddin Rifai (a third-tier Sunnite on the political scale), to form the new cabinet which also included a majority of military officers. Instantly, if momentarily, closing their ranks, the National Movement and the Moslem establishment demanded Rifai's resignation and nominated Karami as the sole candidate for successor. Franjieh had no option but to comply.

Meanwhile, PLO leader Yasir Arafat, who under the immediate

48

impact of Ain Rummaneh had precipitately endorsed the proscription of the Phalanges, met with Franjieh. At the latter's request he made a public statement to the effect that the PLO was not a party in Lebanese domestic politics and would abide by the 1969 Cairo Agreement.⁴⁸ But the meeting, the last to take place between them, failed to produce the expected rapport.

With such a powerful mandate, Karami seemed in a position to establish a working relationship with Franjieh. But he had been nominated by the Moslem-National Movement consensus as sole Sunnite candidate for the premiership precisely because his relations with Franjieh were known to be severely strained. Matters were further complicated by the fact that the proscription of the Phalanges had somehow to be bypassed in the formation of the new cabinet. The only Maronite leader other than Pierre Gemayel acceptable to Maronite opinion as a member of Karami's forthcoming cabinet was ex-President Camille Chamoun, with whom Karami had literally not been on speaking terms since the 1958 Civil War. But Chamoun it was.

For several weeks between July and August a truce of sorts prevailed. On 22 August Franjieh declared in a speech that the Constitution "was not sacred," thus hinting at a preparedness for wide-ranging reform. Meanwhile, however, the National Movement had announced its own reform program on 18 August whose principal plank was the deconfessionalization of the system.⁴⁹

With the security situation again deteriorating daily, the most pressing issue was whether or not to use the army to maintain law and order. This was vehemently advocated by Chamoun, the Interior Minister, and just as vehemently opposed by Karami in his capacity as both Prime Minister and Defense Minister.

The security and reform issues became interlocked: No reform before security, the Maronites maintained, and they meant the curtailment through army action of Palestinian transgressions in support of the National Movement as a preliminary to the subjugation of the latter. No security before reform, maintained the National Movement, and they meant the use of the Palestinians as leverage to secure a revolutionary change in the status quo.

Incidents of appalling savagery flared up, partly as the result of the operation of the *lex talionis* in a society based on the clan and extended family now armed to the teeth and caught in the grip of sectarian hysteria. In late August large-scale fighting spread from Zahle in the Bekaa Valley to Tripoli in the north. As a conciliatory gesture, Franjieh replaced General Ghanem as army commander with a more palatable Maronite. But apparently reacting to this concession, the Phalanges

The Civil War

49

launched a full-scale attack on downtown Beirut on 17 September. Karami came under mounting National Movement and Moslem establishment pressure to "explose" the situation in the face of "the real culprit"—the President. The resignation of Franjieh was now openly demanded by Salaam and the Maronite "dissident" Raymond Eddé⁵⁰ as the only solution to the crisis.

On 20 September Syrian Foreign Minister Abdul Halim Khaddam opened his country's diplomatic offensive by arranging for a cease-fire. He also prevailed upon the Maronite Patriarch⁵¹ to declare himself opposed to the partition of the country—the implicit Maronite Sword of Damocles over the Moslem head.

This paved the way for Karami to call for a Committee of National Dialogue to include the principal oligarchs and leaders. The meetings were held in the eerie surroundings of the beleaguered former Ottoman Grand Serail where the Prime Minister's office was located. Chamoun attended the first session or two, only to boycott the proceedings on the grounds that the Committee was a tactic to dodge the issue of army intervention. Jumblat attended under Syrian and Palestinian pressure but would not address Pierre Gemayel of the Phalanges. The mere formation of the Committee was a tribute to the oligarchs' lingering sense of political upmanship just as it was a pathetic exercise in nostalgia for consensual politics. Soon enough, however, the meetings degenerated into a dialogue of the deaf.⁵² The assembled oligarchs may not have heard one another but they could not have failed to hear the rising din of bursting mortar shells and machine-gun fire outside.

As violent fighting broke out in the suburbs of Beirut and Maronite villages were overrun in the north, the Phalanges (probably with Egyptian support) called for the intervention of the Arab League. Israel warned against Syrian intervention in Lebanon, and Jumblat declared the Maronite objective to be the creation of a "second Israel" in Lebanon. On 24 October a fierce battle began between the Phalanges and the National Movement for the control of the Beirut hotel area. On 27 October fighting broke out again in Zahle in the Bekaa Valley, and at Damour, south of Beirut.

By late October Karami was at the end of his tether and in an "explosive" mood. He suspected Franjieh of sabotaging him and colluding with Chamoun and Gemayel to force him out of office because he had been imposed upon Franjieh by the Moslem-National Movement consensus. The combined efforts of a Vatican emissary, Cardinal Paolo Bertoli (November 9-16), and the former French Prime Minister Maurice Couve de Murville (November 19-30), as well as Syrian and Palestinian mediation, deflected Karami from his collision course with Franjieh.⁵³ By

50

14 November the two had reached a decision to cooperate more closely with each other.

## 2. From the Franjeh-Karami Accord to Franjiev's
Constitutional Document, February 1976

The first fruits of the Franjiev-Karami rapport were concurrent public statements by the two leaders on 29 November. These implied agreement on tackling the reform issue as a priority (a concession to the National Movement), and, with this in mind, inclusion in the cabinet of the National Movement nominees. But the latter, spurning "tribal reconciliations," insisted on prior acceptance of their reform program (i.e., deconfessionalism) as the essential prerequisite for participation in the Cabinet.

On 6 December the Syrians boldly tried to break the deadlock by inviting Phalangist leader Pierre Gemayel (who had been proscribed by the National Movement) to Damascus. On the same day the Unforeseen (that great protagonist of History) stepped on to the stage: Four Phalanges company commanders were ambushed and murdered inside Maronite-held territory, even while Gemayel was in the Syrian capital.⁵⁴ In a mad spasm of vengeance, 200 Moslem civilians were seized within hours by Maronite militiamen and butchered. In retaliation, National Movement forces reinforced by Palestinian militiamen launched a major successful offensive against Phalangist positions in the hotel and downtown areas of Beirut. To compensate for their defeat in these two areas, the Phalanges overran a Moslem hamlet in the suburbs of Beirut, while a Christian village was simultaneously being overrun by pro-National Movement forces in the Bekaa Valley. Meanwhile, Palestinian mediatory efforts to maintain lines of communication between Yasir Arafat and ex-President Camille Chamoun (now Minister of Interior) floundered when another Moslem village in the Beirut suburbs was seized by Christian militiamen.

It was at this point, on 16 December, that Franjiev, bitterly denouncing the Palestinians, decided to turn in earnest to Damascus. This was a fateful decision, inasmuch as the earlier Syrian interventions had been initiated by Damascus. Now the Lebanese President was calculatingly inviting Syria into Lebanon to redress the balance in favor of the Maronites.

The essence of Franjiev's strategy at this stage seemed to be to concede the principle of reforming the status quo, to circumscribe the reforms, to bargain from a position of military strength, and to prevail on Syria to contain the National Movement and the Palestinians.

The Civil War

51

The Maronites thus held a carrot and a stick. Their stick was two-forked. Between 31 December 1975 and 13 January 1976, Maronite leaders issued strong hints of partition and "federal" formulas, both anathema to the Moslems and the National Movement. This prompted even the Syrian Foreign Minister to warn that Syria would "reunite" Lebanon with itself rather than see it partitioned. Militarily, a major Maronite offensive was launched in early January with the siege of the Palestinian Tel Zaatar refugee camp in the eastern suburbs of Beirut. It continued with the overrunning by 12 January of the Dbaiyeh refugee camp north of the city, which, ironically enough, was inhabited by Maronite Palestinians. By 19 January the Karantina slum area (inhabited by Moslem Lebanese and Palestinian-protected) had been stormed and bulldozed. The Palestinian and Moslem Lebanese death toll from these operations was about 1000, with the expellees numbering about 20,000. In a counter-offensive, the National Movement and Palestinian forces found themselves engaged in trading territory with Maronite militiamen in the eastern suburbs of Beirut. But the major thrust of the National Movement was directed against Chamoun's fief south of Beirut: the Maronite town of Damour, its neighboring village of Jiyeh, and the adjoining suburbs of Saadiyat where Chamoun's residence was located.⁵⁵

The National Movement and the Palestinians were caught off guard by the force of the Maronite offensive. Yasir Arafat, who was still hoping to avoid an all-out confrontation with the Maronites, had kept the bulk of his forces deployed in the south near Israel's borders. The National Movement offensive at Damour bogged down, causing great anxiety to Jumblat because of the town's proximity to the Shuf, his Druze home base. An SOS by the Moslem and National Movement leadership to Damascus resulted in the dispatch by Syria of Palestine Liberation Army contingents (regular PLO units stationed in Syria and technically under Arafat's control). The arrival of these reinforcements allowed Arafat to withdraw some of his troops from the south for use against Damour. It was only with the help of these troops, and in spite of Lebanese Air Force strikes, that on 20 January Damour, Jiyeh, and Saadiyat were overwhelmed, with Chamoun's son Dany barely escaping with his life. The Maronite death toll was 500, the Maronite expellees numbered some 7000. On the same day Jumblat, on a visit to Damascus, reportedly indicated his readiness for a political solution. The use of the Lebanese Air Force at Damour triggered the first overt signs of sectarian mutiny in the army. A certain Lieutenant Ahmed Khatib (a Sunnite), with a few score of his fellow soldiers, announced their break with the Lebanese Army to form the Arab Army of Lebanon with its headquarters in the Bekaa Valley.

52

As the Karantina was falling, Karami felt obliged to submit his resignation. Franjieh suavely refused to accept it.⁵⁶ On 21 January Syrian Foreign Minister Khaddam reappeared on the scene. By the end of the following day a cease-fire had been arranged, and a Presidential communiqué issued. It announced agreement on the outlines of an overall solution and the formation of a Syrian-Lebanese-Palestinian Higher Military Committee to enforce the cease-fire. Presently Karami withdrew his resignation.

On 30 January a meeting of Moslem leaders was held at the house of the Lebanese Mufti (the country's highest Sunnite Moslem religious dignitary). It was attended by Salaam, Karami, Jumblat, Musa Sadr, and the Syrian Foreign Minister Khaddam. Khaddam described the outlines of a reform program to be shortly endorsed in public by Franjieh. This was to include 1) a 50-50 Christian/Moslem representation in Parliament (instead of the 6:5 ratio in favor of the Christians); 2) the election of the Prime Minister by Parliament (instead of his appointment by the President); 3) the three highest posts to remain, according to custom, respectively in the hands of the Maronites (President), Shiites (Speaker of the House), and the Sunnites (Prime Minister); 4) a new special High Court with the powers to try the President, Prime Minister, and other ministers; 5) the formation of a new High Economic Council; 6) naturalization for those eligible (mostly old Moslem residents of Lebanon hitherto denied Lebanese citizenship); and 7) a 50-50 division between Christians and Moslems of the top-category Civil Service posts, with the lesser posts, including military appointments, to be based exclusively on merit. (The last provision was clearly a concession to the demand for deconfessionalization.)

There was no opposition at this meeting to the suggested reforms. The main request of the Moslem leaders present was that the allocation of the Presidency to the Maronites (which they conceded) should not be embodied in a specific constitutional amendment but should remain a matter of custom. Another was that Lebanon should be specifically declared an Arab country—a demand which Khaddam (tactically, as it turned out) rejected. There was some disagreement as to what the new document announcing the reform program should be called and Jumblat's suggestion of "National Document" was accepted by all. This contribution by Jumblat seemed to indicate his willingness to go along with the proposed reforms. Towards the end of the meeting, however, Jumblat raised the issue of general deconfessionalization. It was vaguely agreed by some of those present (but neither by Khaddam nor by the majority) that the matter should be pursued further.⁵⁷

On 7 February Franjieh visited Damascus. During this visit the Syrians

The Civil War

53

officially "guaranteed" that the Palestinians would strictly implement "in letter and spirit" the 1969 Cairo Agreement. This seemed to have been Franjieh's precondition for the announcement of the reforms and it did not augur too well for the Palestinians. On 14 February a 17-point reform program (subsequently known as the "Constitutional Document") was announced by Franjieh in Beirut. This incorporated the seven points mentioned above as well as others, e.g., a 55 percent instead of an absolute parliamentary majority for the election of a President. A bonus for the Moslems (undoubtedly the result of Syrian persuasion) was the declaration that Lebanon was "a sovereign Arab state."⁵⁸ This was about as large a carrot as Franjieh could offer the Moslems and the National Movement without irretrievably alienating his own constituency.

### 3. From the Constitutional Document to the Election of President Sarkis, May 1976

The next step in the envisaged settlement was the formation of a cabinet of national union, including the National Movement, to implement the reform program. Meanwhile, Khaddam, the Syrian Foreign Minister, had left the meeting at the Mufti's house with the impression that he had won over the Moslem leaders to the proposed reforms. He now reportedly exchanged cabinet "lists" with Jumblat and others until a tentatively final one seemed to be under consideration.⁵⁹ But was a cabinet of national union a realistic possibility when the National Movement saw in Franjieh's 14 February Constitutional Document no more than a travesty of their hopes? The answer came in the form of the sudden enactment of a long-dreaded nightmare: the Lebanese Army began to fall to pieces. Early in March dissident Moslem troops seized their barracks, declaring their allegiance to the Arab Army of Lebanon led by Ahmed Khatib. It is common knowledge that neither the National Movement nor the Palestinians had been altogether innocent of this development. It is more than likely that Jumblat's apparent vacillation over the cabinet issue since 14 February was in anticipation of the army mutiny.

The disintegration of the Lebanese Army posed the most serious challenge to date both to Franjieh and the Syrians.

The High Command of the Lebanese Army was divided in its opinion on what to do to halt the process of disintegration. Some senior officers favored pressing Franjieh for action but could not agree on what specifically he should be asked to do. Others advised caution in the handling of their willful President. The senior officers were increasingly isolated in the Ministry of Defense from the Maronite middle and junior

54

officer ranks. The latter clamored for drastic measures against the army rebels and particularly Lt. Khatib. In some instances they physically threatened their superiors in their offices. In this atmosphere several meetings took place between the members of the High Command and Franjieh. These degenerated into bitter personal and political recriminations. On more than one occasion, Franjieh himself came under verbal attack. After one such meeting Franjieh was rumored to have been so angered as to have decided to dismiss the entire Army Command. Meanwhile, the Syrians, too, grew increasingly impatient with the dithering of the High Command. They strongly urged it to move against Khatib, suggesting a three-pronged approach to save the army from total collapse. A general amnesty was to be declared for the entire rebel rank and file. These would be rounded up and reindoctrinated. The Syrians themselves would dispatch a special task force for this purpose and would also arrest Khatib and his principal aides. Although Franjieh rejected the amnesty idea, the Lebanese High Command seemed, for a while, to rally around the Syrian plan.⁶⁰ On 11 March, however, the High Command was forestalled by the Sunnite Moslem commander of the Beirut garrison, Brigadier Aziz Ahdab, himself somewhat of an *opera bouffe* character. Ahdab, though troopless, proclaimed his own coup d'état. His move most probably had Egyptian support and was carried out with at least the foreknowledge of both the National Movement and the PLO. Ahdab called upon both Franjieh and Karami to resign forthwith and upon Parliament to meet within seven days to elect a successor President. The brashness of Ahdab's action had a remarkable impact. For one thing, the Syrian political offensive that had culminated in the 14 February Constitutional Document had at least for the time being ground to a halt.

Presently a Battle of the Barracks developed between Maronite and Moslem soldiers. Each side tried to take control of garrison towns and the army's heavy equipment. On 13 March, Parliament met in an emergency session and by a two-thirds majority passed a petition asking for Franjieh's resignation. Franjieh refused to comply. Thereupon, Jumblat warned that the National Movement would take over the country and "change the system in the framework of a total revolution." Simultaneously, two columns of Khatib's dissident army forces, backed by Jumblat's Druze followers, converged on the Presidential Palace.

By now the Syrians had become convinced that there was no alternative to Franjieh's resignation, but were determined to bring this about without "coercion." When Franjieh therefore appealed to the Syrians to resume their mediation, an agreement was reached between the two sides. The Syrians would use such troops as they had deployed in Beirut

The Civil War

55

to prevent the storming of the Presidential Palace. (These Syrian-controlled troops included PLA—regular Palestinian Liberation Army units stationed in Syria—and *Saiqa*—a Palestinian commando organization recruited by the Syrian ruling Baath party from Palestinian residents in Syria but often used as a front for Syrian regulars.) In return Franjieh would accept a constitutional amendment providing for Presidential elections six months (rather than the prescribed two) before the end of the Presidential term in September 1976, thus paving the way for the early election of his successor.⁶¹

Political developments were overtaken by military developments. On 21 March, upon Jumblat's announcement that a "total and irreversible"⁶² military campaign would be waged, the National Movement (now backed by Khatib's armor and artillery as well as by Palestinian militiamen) opened a major offensive in the Beirut hotel area and penetrated deep into Phalangist-held territory. On 25 March the Presidential Palace (its approaches blocked by Syrian regulars masquerading as *Saiqa*) was shelled by Khatib's long-range artillery. Forced to abandon the palace, Franjieh fled to the sanctuary of the Maronite area of Mount Lebanon northeast of Beirut.⁶³ Panic seized sections of the Maronite community. An exodus to Cyprus began via Jounieh harbor.

Syria's top priority now was a cease-fire. At a meeting with Syrian President Asad on 21 March, Yasir Arafat had agreed to a cease-fire but urged Asad to receive Jumblat. While Pierre Gemayel, leader of the Maronite Phalanges, called upon "all able-bodied Christian men and women" to join the nearest militia posts, Jumblat reaffirmed on 26 March, the eve of his scheduled meeting with Asad, his determination to achieve "full military victory." Simultaneously, the National Movement, Khatib, and Palestinian troops converged in two columns on the Dhour Shuwair area. This was the gateway from the south-east to the Maronite heartland of Mount Lebanon north of the Damascus-Beirut highway.

A seven-hour meeting between Asad and Jumblat on 27 March ended in complete deadlock. This was perhaps the real turning point in the Civil War.⁶⁴ The disagreement seemed to spring from intriguingly deep idiosyncratic considerations resulting from the minoritarian backgrounds of the two men, as well as from Jumblat's adamant insistence on a military "solution." But under intense and mounting Syrian pressure, backed on 9 April by the penetration of Syrian armor some three miles into Lebanese territory as well as by the beginning of a Syrian naval blockade of National Movement ports (Tyre, Sidon, Tripoli), a cease-fire was declared. This allowed the Parliament to meet the same day (April 9). By the end of the session it had unanimously approved a constitution.

56

tional amendment providing for the early election of a successor to Fran-
jieh. But it was not until 24 April that Franjiev reluctantly added his
signature to the amendment.

Meanwhile, Yasir Arafat and Syrian President Asad met in Damascus on 16 April and agreed to take a united stand against any resumption of the fighting. Partition was rejected as well as the "Arabization" of the conflict (i.e., calling in the Arab League—the Egyptian ploy) or its "internationalization" (i.e., calling in the UN or soliciting intervention by the Western powers—the Maronite ploy). Moreover, the Syrian-Lebanese-Palestinian Higher Military Committee, dismantled after the March 11 coup by Brigadier Ahdab, was to be reinstated. The National Movement ostensibly acquiesced and the Syrians pulled their armor back from Lebanese territory. Fighting, however, persisted in many parts of the country (e.g., 360 were killed on April 22 and 23 alone), though the National Movement offensive in the Dhour Shuwair area seemed to lose its momentum.

The next immediate political hurdle was the choice of the new
President. There were two leading candidates: the "dissident" and
courageously outspoken Maronite leader Raymond Eddé, favored by the
National Movement; and the old Chehabist Elias Sarkis, considered by
many to be Syria's "nominee." The elections scheduled for 1 May were
postponed because of National Movement charges of Syrian bulldozing
and worse.⁶⁵ But following Palestinian and Syrian pressure, elections
were held on 8 May under the protection of Syrian-sponsored PLA and
Saiqa troops. Sarkis received 66 votes out of a total of 69 deputies pre-
sent, the pro-Eddé deputies having absented themselves. Jumblat and
Salaam boycotted the elections, while Karami, Chamoun, Gemayel, and
the Franjiev bloc voted for Sarkis.

4. From the Election of Sarkis to the Syrian
Entry into Lebanon, June 1976

Sarkis' election did not prove to be the hoped-for psychological turning
point, nor did Franjiev's obdurate resolve to stay on until the end of his
term on 23 September help to make it so.

Even as Sarkis was being elected, the Lebanese crisis was entering a
new phase. The protagonists in this phase were the Syrians on the one
hand and the Palestinians on the other. The strain in Syro-Palestinian
relations predated the Lebanese Civil War. It basically stemmed from the
same cause as the tension between the Palestinians and the Lebanese
authorities. This was the claim by the PLO of extraterritorial rights
within the frontiers of a sovereign state, except that in the Syrian, as

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compared to the Lebanese, case the regime was in addition a military
authoritarian one. Syria's creation of her own Palestinian militia, the
Saiqa, and her de facto logistical leverage over PLA (Palestine Liberation
Army-PLO) units stationed in Syria further heightened the tension.
Relations were still further exacerbated by the increasing role given to
Saiqa and Syrian-sponsored PLA units inside Lebanon—the Palestinians’
last “sanctuary” after the expulsion of the PLO from Jordan in 1970/71.
Another bone of contention was Syria’s growing distaste for the
alignment between the National Movement and the Palestinians. The air
had not been altogether cleared at the summit meetings between Syrian
President Asad and Arafat on 21 March and 17 April.

Yet another dimension of this nagging Palestinian-Syrian tension
related to the prospects of an overall Arab-Israeli settlement. Kissinger's
latest achievement in his step-by-step diplomacy had been Sinai II, the
second Egyptian-Israeli withdrawal agreement concluded in September
1975. To be sure, Asad had violently reacted to this agreement because it
seemed to herald Egypt's withdrawal from the field in the face of Israel.
Arafat, of course, had no quarrel with this reaction by Asad to Sinai II.
But to compensate for the "loss" of Egypt, Asad had drawn closer to
Hussein. This was a suspect alignment to Arafat because of the liquida-
tion by Hussein of the PLO in Jordan in 1970-1971 and because of
Hussein's ambitions in the West Bank of Jordan. The steady
"encroachment" of Asad in Lebanon in conjunction with the developing
Damascus-Amman axis raised the specter of a Syrian-Jordanian formula
for the West Bank within an overall settlement of the Arab-Israeli
conflict at the expense of the PLO. Hence Arafat's paradoxical move
early in 1976 to reopen his lines of communication with Sadat of Egypt,
ostracized since Sinai II. It was not so much that Sadat was now
forgiven. It was rather that Arafat needed Egypt as an immediate counter
to Syria and the Maronites in Lebanon. He may also have hoped to re-
new Sadat's endorsement of the PLO's position on the West Bank to
neutralize any potential Syrian-Jordanian coalition on the subject.

The first fruit of the new détente with Cairo was the all-too-eager
dispatch by Sadat of PLA units stationed in Egypt to bolster Arafat,
ostensibly against the Maronites, but equally against the Syrians—bitter
critics of Sinai II.⁶⁶

The Palestinian Rejection Front militias operating in Lebanon and
backed by Iraq (the Syrian regime's mortal foe) jumped into the fray
against the Syrian PLA and Saiqa units. The grand strategy of the Na-
tional Movement-Palestinian alliance at this stage was to turn the Shuf,
Jumblat's largely Druze-inhabited area south of the Beirut-Damascus
highway, into a fortified base of operations against the Maronite heart-

58

land north of it. Meanwhile, Syria tried to maintain control over events by infiltrating additional PLA units into the country, to the mounting anger of Arafat. The quarrel burst into the open on 14 May when Arafat publicly but unsuccessfully ordered the Syrian-sponsored PLA units (technically under his command in his capacity as chief of the PLO executive and commander of the Palestinian revolutionary forces) to return to Damascus.

On 17 May Prime Minister Abdul Salaam Jalloud of Libya arrived in Beirut while the fighting between Maronite and National Movement militiamen continued apace, claiming 1000 casualties between 16 and 18 May alone. But Jalloud's purpose was to mediate between the Syrians and the Palestinians. Libya's direct cause of alarm at the Lebanese situation was the growing entente between Arafat and Sadat (of whose Sinai II the Libyans, to put it mildly, thoroughly disapproved). Thus Jalloud's instructions were to remove the cause of this entente—Arafat's disagreements with Syrian President Asad. On 21 May French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, while on a visit to the United States, announced his readiness to send "several regiments" to Lebanon if requested.⁶⁷ This idea had obviously been cleared with Washington and most probably represented Syria's latest version of "internationalization." This would permit French military presence in Maronite areas as a cover for an envisaged overt Syrian military intervention in the Moslem areas. The National Movement rejected the proposal while the Maronites welcomed it. Egypt, sniffing the Syrian hand in the formula, was critical. Presently, Palestinian-Syrian relations reached breaking point on 26 May when Arafat was allegedly denied transit through Syria on his way to Libya. As Arafat reached his destination by an alternative route to rally the Arab countries to his cause, the Syrians pondered their next move.

Late in May, apparently unauthorized units of the Arab Army of Lebanon went into action against isolated Maronite villages in the north. According to rumor, the commander of these units was orchestrating his moves with Syria. When the inhabitants of these villages "appealed" to Damascus, the PLO and National Movement leaders were convinced that these "appeals" were a prelude to a major Syrian move. And, in fact, on 1 June large Syrian forces with armor crossed the Lebanese frontier, even while, interestingly enough, Soviet Prime Minister Kosygin was visiting Damascus.

5 From the Syrian Entry to the Beginning of the Sarkis Administration, September 1976

By 5 June, some 6000 Syrian troops were streaming into Lebanon along three axes of approach: towards Tripoli in the north, along the main

Syrian military intervention.

1st
Size-
of-
period

2nd
Stage
of
period

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59

highway from Damascus to Beirut in the center, and towards Sidon via Jezzine in the south. Operating from Algiers and Tripoli, Arafat denounced the Syrian intervention as an attempt to liquidate the Palestinian Resistance. An emergency meeting of the Arab foreign ministers was scheduled for 6 June at Egypt's request. Simultaneously, Iraq sent troops to the Syrian border as a warning to Asad. On 6 June Libyan Prime Minister Jalloud arrived in Damascus to reactivate mediation between Arafat and the Syrian government.

As Jalloud began his talks, a skirmish took place between the Syrians and the National Movement-Palestinian militiamen in the foothills of the western Bekaa Valley. Syrian planes were wrongly reported to have gone into action. This touched off violent clashes in Beirut between National Movement and Palestinian militiamen on the one hand, and Syrian-sponsored Saiqa and PLA units on the other. The latter were surrounded and disarmed with remarkable speed, although they had been the first to go into action in many localities, suggesting some degree of coordination with the main advancing Syrian forces.⁶⁸ Many of the PLA troops went over to the PLO. Doubling their expeditionary force to 12,000, the Syrians on 7 June fought their way over the mountains to Sofar in the central sector and reached the environs of Sidon the same day in the south. A large Syrian armored reconnaissance squadron that tried to probe into the city had several of its tanks knocked out in an ambush by Palestinian and Lebanese Arab Army troops. The disabled hulks (and, the Syrians claim, their captured crews) were displayed in public to the great wrath of Damascus.⁶⁹

Meanwhile, at their meeting on 6 June, the Arab foreign ministers had called for a cease-fire and the formation of an inter-Arab peace-keeping force to replace the Syrians and separate the combatants. On 10 June, Franjieh declared these resolutions null and void on the grounds that Lebanon had not been properly represented at the ministers' meeting.⁷⁰ With Franjieh subsequently mollified, advance Sudanese units of the 2300-strong peace-keeping force began arriving at Beirut airport while Syria declared its acceptance of the cease-fire. On the face of it, the Arab ministers' meeting was a defeat for the Syrians. But the small size of the force, the vagueness concerning its Syrian "component," as well as the absence of a timetable for Syrian withdrawal left the initiative in the hands of Damascus. This ended the first stage of this period.

On 16 June, the American ambassador, his aide, and his Lebanese driver were murdered in National Movement territory in Beirut, apparently at the hands of dissident elements on the extreme Left.⁷¹ On 22 June Libyan units of the peace-keeping force began to arrive. The same day the Maronites launched their most ambitious offensive of the Civil War. Its objective was to overrun the Palestinian refugee camps and

Meloy

60

the National Movement-controlled slums separating Maronite-controlled East Beirut from Maronite territory farther east and north. The offensive started with concerted attacks on the twin camps of Jisr al-Basha and Tel Zaatar (ca. 4000 and 30,000 inhabitants, respectively).⁵² As the former was stormed on 1 July, Arafat denounced Syria of complicity, and on 5 July returned to Beirut after an absence of over a month. On 8 July the National Movement-Palestinian forces launched a counter-offensive in the north near Tripoli to relieve the mounting pressure on Tel Zaatar. In a counter counter-offensive in the north the Maronites reached the gates of Tripoli, wreaking terrible vengeance on the Greek Orthodox and Moslem villages in the area sympathetic to the National Movement.⁷³ Meanwhile the Phalanges declared that there would be no cease-fire unless the Palestinians were disarmed, while Jumblat declared that Syrian withdrawal was the National Movement's condition for any cease-fire.

The Maronite militiamen tightened their grip on Tel Zaatar. On 11 July, Arafat appealed to all Arab capitals, and Libyan Prime Minister Jalloud returned to Damascus for another attempt at mediation while his President, Kaddafi, openly denounced the Syrians. On 12 July, Basheer Gemayel, son of Pierre and military commander of the Phalanges, exhilarated by the successes at Jisr al-Basha and in the north, announced the aim of "liberating" all Lebanese territory from the National Movement-Palestinian alliance. On the same day, the Syrians pulled back from Sidon to Jezzine as a conciliatory gesture at Jalloud's request. Simultaneously, Jumblat announced the establishment of an *ad hoc* central administration throughout National Movement territory in belated response to a similar earlier move by the Maronites in Maronite-held territory.

On 22 July, two days after the Syrians had begun closing in on National Movement-Palestinian positions in the Dhour Shuwair area in the mountains east of Beirut, the PLO Executive opened negotiations in Damascus. Perturbed by signs of burgeoning Syrian-Palestinian détente, the Maronites intensified their pressure against Tel Zaatar. They also mounted a new offensive against the adjacent National Movement-controlled Shiite-inhabited shantytown of Nabaa.

On 29 July a joint Syrian-Palestinian communiqué, partly the result of Libyan mediation, announced agreement on the termination of the fighting and "non-interference" in Lebanon's internal affairs. The use of this last expression was the result of a compromise. Thus, "non-interference" was tacitly construed by the Palestinian party to the communiqué to mean Syrian withdrawal. But to the Syrians it meant Palestinian disengagement from the National Movement. The Palestinians also

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61

undertook to adhere to the 1969 Cairo Agreement and even commended the Syrian role "in defense of the Palestinian cause."

The phraseology of the communiqué provoked an immediate furor among the National Movement and the Palestinian Rejection Front. Their chagrin was due to the fact that the communiqué did not explicitly call for Syrian withdrawal, but, on the contrary, gave Damascus high marks for its defense of the Palestinians. Another phrase in the communiqué, to the effect that the Lebanese crisis "followed" Sinai II, prompted Cairo to describe the agreement as a "document of submission" of the PLO to Syria. Cairo's chagrin was aroused by the implication, however delicate, that there was a cause and effect sequence between its second disengagement agreement with Israel (Sinai II) and the Lebanese crisis. But the word "followed" had been included in partial absolution of Damascus for its anti-PLO role in Lebanon and as a bonus to the anti-Sinai II Libyans for their mediation efforts.

Nevertheless, a Lebanese-Syrian-Palestinian committee to implement the agreement met on 30 July. But developments in the field presented insurmountable obstacles to further progress. On 6 August the Shiite-inhabited Beirut shanty suburb of Nabaa fell to Maronite militiamen. On 12 August the Palestinian refugee camp of Tel Zaatar was subdued and stormed after a siege and bombardment lasting 53 days. Palestinian losses at Tel Zaatar were estimated at 3000 (mostly civilians) killed and at least as many wounded. Already on 5 August, Tony Franjeh (son of the President and commander of the Maronite militiamen in the north) had declared "full liberation" to be the Maronite aim, while Jumblat (in an attempt to escape isolation by a resumption of the Palestinian-Syrian détente) announced "all doors to an agreement" closed and all-out war against Syria as the only option. The breakdown of the latest Syrian-Palestinian agreement marked the end of the second stage of this period.

The third stage started with the "Battle of the Mountain." This revolved around the salient held by National Movement-Palestinian forces in Maronite territory (the Dhour Shuwair area) north of the Beirut-Damascus highway. The issue of this salient compounded the difficulty in arriving at a politico-military truce to pave the way for the formal investiture of Elias Sarkis. A special session of the Parliament was due to be held for this purpose on 23 September, the last day of Franjeh's term. The Maronites insisted on unconditional National Movement-Palestinian withdrawal from the salient, as did the Syrians. The National Movement-Palestinian alliance expected the Syrians to withdraw from Sofar in the central sector into the Bekaa Valley on a *quid pro quo* basis

62

for their own withdrawal from the salient. The fighting in the salient meshed with the fighting in Beirut, where utterly indiscriminate shell-ing and counter-shelling of residential areas and civilian institutions had been going on unabated for weeks. Now the use by both sides of howitzers and rockets in addition to heavy mortars brought the violence to a new climax of savagery. This paralyzed all movement in the capital and threatened to make it physically impossible for Parliament to meet for the inauguration of President-elect Elias Sarkis.

On 13 August Syrian troops moved into Hammana, which straddled the main line of communications between the National Movement-Palestinian-held salient at the edge of the Maronite heartland and the Druze-National Movement sanctuary—the Shuf region south of the main Damascus-Beirut highway. Three days later Maronite militiamen opened their assault on their side of the salient in the area of Dhour Shuwair against the National Movement-Palestinian positions. On 19 August, Libyan Prime Minister Jalloud proposed the withdrawal of “all” combatants from the battle zone (i.e., Maronites, National Movement-Palestinian forces, as well as Syrians) to be replaced by troops of the Arab League peace-keeping force.

The first two weeks of September witnessed intensive secret but inconclusive talks between Damascus and the hawkish Palestinian leader Salah Khalaf (better known as Abu Iyad), the Number Two man in Fath. The PLO was apparently willing to consider unilateral withdrawal from the salient against binding guarantees that Syria would refrain from further moves against National Movement-Palestinian forces in Lebanon.⁷⁹ With five days to go before President-elect Sarkis’ investiture, talks held on 17 September between Sarkis and Arafat on the same issue were likewise inconclusive. As the fighting in the salient between the Maronite militiamen and the National Movement-Palestinian forces intensified, the deadlock over the Libyan joint withdrawal proposal deepened. This was reflected in the continued escalation of the artillery and rocket barrages in Beirut uninhibitedly aimed by both sides against exclusively civilian targets. The entire constitutional transition from Franjeh to Sarkis was in jeopardy.

But in a lightning turn of events between 17 and 19 September President-elect Sarkis paid unannounced visits to Damascus and Cairo. During these visits he seems to have succeeded in reaching a compromise agreement with the two capitals: the site of the Parliamentary investiture meeting was resourcefully changed from Beirut to Shtaura, a honey-mooners' hideaway in the Syrian-controlled Bekaa Valley. And it was there that on 23 September Elias Sarkis finally and formally succeeded Suleiman Franjeh as President of the Republic. The ceremony was boy-

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cotted by the Sunnite Saeb Salaam and the Druze Kamal Jumblat, but attended by a total of 67 deputies out of 99.

## 6. From the Inauguration of Sarkis to the End of General Hostilities

It will be recalled that Sarkis was elected President on 8 May. That event did not constitute the hoped-for psychological turning point in the Civil War, largely because of Franjeh's insistence on remaining in office until the end of his term on 23 September. Sarkis' inauguration on that day was the last remaining hope for such a psychological turning point, if indeed there still could be one. His inaugural address to the nation was both firm and conciliatory.⁷⁶ There would be no partition of the country. Its sovereignty was sacred. Lebanon supported the Palestinian cause, but the Palestinians should adhere to the 1969 Cairo Agreement. Addressing the National Movement, he expressed his determination “to champion any changes which . . . may contribute to national welfare.” Syrian military presence in Lebanon was formally declared to be at the invitation of the Lebanese government.

Yasir Arafat responded immediately by declaring a cease-fire. But Syrian-Palestinian relations underwent a dramatic deterioration when on 26 September dissident anti-Fath Palestinian commandos stormed a Damascus hotel. The Syrians recaptured it and summarily hanged three of the captive assailants in public. But in their anger the Syrians directly accused the Palestinian organization Fath and peremptorily demanded the replacement of Arafat in the leadership of the PLO.

On 28 September the Syrians, complementing their political offensive with a military one, assaulted and dislodged the National Movement-Palestinian forces from the Dhour Shuwair salient in Maronite territory in a brisk battle, driving them southward towards the main Damascus-Beirut highway. The National Movement-Palestinian forces now regrouped at Bhamdun and Aley, below the Syrian armor massed at the mountain resort of Sofar. The Syrians paused at Sofar while contemplating their next move.

Meanwhile, National Movement-Palestinian hopes were pinned on an Arab League foreign ministers' conference scheduled for 15 October in Cairo, to be followed by a plenary summit of the Arab heads of state on 18 October. But the Syrian mood was reflected in demands made to the Palestinians between 4 and 11 October to retreat forthwith to their camps and disengage from the National Movement. The Palestinians, still hoping to buy time until the plenary summit convened, demanded the interposition of the Arab League peace-keeping force between themselves

64

and their National Movement allies on the one hand and the Syrians on the other. While these talks were in progress, or rather foundering, the Syrian embassies in Rome, London, and Islamabad were attacked by motley groups of enraged pro-PLO Arab students.

On 13 October, five days before the scheduled plenary summit of the heads of Arab states, the Syrians made their next military move. They stormed Bhamdun, dislodging the Palestinian and National Movement forces in costly hand-to-hand combat. The Syrians took somewhat longer than they had expected—72 hours—to clear the town, and this seems to have had a sobering effect both on them and on the Arab capitals watching from the sidelines. Simultaneously, Damascus announced that President Asad would not be attending the Cairo plenary summit.

Syrian armor was now poised for the advance downhill against Aley. This was the regional headquarters of the National Movement and the Palestinians. Arafat appealed to the Arab heads of state and to Soviet leader Brezhnev. As Syrian columns tentatively edged their way towards Aley, Saudi Arabia at long last took its courage in both hands and declared that enough was enough. On 15 October, it called for a mini-summit to be held the very next day in its capital, preliminary to the Cairo plenary session which in the meantime had been postponed. Kuwait, Lebanon (Sarkis), the PLO, Egypt, and Syria were invited to attend. Miraculously, President Asad assented and Arafat was whisked off in a special Saudi plane to Riyad, while a de facto cease-fire between the Syrians and Palestinians came into effect as of 16 October.

The *Riyad summit announced its resolutions on 18 October.*77 These included an immediate general cease-fire to be supervised by an inter-Arab force of 30,000 men under Lebanese President Sarkis. The force was empowered to confiscate heavy weapons and arrest violators. The combatants were to disengage within 10 days as of 21 October (the date when the cease-fire was to take effect in all areas of confrontation.) The Palestinians were to withdraw to areas in the south assigned to them by the 1969 Cairo Agreement. They were to adhere strictly to this Agreement. And a political dialogue for national reconciliation was to start forthwith in Lebanon. By avoiding to spell out the detailed composition of the new Arab Deterrent Force (ADF), the summit tacitly recognized the Syrian forces in Lebanon (declared at the summit meeting to be 30,000) as the main component of this Force. Concurrent meetings between Asad and Sadat cleared the air between them for the first time since Sinai II. A meeting between Arafat and Asad in Damascus on 20 October was tantamount to a new recognition by the latter of the former's status as leader of the PLO. On 25 October, 19 out of 21 heads

Riyad
mini-
Summit.

Outcome

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of Arab states meeting in Cairo in the first plenary summit since October 1974 approved the resolutions of the Riyad mini-summit.78 The only dissenters were Iraq and Libya.

Painting their helmets green—the color of the “Arab League” peace-keeping forces—the Syrians prepared to move into new positions. The major remaining obstacle was the Maronite refusal to accept the Syrian presence in Maronite territory. Sarkis' intensive talks with the Maronite quadripartite leadership in the Lebanese Front (ex-Presidents Franjeh and Chamoun, Pierre Gemayel of the Phalanges, and Father Sharbel Kassis of the Maronite Monastic Orders), supplemented by the persuasive reassurances of King Hussein of Jordan (an intimate friend of Chamoun's), overcame their opposition. The Syrians took their time before moving in, so as to allow the Palestinian moderate organization Fath to tighten its grip on dissident National Movement and Palestinian elements who might otherwise have resisted Syrian entry. As Palestinian troops began pulling out from Aley and surrounding areas and moved south, Lebanese President Sarkis appealed for an end to the bloodshed. He called upon all to greet the Syrians “in love and brotherhood.” The 56th cease-fire since April 1975 came into effect.

But tension loomed on the horizon in the south, the new area of Palestinian concentration. For some time the Israelis had been warning that they would not tolerate the resumption of commando activities from southern Lebanon. Early in the Civil War they had started a “good neighbor” policy (medical aid, fuel, food, employment) to woo the Maronite border villages in anticipation of the return of the Palestinians. In recent weeks they had actively encouraged these villages through the supply of arms and logistical support to fill the vacuum created by the collapse of the central government. Emboldened, the Maronites had clashed with the local National Movement, the Palestinian and the Arab Army of Lebanon units, and had extended their control over a considerable part of the border with the exception of the central area around Bint Jubail, where the Palestinians were now concentrating.

On 14 November, some 6000 Syrian troops and 200 tanks moved into and occupied the entire city of Beirut, while other Syrian columns advanced into Maronite and National Movement territory in other parts of the country. The National Movement declared the very entry of “Arab” troops into Maronite territory a victory for themselves. If there was no great jubilation at the entry of the Syrians, there was no resistance to them either.

3

THE ACTORS

## 1. The Lebanese

### The Lebanese Armed Forces

Long before the Ain Rummaneh massacre of April 1975 which triggered the Lebanese Civil War, the army had become controversial. It is a moot point, therefore, whether it could long have survived an attempt to use it to restore law and order after the Ain Rummaneh massacre. What is certain is that by the late autumn of 1975 it had become so polarized that even its Christian-dominated high command accepted its political unreliability and cautioned against its use in a security role.⁷⁹

On the eve of its disintegration in January-February 1976, the Lebanese army was 19,000 strong.⁸⁰ Contrary to widespread belief, the Moslems had a slight edge over the Christians among the rank and file (53 percent: 47 percent), but the composition of the officer class was 65:35 percent in favor of the Christians, even though 18 of the 37 top posts were in Moslem hands.⁸¹ The Christians, however, predominated at the operational and particularly the battalion commander level (there were 24 battalions in all), in addition to occupying the key posts of Commander of the Armed Forces and Chief of Military Intelligence.⁸² The predominance of the Christians at the battalion commander level was not altogether the result of a sinister Maronite plot to retain effective control over the army. To some extent, at least, it was due to the logic of the promotion ladder and seniority considerations, because the Moslems, and particularly the Sunnites, had boycotted the Lebanese army when it was first organized under the French Mandate. Ironically, it was Franjeh who soon after he assumed the presidency had tried to rectify this state of affairs by insisting that the battalion commands be equally

68

divided between Moslems and Christians. Franjieh's reorganization plan foundered, partly on the unavailability of suitable Moslem commanders, and partly, it is alleged, on the coyness of eligible but comfortable Moslem officers to assume combat responsibilities.⁸³

In early 1976 the army had about 100 tanks and an equal number of armored cars and armored personnel carriers. It had about 75 artillery pieces as well as an equal number of self-propelled anti-aircraft guns. There were also some anti-tank missiles.⁸⁴

The army split four ways. One section constituted itself the Arab Army of Lebanon under the Sunnite Lieutenant Ahmed Khatib and his fellow rebel officers. Another joined the right-wing Christian militias under the Maronite Colonels Antoine Barakat and Fuad Malik. A third, comprising perhaps the bulk of the officers, remained, at least until the autumn of 1976, "neutral" under the High Command and the Maronite army commander Hanna Saeed. A fourth section went home. In general, about half the rank and file joined one side or the other. The Sunnite Brigadier Ahdab, who declared the coup d'état of 11 March 1976, demanding the resignation of the President and Prime Minister, had more officers than privates, and most of his followers eventually joined Saeed or went home.

It is impossible to ascertain with exactitude the quantities of equipment that went to the various contestants, but a rough guess is that they went almost equally to Khatib, Barakat-Malik, and Saeed.⁸⁵ In calculating the clout of the Maronite and National Movement militiamen, one must therefore consider the proportion of the Lebanese army that joined either side as a crucial added component. The bulk of the Maronite army rebels seem to have joined Chamoun rather than Gemayel, while some of Khatib's heavy weapons were transferred to the Palestinian Resistance. The "navy" (five patrol boats) were largely under Maronite control, while, mercifully, the air force—some 24 combat aircraft—remained neutral.⁸⁶

### The Maronites

Until early February 1976, the principal objective of the Maronite establishment had been to maintain intact the *status quo* created by the National Pact of 1943. Until the late sixties, barring the panic of the early weeks of the 1958 Civil War, the Maronites had not perceived a serious challenge to this *status quo*. They had, of course, always been disenchanted with the Sunnite Moslem tendency to look for help across the Lebanese borders to the Arab capitals and also with the activities of the Pan-Arab and the radical and Marxist parties on Lebanese soil. But

The Actors

69

they were convinced that all these trends and events could be contained thanks to their control of the levers of power.

Developments in the period 1967-69 made the first serious dent in Maronite self-confidence. The 1969 Cairo Agreement indicated the extent to which the Palestinians, hitherto largely passive, had become a major defiant actor on the Lebanese scene under the dynamic leadership of the PLO—an actor who, moreover, had not been a party to the National Pact of 1943. Particularly galling to the Maronites was the manner in which the traditional Moslem élite and masses were seen to be "siding" with the Palestinians against their own country. But most alarming, perhaps, was the developing symbiosis between the Palestinians and avowedly anti-status quo radical and/or Marxist Lebanese and Pan-Arab groups and organizations (increasingly supported by revolutionary Arab groups and countries) under the leadership of the Druze Kamal Jumblat. Jumblat's role had a particularly traumatic effect on the Maronite mind because deep in their hearts the Maronites had counted on Lebanese Druze solidarity with them (on account of traditional Sunnite-Druze tensions) as a strategic reserve to counter Lebanese Sunnite Pan-Arab waywardness.

Jumblat's "defection" aroused feelings of atavistic insecurity in the Maronites: they perceived the shifting balance of power resulting from the developing alliance between Jumblat and Arafat as a threat to their identity and survival. When Jumblat fastened on deconfessionalism as the main axis of attack for the National Movement, the Maronites could see nothing but a Leftist-Palestinian conspiracy to dislodge them from their position guaranteed under the 1943 National Pact and reduce them to a Christian minority living on Moslem-Arab sufferance. The ghost of Coptification (reduction to the status of the powerless ancient Christian Coptic minority in overwhelmingly Moslem Egypt) seemed to be knocking at their front door.

The reason why deconfessionalization had such sinister implications to the Maronites is not difficult to discern. When Jumblat and the National Movement spoke of deconfessionalism, they fundamentally meant political deconfessionalism, i.e., doing away altogether with the distribution of political power between the Christian and Moslem "confessions" or sects per se upon which the National Pact of 1943 had been established. The National Pact had not only divided parliamentary power among the sects but had done so according to a fixed 6:5 ratio between Christians and Moslems. The implicit Christian-Moslem understanding at the time of the National Pact in 1943 (or such at least was the Maronite perception of it) was that this ratio would not be tampered with by the Moslems. This symbolized as much as it guaranteed Christian

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predominance in the country in perpetuity irrespective of demographic realities, i.e., the current or future numerical strengths of the Christian and Moslem populations in Lebanon.

The Moslems made this concession at the time (if indeed they made it) in order to wean the Maronites from dependence on their traditional foreign protector, France, which had been in actual occupation of the country since the end of World War I. What Jumblat and the National Movement in effect were now saying was that the Lebanese Moslems had meanwhile become such an overwhelming majority of the total population in comparison to the Christian Lebanese that the 6:5 ratio in favor of the Christians was obsolete and no longer tolerable. Jumblat and the National Movement appealed to the majoritarian principles: let political power in the country be distributed according to the demographic realities. Although no one knows what these realities are (since no official census has been undertaken in the country since 1932, precisely because of its explosive political implications), a fair guess would be that the Moslem Lebanese are today in a 55:45 majority compared to the Christian Lebanese.⁸⁷ The cry of political deconfession-alism raised by Jumblat and the National Movement was therefore seen by the Maronites as an attempt to establish Moslem majority rule, albeit under the guise of secularization, at the expense of the predominant Christian status guaranteed by the 1943 National Pact.

The concessions, such as they were, made by President Suleiman Franjeh in his Constitutional Document of 14 February 1976, had strained the limits of Maronite tolerance.⁸⁸ The Maronites had offered them in desperation partly as the price for Syrian support and partly as a tactic to drive a wedge between the Moslem moderates and the radicals. The rejection of these concessions by the National Movement only confirmed in Maronite eyes their initial conviction that to concede the principle of change in the *status quo* of the 1943 National Pact was to embark on the slippery slope towards a bottomless pit. Their mood drew them increasingly closer to saying to the Moslems: You take your majority, and we will take our Mountain, i.e., retreat into their Maronite heartland (Mount Lebanon proper) and partition the country rather than live under radical Moslem rule.

The Maronites were led by a loose quadripartite coalition known as the Lebanese Front. The leaders were: Suleiman Franjeh, Camille Chamoun, Pierre Gemayel, and Father Sharbel Kassis, Head of the Conference of Maronite Monastic Orders. If two of these leaders (Chamoun and Gemayel) agreed on a course of action they could swing the other two, as well as the bulk of the Maronites along with them. The record indicates that these four leaders were capable of cooperating effectively with one another in spite of the tensions between them. The greatest

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tension existed between Chamoun, the charismatic leader in his own right, and Gemayel, the leader of the charismatic institution, the Phalanges. Chamoun⁸⁹ tended to take the hardest line among the four, followed by Kassis, Franjeh, and Gemayel, in that order. Three of them directly controlled militias: the largest was Gemayel's Phalanges (about 15,000 militiamen) followed by the "Tigers" of Chamoun's National Liberal Party (about 3500 militiamen), and Franjeh's private army (about 1500 militiamen), while Kassis was believed to sponsor "The Organization" (about 1500 militiamen). One other relatively large Christian militia existed: the Guardians of the Cedars (1000 militiamen), while some 20 other smaller militias operated within limited areas in Beirut or in different parts of the country.⁹⁰

Some of these militias often seemed to act in defiance of the quadripartite leadership, by either refusing to acquiesce to agreed-upon cease-fires, or going completely berserk, as happened to the Phalanges after 6 December 1975 (the massacre of 200 Moslems in Beirut in "retaliation" for the killing of four Phalangists). Nevertheless, the general impression is that "insubordination" was as often as not a function of outbidding within the quadripartite coalition. But it was also a deliberate escalation-by-proxy strategy: the task of escalation would be assigned by tacit or explicit agreement among the quadripartite leadership to one of the four principal militias or a minor one, depending on the political implications.

The larger militias were heavily armed. In addition to automatic rifles, machine guns, anti-tank guns and missiles, and mortars of all calibers, they also had some field artillery, rockets, armored personnel carriers, and armored cars and tanks.⁹¹ This list does not, of course, include the equipment of the Maronite contingents in the fragmented Lebanese army, which joined the Maronite camp, nor that supplied by Israel.

A word is in order here about the political role of the Maronite religious hierarchy. Historically, the leader of the Maronite community in the spiritual and (very often) political fields has been the Maronite Patriarch, who to all intents and purposes has traditionally represented the Maronite ethos. The French mandatory authorities, in line with their heavy dependence on the Maronites in Lebanon, paid particular defer-ence to the Patriarch throughout the period of their administration of the country. Because the real center of power under the Mandate was the French High Commissioner rather than the incumbent Lebanese Presi-dent, the Patriarch tended to maintain his pre-eminence over the latter. However, with the coming of independence in 1943 and the succession of the President to the supreme powers formerly wielded by the French High Commissioner, the seeds of tension were perhaps inevitably sown between President and Patriarch. The relations between these two

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depended to a large extent on personal idiosyncrasies and their images of their respective roles. The reigning Patriarch at the time of independence was Antun Arida, a Maronite "hawk" whose political forthrightness (to put it mildly) on such subjects as the relationship of the Lebanese to the Arab World was a cause of acute embarrassment not only to President Bishara Khoury (co-author of the 1943 National Pact with the Sunnite leader Riyad Solh) but also to the Vatican. Since Patriarch Arida, in his old age seemed reluctant to acknowledge the passage of the years, the Vatican was finally obliged to intervene and "retire" him in 1954 in favor of Paul Meouchy, Bishop of Tyre. Meouchy's appointment was made directly by Rome to forestall the election of a less moderate Patriarch by the Lebanese synod of Maronite bishops.⁹²

Meouchy and President Camille Chamoun (1952-1958) did not quite see eye to eye, partly because tact to Chamoun was often a matter of mood. Nor was Meouchy particularly enamored of Chamoun's domestic and foreign policies. Indeed, Meouchy's vigorous opposition to Chamoun was one of the most important single factors in preventing the 1958 Civil War from degenerating into the inter-sectarian conflict of 1975-76.⁹³ Meouchy, however, subsequently fell out with both Presidents Chéhab (1958-1964) and Helou (1964-1970), indicating perhaps a continuing ineluctable "debate" between the Maronite "State" and the Maronite Church. When Meouchy died in 1975 on the eve of the Civil War, he was succeeded by Antoine Khraish, an uncharacteristically self-effacing, low-keyed Patriarch. Throughout the fighting, Khraish seemed visibly affected by what was befalling the country and exerted himself tirelessly but ineffectively in behind-the-scenes attempts at sectarian reconciliation. On the other hand, the main Maronite monastic orders—the grassroots institutions on which the Maronite Patriarchate and to some extent the Maronite community are based—became unprecedentedly prominent at both the political and military levels. Their Superior, Father Sharbel Kassis, a member of the quadripartite Lebanese Front, was no dove. This salience of the monastic orders may reflect a shift between its base and top in the internal balance of power within the Maronite religious hierarchy. This shift could perhaps itself have been a function of the personality of the incumbent Patriarch or it could indicate a subtly prudential division of labor between the two. But it could also reflect the "last ditch" Maronite mood and be yet another manIFESTATION of the intensity of the sectarian character that the conflict had assumed.

## The Moslem Establishment

The basic grievances of the Moslem establishment had been the preponderant power enjoyed (not without some hauteur) by the

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Maronite President as opposed to the Sunnite Prime Minister, as well as the general socio-economic and political imbalance in the system in favor of the Maronites and at the expense of the Moslems. Before the outbreak of the Civil War the Moslem establishment had generally concentrated on two major demands: musharaka (a balanced distribution of power between the Maronite President and the Sunnite Prime Minister) and fairer access for the Moslems in general to the senior civil service and military posts. Much effort was also spent on "politics of the gesture," or histrionic reactions to real or perceived slights to the dignity of the Moslem sects by the Maronite authorities in matters of precedence and protocol.

The major socio-economic grievances of the Moslem communities based on discrimination in education, social services, and regional economic development were given only verbal attention by the Moslem establishment: an alibi for lack of progress in their redress was readily found in the Maronite "monopoly" of power. This, in addition to Sunnite thirst for the Prime Ministerial office (parallelled only by the intra-Maronite race for the Presidency), gradually alienated increasing sections of the status-starved, disillusioned, morally enraged, often remorselessly idealistic Moslem intelligentsia and the rapidly proliferating student population from the Sunnite leaders.

Fundamentally, of course, the Moslem oligarchs were at peace with the status quo of 1943, which explains their general approval (except for Jumblat) of Franjieh's Constitutional Document of 14 February 1976. On the Palestinian issue, they consistently came out in favor of the commandos, but after the outbreak of the Civil War major differences of opinion developed among these oligarchs with regard to the strategy to be pursued vis-à-vis the Maronites as well as Syrian intervention. Ex-Premier and pre-eminent Sunnite leader Saeb Salaam reached an early decision that President Suleiman Franjieh was the root of all evil and should resign forthwith, whereas after much hesitation the incumbent Sunnite Premier Rashid Karami decided, at least until March 1976, to explore the possibility of cooperating with him. Salaam was at first vehemently opposed to the Syrian intervention, whereas Karami's lines of communication with Damascus seemed to remain open.

Kamel As'ad, the pre-eminent secular Shiite leader and Speaker of the Parliament, was on the defensive both against the populist religious Shiite leader Musa Sadr and the leftist and radical Shiite forces. These forces were in physical control of As'ad's political constituency and base in southern Lebanon from which he was in effect "exiled." As'ad belatedly threw his energies into an attempt to revive parliamentary life in order to seize the initiative from the combatants. He was active in organizing the legislative moves that gave a semblance of constitutional-

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ity to the transition from Franjieh to Sarkis. Of all Moslem leaders he was the closest to the Maronites and resided during most of the fighting in Maronite-controlled territory. Of these Moslem leaders, only Jumblat had a militia comparable to those at the command of the Maronite leaders of the Lebanese Front.

A word about the political role of the Moslem religious hierarchy. By and large the secular leadership (the traditional oligarchs) has tended to overshadow its strictly religious counterpart. This applies to Sunnites, Shiites, and Druzes. In the case of the last two the position of the secular leadership vis-à-vis the religious leadership has been enhanced by two considerations. First, the secular leaders themselves (unlike their Sunnite fellow oligarchs) have been traditionally endowed with some religious attributes in the eyes of their largely rural, tribal, and conservative followers. Secondly, again unlike the Sunnite constituency, the Druze and Shiite constituencies have been rigidly hierarchical, with the secular leadership concentrated over the last decades in two families for each sect (the Jumblats and Arslans for the Druzes and the As'ads and Himadehs for the Shiites).

While this has been the general pattern, at least since independence in 1943, some variations have occurred in more recent times, especially among the Sunnites and Shiites. Among the Sunnites the most prestigious religious post is that of Mufti (or jurisconsult) of Lebanon. This has usually been occupied by pious and elderly dignitaries enjoying vastly varying degrees of learning and grasp of Islamic jurisprudence. They acted more or less as decorative umpires to the contending members of their community under the conspicuous wings of such powerful secular leaders as Riyad Solh, Abdulhamid Karami (father of Rashid), and Saeb Salaam. In 1967, however, a relatively young Islamic scholar, Sheikh Hassan Khalid, was appointed Mufti. The appointment seemed to have the blessing of Presidents Chehab and Nasser and reflected the entente between Cairo and Beirut under Chehab. Khalid's sponsorship by the two capitals was designed to create a malleable Sunnite counterpoint to the Sunnite oligarchs. The Mufti's curiosity, in the circumstances, was not confined to things ecclesiastical, prompting him to explore the leeway that he could exercise at the expense of the secular leadership. Needless to say, this brought him into conflict with the Sunnite oligarchs who were indefatigable in reminding him of the transcendent functions of his office.

Given the Mufti's propensities and backing and the eroded prestige of the secular traditional leadership, it was inevitable that disaffected Sunnite Moslems, unwilling to follow Jumblat or join the radical and Marxist parties, should gravitate towards Sheikh Hassan Khalid and try

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to get the most out of him in their fight against the Sunnite secular establishment, as well as against the Maronites. Thus, a new behind-the-scenes power center was created within the general Sunnite establishment which during the Civil War generated much of the out-bidding climate of opinion both inside the Sunnite fold and between the Sunnite establishment and the National Movement.

A similar phenomenon occurred at about the same time in the Shiite community. There, the leaders of the religious hierarchy have usually been characterized by formidable erudition and have led the lives of anchorites, leaving things mundane to the traditional leading houses of the As'ads and Himadehs. In the early sixties, however, a Shiite religious dignitary, Musa Sadr, appeared on the scene. Sadr was in his thirties, and of literally heroic physical proportions. Unlike the Mufti, he was a determined activist and agitated openly on behalf of his crushed but awakened community, the most deprived of all Lebanese sects. This brought Sadr into increasing conflict, not only with the Shiite traditional secular leaders but also with the Marxist and radical parties who were canvassing in the same constituency. Initially a member of the National Movement, Sadr inclined to the Syrian side after the Syrian confrontation with the Movement. There is no doubt that Sadr played a leading role in the mobilization of Shiite mass opinion on the eve of the Civil War, in the course of which he organized and commanded a somewhat ramshackle militia called AMAL, numbering several hundreds.

The Druze religious leadership was kept well in line by Kamal Jumblat throughout the Civil War, although he was outwardly as deferential to it as it was to him.

## The National Movement

Before the schism over Syrian intervention the National Movement was a broad coalition embracing the entire activist Moslem-Leftist opposition. The Leftist components included substantial numbers of Christians, particularly from the Greek Orthodox sect.⁹⁴ The National Movement included established Lebanese parties and more recently formed ones, Lebanese branches of Pan-Arab parties, popular action-oriented ad hoc groups and student organizations. All these differed in size, structure, strength, purpose, affiliation, as well as in political philosophies and programs (if any). Many engaged in intense rivalry and competition among themselves.

Nevertheless, they did share certain general common characteristics and immediate objectives. All were at least left of Center. Most were undeflected confrontational. Their overriding target was a revolution

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in the *status quo*. Their battering ram: deconfessionalism. Their enemy: both the Maronite and the Moslem establishments. Their strategic ally: the Palestinian commandos. Their patron saint and mentor: Kamal Jumblat.

For all of them, deconfessionalism was not an ideal laid up in Heaven, the Vision of the Good Life about which one daydreamed,⁹⁵ but a concrete program instantly realizable by storming the Bastille of the 1943 National Pact.

Paradoxically, even after the Ain Rummaneh massacre in April 1975, the National Movement was not self-consciously committed to "armed struggle" as a means of achieving its ends. An index of this was the utter military unpreparedness of its members, well into the spring of 1976, as compared to the Maronite militants. This was partly due to their tacit reliance on Palestinian military prowess—hence, partly at least, their embrace of the cause of the Palestinian commandos. But it was also a tribute to their amateur status as "revolutionaries" too dazzled by their own enunciation of grandiose ends to give much thought to the mechanics of their realization.

The National Pact was perceived to be a conspiratorial covenant between a small band of oligarchs both Christian and Moslem whose purpose was to perpetuate, in the name of obsolete and irrelevant criteria of sectarian equilibrium, the socio-economic dominance of some four percent of the upper crust of society⁹⁶ at the expense of the vast downtrodden majority of the population. The concessions in Franjieh's Constitutional Document of 14 February 1976 were a cynical exercise in "cosmetic" reform in the tradition of the tribal nose-rubbing reconciliation ritual between bedouin chieftains after a vendetta. What was needed was a clean break with the past on the basis of truly democratic participation which alone could guarantee social justice for the greatest number, irrespective of sectarian affiliation. The Syrian intervention was seen as having snatched victory from their grasp under the hypocritical over of concern for the prevention of the partition of the country by the Maronites. In fact, it was motivated by the desire to subjugate the Palestinian commandos in preparation for Syrian surrender at the Geneva Peace Conference in the service of Washington and Tel Aviv. Syria was also acting in a Metternichian role on behalf of the conservative Arab regimes who quaked at the idea of the triumph of democracy and socialism in Lebanon. The threat of partition by the Maronite right was seen as a bluff that could and should be called once and for all.

At the center of the National Movement was Kamal Jumblat's 'Progressive Socialist Party, composed largely of intellectuals and students. Its base, however, was Jumblat's Druze clansmen organized in

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a militia about 3000 strong. Around this party was gathered a hard core of four principal groups:

1) The Communists. These were organized in two parties: the old Moscow-oriented Lebanese Communist Party (C.P.) and the Organization for Lebanese Communist Action (O.L.C.A.). The latter was formed in the 1960s around a splinter group from the C.P. and another such group from the Arab Nationalist Movement (A.N.M.). As for the C.P., the leadership had been wrested from old party veterans by young militants, largely from the Lebanese University. Relations between this leadership, on the one hand, and the party veterans and Moscow, on the other, had become increasingly strained as a result of the leadership's passionate espousal of a brand of Marxist Arab nationalism, to which O.L.C.A. also subscribed. The Lebanese crisis brought the C.P. and O.L.C.A. so closely together that communiqués were issued by them in the name of "communists in the C.P. and O.L.C.A."⁹⁷

2) The Syrian Social Nationalist Party (formerly the Parti Populaire Syrien - P.P.S.). This was the most genuinely, if fanatically, secular of all nationalist political parties in the Arab world, containing in its ranks as many Christians as Moslems. Of all the members of the National Movement coalition, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party was again the most genuinely "rejectionist" with regard to an Arab-Israeli settlement involving acceptance of Israel as a state. The Syrian Social Nationalist Party as well as the C.P. and O.L.C.A. were country-wide organizations. Between them they exercised the greatest intellectual and tactical leverage over Jumblat and often were the pace-setters of the National Movement coalition.

3) The Lebanese branch of the Iraqi Baath Party, largely based in Tripoli.⁹⁸

4) The Nasserists and neo-Nasserists whose principal organizations were: the Independent Nasserists and their militia, the *Murabitun*; the Union of the Forces of the Working People-The Corrective Movement (one group); the Socialist Arab Union-The Nasserite Organization (another single group), all three being based in Beirut; the 24 October Movement of Tripoli; and the Popular Nasserist Organization of Sidon.⁹⁹

All these groups enjoyed the support of radical Arab regimes, particularly Iraq and Libya, as well as that of the PLO. The Independent Nasserists of Beirut had the largest militia force—the *Murabitun*, which was about 500 strong. The militia forces of the others varied between 200-400 each.

Until the confrontation with Syria, the National Movement also included the Lebanese branch of the Baath Party of Syria, the Shiite

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Movement of the Disinherited under the Shiite religious leader Musa Sadr, and the Union of the Forces of the Working People of Beirut. These organizations each had a militia of about 200 and enjoyed Syrian support.

In addition, the National Movement included some half dozen Lebanese student and youth militias and organizations, each 100-200 strong, directly affiliated to the Palestinian Resistance, particularly to Fath.

The larger militias, like their Maronite counterparts, had access to the armaments of the dissident Lebanese Army contingents which had joined forces with them. Given their differing political philosophies and external affiliations, coordination between the members of the Movement was more difficult than within the Maronite coalition, while outbidding and escalation by proxy were a matter of routine in their decision-making.

### Kamal Jumblat

Paradoxically, Jumblat was the most secure of all Lebanese traditional political leaders in his own Druze constituency, where he had little cause to look over his shoulder. He had been one of the principal props and beneficiaries of the Lebanese system, and had served in various ministerial posts for at least as long as any other Moslem or Christian oligarch since the mid-forties. As a Druze aristocrat whose family had been involved in the politics of Mount Lebanon for centuries, he was the repository of a rich heritage of insights into the psychology and phobias of his traditional neighbors, the Maronites.

On the other hand, Jumblat had always been a critic of the Lebanese system and since the early fifties had intermittently tried his hand at forging an oppositional coalition dedicated to its reform. Probably one of the earliest influences on him was British welfare socialism of World War II vintage.¹⁰⁰

Jumblat's deconfessionalist program was not on the face of it unreasonable. The principle of one-man-one-vote, which is its practical application, was hardly revolutionary by Western liberal democratic standards. In the Lebanese context, however, it was just that, as Jumblat knew only too well. The question remains as to why he took up this principle as a matter of supreme urgency and pursued it so relentlessly.

One could assume that several considerations played a role: the failure of Chehabist reform, the actual or perceived deterioration of living conditions for the Moslem masses, the general indifference of the Moslem and Maronite establishments, and the hopes pinned on him by the Lebanese Moslem intelligentsia and students as a fellow intellectual and a leader. All of these finally reached saturation point and he underwent a

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Pauline conversion stemming from his sense of accumulated moral anger.

A less charitable though still respectable explanation is that, observing the erosion of the sectarian hierarchical system among the Sunnites and Shiites and the gravitation towards himself of the younger generation of radicals away from their Moslem sects, he had the shrewdness to realize that a historic opportunity beckoned to make a qualitative political jump from his Druze sectarian straitjacket (where the blind loyalty of his kinsmen may have occasioned some feelings of ennui) into the wider pastures of secular national leadership. Elaborating on this hypothesis, his critics maintain that Jumblat's main objection to the concessions of Franjeh's Constitutional Document of 14 February 1976 was that they still blocked the avenues for him not only of the Presidency but also of the Premiership. This document, it will be recalled, preserved the *status quo* with regard to the distribution of the three highest posts of the state—the President, the Speaker of the House, and the Prime Minister among the Maronites, the Shiites, and the Sunnites respectively—thus perpetuating the exclusion of the Druzes from these posts.

Yet another, more Machiavellian, hypothesis is that Jumblat, ahead of all the other oligarchs, whether Christian or Moslem, saw only too clearly the writing on the wall. A bloody social revolution was in the offing which could sweep away everything before it, Jumblat and all. Better to ride the tiger of a bloody political and constitutional reform (1789) than drift into the inferno of an October (1917) Revolution. The hypothesis is not altogether implausible. Although a holder of the Order of Lenin, Jumblat was wont to mutter dire warnings in tête-à-têtes with fellow oligarchs about a possible Communist takeover. Moreover, he was one of very few populist leaders in the Arab World who did not lash out against Sadat's Sinai II.

Whatever the truth, there is no doubt that some of Jumblat's pronouncements give the impression that his self-image was of someone not only leading the downtrodden of Lebanon into the millennium but also initiating a new revolutionary surge in the entire Arab world based on a genuine grass-roots phenomenon, rather than the adventurism of a man on horseback or in a tank turret.

## 2. The Palestinians

The backbone of the Palestinian Revolution was the centrist Fath organization led by Yasir Arafat, a Sunnite Moslem.¹⁰¹ Next in political importance came the Marxist PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) of George Habash (a Greek Orthodox Christian), followed by the Marxist DFLP (Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine) of

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Naif Hawatmeh (a Greek Orthodox Christian from the East Bank of the Jordan). *Saiqa*, recruited from Palestinian residents in Syria under the aegis of the Syrian Baath Party, and the Arab Liberation Front, organized under the sponsorship of the Iraqi Baath Party, cannot be said to be completely autonomous Palestinian organizations. The PFLP-General Command, a breakaway group from Habash's PFLP under Ahmed Jibril, was more of a para-military than a political entity, as indeed were both the *Saiqa* and the Arab Liberation Front. Jibril was said to have been close to Libya, while also having good lines of communication to Damascus.

The Palestinian Rejection Front was led by Habash. It was unswervingly opposed to any settlement with Israel except on the basis of a reconstituted democratic secular state of all Palestine to include Arabs, Jews, and Christians. It included Jibril's organization as well as the Arab Liberation Front.

Before the Syrian intervention which polarized relations between the *Saiqa* and all the other organizations (except Jibril's PFLP-General Command), the Palestinian commando organizations—in spite of the rivalries and differences among them—had the same perception of Lebanon, a perception fundamentally conditioned by their common Jordanian experience during 1970-71.

Yet even before the tragic events in Jordan the Palestinian commando organizations tended to start from the premise that all Arab countries, but particularly those adjacent to Israel, were duty-bound in the name of Pan-Arabism and the sacrosanctity of the Palestinian cause to proffer assistance and sanctuary to the Palestinian revolution. The price for these services had to be paid, however costly it might be, in the form of the Israeli strategy of retaliation and deterrence through punishment.

Given this premise, the argument of Lebanon being *sui generis* among the Arab countries because of its delicate sectarian equilibrium, possessed at best only limited plausibility. Priority was given to the need to maintain military pressure against Israel. This more often than not was difficult if not impossible to do across the main confrontation lines in the Syrian Golan and Egyptian Sinai because of the differing priorities of the regular Syrian and Egyptian armed forces. Hence the temptation of construing the very fragility of the sectarian equilibrium in Lebanon as a potential asset to be turned, if necessary, to the advantage of the Palestinian revolution. The Cairo Agreement of 1969 tended to be looked upon as an acquired extraterritorial right never to be abandoned but rather to be consolidated and expanded where possible. The concurrent halos of martyrdom and championship surrounding the Palestinian revolution exerted a powerful fascination over the Moslem masses and radicals of Lebanon. And the almost mystical bond that sprang up

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between them and the Palestinian leadership confirmed the latter's already foreshadowed reading of the Lebanese political and sectarian map.

All this was reinforced by the Jordanian experience. Never again would the Palestinian revolution face a regular army on its own. The Jordanian catastrophe had occurred precisely because the revolution had abided by constraining principles of behavior vis-à-vis the Jordanian masses which had merely played into the hands of the Jordanian authorities, thus facilitating the latter's liquidation task. If the Lebanese Moslem and leftist waters were crying for the Palestinian fish to jump into them, the Palestinian fish were not going to play coy.

To be sure, there were differences of emphasis. Arafat's centrist *Fath*, while imbued with these sentiments, tended also to be aware of their pitfalls. Hence Arafat's predisposition to keep his options open with all Lebanese parties. If he was not successful in this endeavor, it was due as much to his misreading of the Lebanese political-sectarian map as to the pressures of the Palestine Rejection Front and the Lebanese National Movement itself. Unlike *Fath*, the Palestine Rejection Front, and particularly the PFLP, were further propelled by their secular or Marxist ideology into symbiosis with the Lebanese underdog and into championship of the cause of deconfessionalism.

From Ain Rummaneh (April 1975) onwards the Conspiracy Theory dominated Palestinian analysis—as it colored the perceptions of all the other protagonists, local as well as regional. The massacre of the busload of Palestinians by Maronite right-wing militiamen was seen as the opening move in a deliberate strategy directed by hidden players whose primary purpose was to bleed the Palestinians to death in a conflict with the Maronite establishment. The objective of this strategy was to deflect their attention from Kissinger's step-by-step diplomacy whose cornerstone was deliberate purblindness to the centrality of the Palestinian issue in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The same theory was later drawn upon to explain Syrian intervention on the side of the Maronites. The Syrians, anxious to curry favor with Washington, were seizing the opportunity of the Lebanese crisis to cut the Palestinians down to size. This was to be preliminary to their sacrifice at the conference table in collusion with the Jordanians and the conservative oil-rich Arab regimes frightened by dark American warnings about the consequences of oil price increases. But even if the Syrian army were powerful, the Palestinian Movement in alliance with the Lebanese National Movement and the Lebanese masses would put up such a heroic fight that the very pathos of their resistance would rally popular support not only in Damascus but in other Arab capitals as well. This would surely turn the tables against the "conspirators."

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Arafat's position within the *Fath* leadership was that of *primus inter pares*, with a somewhat long lead in his primacy. In theory, he coordinated overall Palestinian policy with regard to the Lebanese National Movement. In practice, however, the members of the Palestinian Rejection Front had direct links with members of the National Movement, and vice versa. In moments of extreme crisis, Arafat had the power and prestige to impose his will on the Palestinian Rejection Front and the Lebanese National Movement. That he was sometimes averse to exercising this leverage was as much a reflection of his innate propensity to temporize as of his tactical perceptions of the moment.

Unquestionably, *Fath* had the largest military and militia forces in the field on the Palestinian and Lebanese Moslem-Leftist side. Its front-line troops numbered 8,000-10,000, with as many militiamen. In addition, *Fath* called on Palestine Liberation Army units (the regular army units of the PLO) loyal to Arafat and stationed in Syria and Egypt¹⁰² (about 4000 strong) as well as on Palestinians trained in Iraq. Some 3000-4000 troops were dispatched from Iraq to reinforce *Fath* via Egypt.¹⁰³ The Syrian-sponsored *Saiqa* Palestinian units and the Syrian-based Palestine Liberation Army (PLA) units dispatched by Damascus to Lebanon were the second most important "Palestinian" forces.¹⁰⁴ They numbered some 3000 each. Both these forces had proved unreliable from the Syrian point of view during the height of their confrontation with Arafat.¹⁰⁵ Many of the PLA units rebelled against their senior pro-Syrian officers and went over to Arafat. In comparison with *Fath*, *Saiqa*, and the PLA, the combatant strength of the other Palestinian organizations did not amount to much. The PFLP-The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (Habash), the DFLP-The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (Hawatmeh), the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (Jibril), and the Arab Liberation Front (Iraqi-sponsored) were militarily insignificant. Perhaps the largest of these was Jibril's (ca. 800 men) before it split in two halves as a result of Jibril's pro-Syrian policy. In the early stages of the Civil War the armament of *Fath* easily compared to that of the principal Maronite militia, the Phalanges.¹⁰⁶

### 3. The Arab Countries

#### Syria

Until well into the autumn of 1975 the Syrians were strongly backing the National Movement and *Fath*. They relied for control, first, on the Syrian-sponsored Palestinian *Saiqa* militia; second, on the Lebanese

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branch of the Syrian Baath Party; and third, on their protégés inside the National Movement: the Union of the Forces of the Working People and Musa Sadr's Shiite Movement of the Disinherited. As the National Movement gathered momentum and its alliance with the Palestinian Resistance took on firmer contours, the Syrians began a process of reappraisal, though they maintained their support of the National Movement and *Fath* with diminishing enthusiasm until the middle of March 1976. An early harbinger of the change in Syria's attitudes was its termination of the political proscription of the Phalanges (announced by the National Movement after the Ain Rummaneh massacre in April 1975). This they did by inviting Pierre Gemayel, leader of the Phalanges, to Damascus on 6 December 1975.

Two nightmares began to haunt the Syrians about this time: that the Maronites would decide on partition, or that the National Movement would, with Palestinian help, rout the Maronites and establish a radical regime in Lebanon. There was little to choose between the two scenarios. The first promised to create a permanent thorn in Syria's side through the establishment of a new Maronite "Israel." It would encourage schism and centrifugal minoritarian tendencies in Syria itself and throughout the region. The second, if successful, would create a beachhead against Syria for regimes hostile to it (e.g., Iraq), while at the same time serving as an alternative repository for Soviet favors. A radical Lebanese regime would by its very nature have imponderable results on the internal Syrian scene. It would be tempted to pursue a precipitately escalatory policy against Israel. It could drag Syria into a war at a time and place not of its choosing. Either process—a Maronite movement towards partition, or a radical movement to topple the existing Lebanese regime—might at any moment provide Israel with a credible pretext for intervention, and so trigger a premature confrontation with it. And even if the leftist forces succeeded in gaining control in a swift coup de main, the Israelis were bound to claim "compensation" by annexing southern Lebanon in anticipation of the forthcoming militancy of the new radical regime.

On the other hand, the cost of Syrian intervention would be high. It was bound to raise the cry of a conspiracy to liquidate the Palestinians as part of some shabby horse-trading over the occupied Syrian Golan. It would project an image of revolutionary Syria as the enemy of the Moslem underdogs of Lebanon and the champion of a corrupt Christian upper bourgeoisie in league with Moslem feudal overlords. The Syrian regime would be particularly vulnerable to such propaganda in the vast world of Sunnite Arabdom because its ruling military group itself belonged to a small minority, the Alawites (a schismatic offshoot of

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Shiism).¹⁰⁷ But the cost of non-intervention, as the Syrians perceived it, would be even higher.

It was this Syrian awareness of the delicate cost-benefit calculus which caused them to move in a methodically graduated manner, partly to scrutinize the political fallout after every move, and partly in the hope that the next turning of the screw against the National Movement and the Palestinians would be unnecessary. And it is in this context that their political offensive, culminating in Franjeh's concessions in the Constitutional Document of 14 February 1976, must be seen. But the Syrian strategy of Push-and-Pause largely foundered on the Come-and-Get-Us-if-You-Can counter-strategy of the National Movement and the Palestinians.

### Egypt

At the time when Syria was backing the National Movement and Fath, the Egyptians were discreetly backing the Maronites. As the Syrians began to change course, the Palestinians began to thrash around for help and suppressed their nausea at Sadat's Sinai II in the interest of what they saw as their survival against Syria. Early in 1976, Sadat's political peri-scope discerned the possibilities of a veritable windfall. For months he had been taking his punishment for Sinai II from a vast orchestra of abuse conducted by Asad of Syria and Arafat of the PLO, with the supporting choruses of the Palestinian Rejection Front and the radical Arab countries associated with it, Iraq and Libya. So, in a moment of inspiration, he ditched the Maronites. Now he could appear in the new shining armor of champion of the Palestinians and the Moslem underdogs and stretch the Syrians on the rack he had but recently inhabited. Palestine Liberation Army contingents stationed in Egypt and loyal to Arafat were rushed to Lebanon together with ordnance in defiance of the "Syrian-Israeli blockade" of Sidon and Tyre to bolster the military position of the National Movement and the Palestinians. A bonus for Sadat was the service he could render Iraq, one of his sharpest critics for Sinai II. Iraq had been at a loss as to how to transport reinforcements to the Palestinians in Lebanon, to which it had no direct land access. Sadat obliged by providing an air-bridge with Baghdad and shipping the Iraqi volunteers to Lebanon via Egypt. Meanwhile Sadat eluded the pressures of Saudi Arabia for a summit by demanding that his price for attendance would be Syrian silence about Sinai II during any forthcoming conference on Lebanon. Only when Damascus and Cairo had had their fill of this game of chicken and it became obvious that no Arab country was willing to send substantial forces to co-police Lebanon with the Syr that the Israelis were daily getting bolder in southern

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### The Actors

Lebanon, and that the Maronite partition trend was becoming more pronounced—then and only then did Sadat and Asad discover that they had a common interest in cooperating to try to put an end to Lebanon's agonies.

### Iraq

Relieved of the Kurdish rebellion¹⁰⁸ after embarking on a policy of détente with Iran (which had been the principal sponsor of this rebellion), Iraq was anxious to resume its Pan-Arab role. Iraq considered itself entitled to this role on two grounds: by virtue of its resources and Arab nationalist tradition, but also in its capacity as host to the headquarters of the "legitimate" Pan-Arab leadership of the Baath Party (the wing of the Greek Orthodox founding father Michel Aflak).¹⁰⁹ This leadership had originally been based in Damascus but had been ousted in the early sixties by a Syrian Baath "dissident" faction which since 1970 had been led by President Asad. With the disintegration in the late sixties of the other principal Pan-Arab Party, the Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM) of Habash, into Lebanese and Palestinian Marxist organizations (the Organization for Lebanese Communist Action, the PFLP and DFLP, etc.), Iraq was in theory the sole remaining guardian of Pan-Arabist ideology as an autonomous (non-Marxist) doctrinaire philosophy. From this perspective (sharpened by geographical distance from the confrontation lines with Israel), Baathist Baghdad was adamantly opposed to any Middle East settlement that implied Arab acceptance in any form of the state of Israel. This attracted to Baghdad not only the Palestinian Rejection Front but also several members of the Lebanese National Movement.

From this perspective, too, Baghdad looked upon the present Syrian regime essentially as a usurper regime within the Baathist fold—hence Syrian nervousness about any Iraqi activity in Lebanon.

Iraq would have liked Syria to turn its back on the pursuit of a peaceful settlement with Israel and form with it the principal axis of an Eastern Front which it hoped would be joined by the other Arab countries. A radicalized Lebanon would fall within this grand strategy of Baathist Baghdad—hence Syria and Iraq found themselves on a collision course in Lebanon.

### Libya

Next to Syria and Iraq, Libya was the Arab country that showed the greatest interest in Lebanon. All the antitheses of the Lebanese crisis: Christian vs. Moslem have come to a head.

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vs. "isolationism," Maronite army vs. Palestinian commandos, status quo forces vs. the winds of change, Moslem counter-elite vs. Moslem feudal barons, were calculated to rivet Kaddafi's attention. They would also pluck at the heartstrings of his Islamic fundamentalism, his pristine Bedouin anger at social injustice, his contempt for the traditional Arab ruling class, and the self-consciousness with which he had donned the late Nasser's mantle. Small wonder that soon after his accession to power in 1969 Kaddafi began a policy of steady encouragement, both moral and material, of the Moslem Lebanese radical forces, inspiring in them a neo-Nasserist renaissance.

There were mundane calculations too. Kaddafi saw himself as countering the support given by the conservative Arab regimes and Iran to the Maronite and Moslem establishments. Moreover, as a result of the widening rift between him and Sadat over what he perceived to be the latter's anti-Nasserist revisionism and his sycophantic courting of Washington, Kaddafi deliberately set out to weaken Sadat's influence in Lebanon by wooing the old Nasserist organizations in the country. Like Iraq, he aspired to the creation of a Rejection Front against Israel to include Syria and a radicalized Lebanon. Hence Kaddafi's mounting anxiety at Syria's intervention in Lebanon (and subsequently at the growing detente between Sadat and Arafat). Hence also the assiduous if fumbling efforts at mediation between Syria on the one hand, and the National Movement and the Palestinians on the other, undertaken by his Prime Minister Jalloud.

## The Conservative Arab Regimes

Close coordination existed between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia over the Lebanese crisis. These two countries were appalled by the estrangement between Cairo and Damascus over Sinai II, and the trend of events in Lebanon.

They were also torn in two directions. On the one hand they viewed the Maronite establishment as a bulwark against the forces of radicalism and the Left. On the other, there was the spontaneous sympathy of public opinion in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and sectors of their ruling élites with the Lebanese Moslems and the Palestinians. Both countries, however, feared a leftist takeover of Lebanon, not only because of its likely impact on the Arab-Israeli conflict, but also because of the "subversive" currents it might generate throughout the region, and particularly among the large Palestinian communities in the Arabian (Persian) Gulf.¹¹⁰ At the same time, they feared that the continuous confrontation between Syria and the Palestinians might undermine the

## The Actors

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Syrian regime. This could pave the way for a monolithic Baathist Damascus-Baghdad axis which, with Libyan support, would alter the balance of power east of Suez and usher in a new uncontrollable phase of escalation of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the inter-Arab Cold War.

Thus Saudi Arabian-Kuwaiti diplomacy oscillated between restraining President Asad of Syria and turning a blind eye to what he was doing in Lebanon. At the same time it tried to bring about a reconciliation between Damascus and Cairo as a *sine qua non* for the containment of the Lebanese crisis and the resumption of efforts for an overall Middle East settlement. Meanwhile, in their agonizingly prolonged quandary they bounteously poured fuel on the raging conflagration in Lebanon by evenhandedly supplying both the Maronite and the Palestinian combatants with the financial and military wherewithal. That the Arab conservative regimes took so long to make up their minds was a function partly of the intensity of the conflict between Sadat and Asad and partly of the absence of the authoritative voice of Faisal of Saudi Arabia.¹¹¹

### 4. The Non-Arab Countries

#### The United States

It would be disingenuous to assume that the U.S. was altogether displeased with the course of events in Lebanon since Sinai II. The political pluses from Washington's perspective are not difficult to list: the relaxation of Arab pressure for an overall Middle Eastern settlement during the remainder of the Ford Administration; the disarray in Arab ranks which reduced their diplomatic effectiveness; the breathing space won by Israel from harassment by the Palestinian commandos; the increased military vulnerability of Asad and his consequent automatic acquiescence in the renewal of the mandate of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force installed after Golan I; the discomfiture of Moscow at the internecine conflict between its Syrian and Palestinian allies; the tarnishing of the PLO's international image and its military domestication; the clobbering of the forces of the Lebanese Left; and last, but not least, the paradoxical strengthening of Egyptian President Sadat's position throughout this process. But it would be equally disingenuous to infer intention from result and a fortiori authorship from the latter. This is not to deny that Sinai II was a crucial catalyst in the genesis and escalation of the Lebanese crisis, nor to banish into the realm of the unthinkable that some deft push was given by some deft hand in Washington to events in Lebanon at some moment of particular stagnation.

Likewise it should be borne in mind that not long before the outbreak

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of the Lebanese Civil War, Henry Kissinger had been infuriated with the decision of the Rabat Arab Summit, in October 1974, to declare the PLO the "sole legitimate representative" of the Palestinians. The PLO was not Kissinger's favorite liberation movement, and his recipe for the solution of the Palestine problem was to sweep its dust under the Hashemite carpet, i.e., restore Hussein's rule in some form or other over at least part of the West Bank. The Rabat decision dramatically enhanced the international status of the PLO. It was, in effect, an implicit collective Arab recognition of a PLO regime on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, should these two territories ever be recovered from Israel. The Rabat PLO decision therefore threatened to undermine the overall thrust of Kissinger's diplomacy with regard to the solution of the Palestinian component of the Arab-Israeli conflict. In these circumstances it could be expected that Kissinger would be receptive to attempts to cut the PLO down to size in its haven in Lebanon.¹¹²

There is no evidence, however, that Washington worked for or favored the partition of Lebanon. Such evidence as exists would seem to suggest that Washington disabused the Maronites of any illusions in this regard, as well as of a possible repetition of the 1958 landing of the U.S. Marines. It is not altogether unlikely that Washington supplied the Maronites with financial and other help, directly or by proxy (e.g., through Israel, Jordan, and Iran), as part of its general policy of containing both the PLO and what were perceived to be anti-American forces. But the general tenor of its policy was probably reflected in the encouragement it repeatedly gave to Lebanese Prime Minister Karami to reach an accommodation with President Franjeh.¹¹³ Likewise, the mission of Dean Brown (the casually briefed¹¹⁴ U.S. emissary dispatched to Lebanon in April 1976) remained mediatory, its content substantively diffuse.¹¹⁵ Neither was Washington necessarily in favor of the Lebanese 1943 status quo in all its details, and such reforms as it may have encouraged the Maronites to concede are probably reflected in Franjeh's Constitutional Document of 14 February 1976.¹¹⁶

Again, there is no evidence that Washington prompted Asad to intervene, or, for that matter, that Asad needed to be prompted. It would seem that Asad took care to signal his intentions to Washington, but was not necessarily waiting for its green light, just as he did not wait for Moscow's. It is a fact that Asad was not particularly enchanted by Dean Brown's presence in Lebanon.

After the Syrian intervention, Washington's principal concern was the likely reaction of Israel. Again, it would seem that, faced with the Syrian fait accompli (about which it stoically concealed its contentment behind measured afficialese), Washington's main purpose was to keep Syrian

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intervention below the threshold of Israeli tolerance.¹¹⁷ It is probably in this context also that one should see Asad's strategy of Move and Pause. Also in this context must be seen the exploration by Washington and France of a "consortium" of forces (broached by French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing during his visit to the U.S. in May 1976) in a peace-keeping role to include Syrian and French contingents. This idea seems to have been vaguely explored by Brown in meetings with Lebanese leaders including Jumblat on the eve of the Syrian intervention, presumably as a means of containing it.¹¹⁸

The U.S.S.R.

If many of the results of the Lebanese Civil War have been a cause of satisfaction for the U.S., the same can hardly be said of the U.S.S.R. Moscow was definitely sympathetic to the National Movement, and early in the summer of 1975 it indiscreetly intervened on its behalf with Franjeh, only to receive a dour rebuff.¹¹⁹ While Moscow was in touch with the National Movement as a whole, and the Russian Ambassador in Beirut openly and frequently held meetings with its leaders, the Soviets' closest links were with the Lebanese Communist Party. The leaders of the Communist Party belonged to the inner decision-making circle of the National Movement. They were particularly close to Jumblat. But given their Arab nationalist orientation, the composition of the National Movement, and the independent posture of the PLO vis-à-vis Moscow, the strategy of the National Movement-Palestinian alliance could hardly be said to have closely reflected the Moscow line.¹²⁰

There is no evidence to suggest either that Moscow encouraged the National Movement in its insistence on deconfessionalism as an immediately realizable target or that it considered the partition of Lebanon a desirable objective. Partition would have created a new area of conflict which, by interacting with the Arab-Israeli conflict, would have multiplied the danger of superpower confrontation. To be sure, a radicalized Soviet-oriented Lebanon would have yielded rich prizes in the form, inter alia, of the Mediterranean ports of Tripoli, Beirut, and Sidon, and the airports of Beirut and Riyak (in the Bekaa Valley), not to mention stronger leverage over Israel. But it would have simultaneously complicated relations not only with Syria but also with the U.S., Western Europe, and Israel. On balance, the costs and risks of a radicalized Lebanon—if it was ever seriously contemplated, which is doubtful—were probably conceived as too high by Moscow.

The general impression is that Moscow found itself in quite a predicament over Lebanon. It was powerless to influence the course of events

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and confused by the conflicting crosscurrents within the National Movement-Palestinian alliance. It was exasperated by the spiraling Syrian-Palestinian dogfight and inundated with the National Movement-Palestinian perceptions of a Western imperialist conspiracy (which it verbally encouraged). Thus, it would seem that Moscow acquiesced by increments in the National Movement-Palestinian strategy while counseling moderation, and hoping perhaps through controlled escalation in Lebanon to check Syria's pro-American proclivites.

The joint Russian-Syrian communiqué¹²¹ issued during Kosygin's visit to Damascus in June 1976—while Syria was actually dispatching its expeditionary force into Lebanon—did not refer to the ongoing intervention. This gave the impression of Russian approval of the Syrian move. But it is not improbable that, faced with the Syrian *fait accompli*, Moscow had only philosophically decided not to give Washington the satisfaction of any public indication of Soviet-Syrian discord on the subject.

As the confrontation between Damascus and the National Movement-Palestinian alliance developed, and as the Maronites, emboldened by the Syrian umbrella, launched their general offensive against the Palestinians in late June, Moscow's verbal disenchantment with Damascus became more pronounced.¹²² But there is little evidence of any real pressure (withholding of arms supplies or economic assistance) exerted against the Syrians.¹²³ Presumably the Russians were not anxious to push Asad farther on the Sadat Trail in the direction of Washington. Their constant nightmare throughout the period after the Syrian intervention must have been that of massive Israeli counteraction.

## Israel

The Lebanese Civil War was political "manna to the Israelites." In addition to the considerations listed above which made it attractive in Washington's eyes, there were added bonuses for the Israelis: the deepening Christian-Moslem cleavage within Arab society in Lebanon and the other Arab countries where Christian minorities exist; the consternation sown among Arabs in the occupied territories; and, most important of all, the likely impact of the war on the declared Palestinian aim of establishing a unitary democratic secular state to include both Jews and Arabs.

Fundamentally, though, the Lebanese Civil War was yet another chapter in the Thirty Years War between the Arabs and Israelis that has wracked the region since 1948.

Even before the 1969 Cairo Agreement, the Israelis were set on demon-

## The Actors

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strating to the Lebanese government and the civilian population the high cost of "hosting" the Palestinian commandos. However, except for their unrelenting raids and air strikes in the border area against Lebanese villages and the raid on Beirut International Airport in 1968, they at first by and large avoided inland Lebanese (though not Palestinian) civilian targets. Fundamentally the same strategy was applied to Lebanon as that applied in the Border War in the 1950s, first against Jordan, then against the Gaza Strip, and, both before and after the 1967 war, against Jordan again. The Israelis hoped that as they themselves confidently climbed the rungs of retaliatory escalation, the "host" government (in this case the Lebanese), unable to take the cumulative punishment any longer, would take their courage in both hands to turn against the commandos in a repeat performance of the Jordanian liquidation of 1970/71. But even failing that, the Israelis, aware as they were of the sectarian brittleness of Lebanese society, and the polarization that would ensue within it over the issue of commando activity, hoped that their strategy would reinforce the trend towards Maronite separatism (i.e., partition) or create such a state of chaos that several options would be open to them, from which to choose at leisure. These options could range all the way from *de facto*, if indirect, control of the border area to its outright annexation in the event of the total disintegration of the country. In the latter case the border area could be held as a new bargaining counter in future settlement talks or alternatively retained *ad infinitum*.

If partition was anathema to the superpowers and the Syrians as well as to the other Arab countries, the same did not hold true for the Israelis.¹²⁴ And one can readily see why, since partition would be a powerful vindication of the establishment of the state of Israel and an ironically gratuitous debunking of the Palestinian concept of a secular democratic state. Given the circumstances, it would be surprising indeed if long before the overt Israeli aid to Maronite militiamen on the border the Israelis had not secretly extended substantial aid to the Maronites farther north and if the Israeli Military Intelligence had been able to resist the temptation of infiltrating agents provocateurs to fan the Lebanese embers. Recent Western reports quoting Israeli sources indicate that overall Israeli aid to the Maronites before the cessation of hostilities in October 1976 amounted to as much as $100 million. This included $35 million in direct aid and the cost of such services as naval blockade and air patrols along the Lebanese coast. According to the same reports, Israeli military aid included the provision of 12,000 rifles, 5000 machine guns, and 110 tanks. Clearly, a radicalized or unitary Lebanon was not Israel's utopian vision of the country.¹²⁵

The Israelis were wary of Syrian intervention, but the Syrians, by

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dragging it out, allowed the Israelis time to reach the correct conclusion that it did not constitute a military threat to themselves. The Israelis were quick to perceive that it rather entailed a dispersion of Syrian military energies and logistical resources in a potential "Vietnamese" situation. Such a situation absolved the Israelis from the task of making blatant moves that could create unwanted international repercussions. At the same time, Syrian intervention was pounding the Palestinian commandos and setting the Arabs against one another. No wonder that Tel Aviv was not shedding too many tears at the sight of the traditional anti-Israeli hard-line core of the Arab world (the Syrians and the Palestinians) tearing each other to pieces.¹²⁶

4

# THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL FACTORS

## 1. Looking Outside the Lebanese Box

It is perhaps clear from the foregoing that one cannot look exclusively or even mainly inside the Lebanese box for an explanation of the course of events leading to the Civil War, or for its intensity and duration once it broke out. No such explanation could be satisfactory without taking into account the impact of the external political environment—and particularly its regional dimension—on the Lebanese scene or the degree to which it influenced the pace and direction of events.

Two components of the regional environment are relevant: the Arab-Israeli component, and the Pan-Arab component. The Arab-Israeli conflict influenced events through: a) the general radicalization of opinion among the Moslem Lebanese intelligentsia (particularly the students) and masses—especially since Israel's diversion of the Jordan waters in the mid-1960s, and in the aftermath of the 1967 War; b) the emergence of the Palestinian Resistance on Lebanese soil in the late 1960s and the shifting of the center of their activity and physical presence from Jordan to Lebanon after 1970/71; c) Israel's retaliatory strategy against Palestinians in Lebanon; and d) the political fallout of Sinai II.

The radicalization of the Moslem Lebanese intelligentsia and masses had three major consequences. First, it strengthened their disposition to challenge the Lebanese status quo with regard to both the authority of the Moslem and Maronite establishments and the confessional premises of the system. Secondly, it enhanced their receptivity to the Palestinian doctrine of revolutionary armed struggle. Thirdly, it put the Maronites increasingly on the defensive, reinforcing their suspicions and fears of Moslem restlessness. Simultaneously, it put the Moslem establishment itself on the defensive vis-à-vis its own constituency, heightening

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intra-Moslem outbidding tendencies which in turn struck at the very roots of the strategic alliance between the Maronite and Moslem establishments.

The appearance of the Palestinian Resistance on Lebanese soil had many consequences. Objectively, it upset the Christian-Moslem balance of power in favor of the Moslems. It offered not only a model to the radicalized Moslems but also a protective umbrella against Maronite high-handedness. It initiated a period of unprecedented tension between Lebanon and Israel. It mobilized the Palestinian refugee camp populations, exacerbating friction with their Maronite neighbors and the Lebanese authorities. It created a new area of explosive discord inside Lebanese society on such issues as the legitimacy of the 1969 Cairo Agreement and the control of commando activity.

Israel's retaliatory strategy had the following major consequences. It aroused general consternation concerning the territorial integrity of Lebanon. It created yet another area of explosive discord within Lebanese society regarding the army's role in response to Israeli raids. It generated feelings of impotence and frustration within the ranks of the Lebanese army and security forces, paving the way for the polarization between their Christian and Moslem components. It produced havoc in the border areas largely inhabited by Shiites. This in turn hastened the exodus of the Shiite peasantry towards the shantytowns of Beirut, where these refugees provided a new source of friction with their Maronite neighbors as well as fertile soil for radicalization directed against their own establishment and the system as a whole.

Sinai II exacerbated relations between Egypt on the one hand, and Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Libya, the Palestinians, and the radicalized Lebanese on the other. The resultant tensions sought and found an outlet in the open society of Lebanon, where the Maronites as a pro-Western and conservative, pro-status quo community were cast in the role of villains, irrespective of their motivations or the grounds of their grievances against the Pan-Arabists and the Palestinians.

Concurrently with these pressures on the Lebanese domestic scene generated by the Arab-Israeli component of the regional environment, cumulative pressures bore upon it from the Pan-Arab component. The Pan-Arab doctrine postulates the existence of a single Arab Nation as a present (and, indeed, a past) reality in respect to which the various Arab States are transient, even deviant, manifestations. It denies by definition the sovereign impenetrability of the frontiers of the Arab states. The proponents of Pan-Arabism, always self-appointed (be they a dynasty, party, or charismatic leader), derive their putative legitimacy from the same fountainhead as those who claim to represent vox populi within a

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single state. In the case of the Pan-Arabists, however, their supra-national legitimacy overrides that of established states. Even if one concedes genuine missionary zeal to this or that exponent of Pan-Arabism and a greater or lesser degree of reciprocity between him and the intelligentsia and masses in this or that Arab country, the actual division of the Arab world into states, the conflicting interests and priorities of these states, the social, political, and economic differences between them, including their rivalry for prestige and for the very leadership of the Pan-Arab movement, inevitably turn—as we have observed—this Pan-Arab doctrine into a potent manipulative instrument of Arab realpolitik.

## 2. Looking Inside the Lebanon Box

To this instrument, as well as to the pressures from the Arab-Israeli area, Lebanon was especially vulnerable. Perhaps the foremost reason for this is Lebanon's "anonymity" as a nation. The irony is that the very confessional system which was supposed to propel the Christians and Moslems on Rupert Emerson's road from Empire to Nation¹²⁷ militated against arrival at their consensual "rendezvous." And if the Moslem Lebanese was at a loss as to which identity card to pick up—the Islamic, Arab, or Lebanese,—the Maronite was equally ambivalent with regard to the Lebanese identity that he openly urged on his Moslem compatriots but secretly did not dare look fully in the face himself. The reason for this was that in spite of the political and socio-economic advantages accruing to the Maronites from the expanded frontiers of the 1920 Grand Liban,¹²⁸ they had by no means persuaded themselves that to step out of their Maronite armor was anything but an adventure into the unknown. There was a sense in which the Moslem provinces added to Mount Lebanon in 1920 were perceived as frontier areas inhabited by Moslem political helots and constituting, in Maronite consciousness, a buffer zone against the universe of Arabdom and Islam. Hence the stubborn Maronite attachment to the 1943 National Pact (weighted as it was in their favor) while simultaneously preserving a mental line of retreat into the womb of Mount Lebanon proper. This was ideal ground for the Pan-Arab pull on the capricious loyalties of the Moslem Lebanese.

This brittleness of the Lebanese system was heightened by four domestic factors. First, the liberal openness of the regime which afforded anarchic leeway to "non-Lebanese" political organizations and expression. The government's rationale in tolerating this state of affairs seemed to have derived from the hope that the diverse Pan-Arab and radical groups allowed to operate on Lebanese soil would somehow

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cancel each other out. It also reflected a desire to keep lines of communication open with as many Arab countries as possible. But, fundamentally, it was an index of the state's lack of self-confidence, itself a reflection of the delicacy of the sectarian equilibrium on which it was based.

Secondly, the radicalization of the Moslem intelligentsia and masses already noted. But this radicalization was itself partly the product of an earlier phenomenon to which Karl Deutsch's concept of social mobilization aptly applies. According to Deutsch, social mobilization can be defined "as the process in which major clusters of old social, economic and psychological commitments are eroded or broken and people become available for new patterns of socialization and behavior."¹²⁹

Perhaps the most relevant aspect of the social mobilization experienced by Lebanon was the educational explosion the country witnessed from the mid-1960s onwards. In 1965, for example, the total number of students in both private and public schools was 418,665. In 1973-74 the number was 801,488. At the same time the number of students in universities rose from 16,000 in 1963 to 51,000 in 1973-74. An interesting detail pertaining to the latter figure is that 27,951 of the university students or 54.8 percent of the total university population were non-Lebanese, mostly Arab.¹³⁰

Deutsch is undecided in his overall assessment of social mobilization between its "assimilationist," i.e., nation-building, potential and its disintegrative effect.¹³¹ The Lebanese example falls in the latter category, a view now only too tragically confirmed. (It is to Michael Hudson's credit that he noted the disintegrative potential of social mobilization on Lebanon as early as he did.¹³²) This disintegrative effect on Lebanon cannot, however, be viewed in isolation from the influences of the external environment noted earlier. These influences of the external environment were crucial in determining the intensity and pace of Moslem Lebanese radicalization.

Thirdly, if social mobilization was a key phenomenon at the non-elite level, the falling-out among the members of the Lebanese oligarchy (the traditional sectarian leaders) was a phenomenon of parallel importance at the elite level. It is true, of course, that conflict among the Lebanese oligarchs had always been endemic and in a sense supplied the motive power of the system. But what we witness as of the late 1960s is a new intensity in personal estrangement among these oligarchs, increasingly precluding political dialogue and more often than not leading to a total breakdown of communication between them. Although there had always been isolated instances of this breakdown (Karami and Chamoun since 1958, and Chehab and Salaam since the early 1960s), the new development which the unprecedentedly high proportion of the number of leading

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oligarchs who had become anathema to each other. Already before Ain Rúmaneh (April 1975), for example, not one of the ten to twelve leading oligarchs was on speaking terms with all the others and certainly not on such terms with more than half their number. This is not to suggest that if they had hung together they would have saved the commonwealth. It is rather to make the point that if there is such a thing as learning the rules of the game, as has been suggested,¹³³ which enables leaders to acquire the knack of consensual politics in open but divided societies, there is also a process of unlearning these rules.

Fourthly, the erosion of the power of the Sunnite oligarchs. The power of the politically important Sunnite families—the Salaams and Solhs of Beirut and the Karamis of Tripoli—did not have the feudal or semi-feudal landlordism base of the Shiite and Druze leaders, nor the semi-religious aura the latter enjoyed. Sunnite power was not based on traditional tribal or clan loyalties, nor did it have the geographically concentrated rural constituencies of the Shiite, Druze, and Maronite leaders. Of all the sects, with the exception of the Greek Orthodox (though similar in this regard to the Maronites), the Sunnites were the least hierarchically organized. Like the Maronite leadership (but unlike the bipolar Druze and Shiite leadership), Sunnite leadership was multipolar. Its power derived from a tradition of public service (first, second, or third generation), supplemented by the actual assumption in the past and therefore potentially in the future of the Prime Ministerial office, as well as by personal magnetism. It was based on shifting political alliances across the Christian-Moslem cleavage line and within each community with fellow oligarchs and lesser political figures. One of its most important ingredients was access to heads of Arab states. It was perpetuated through sponsorship of "new men" in the cabinet and Parliament as well as patronage in the civil service and the private sector.

It is noteworthy that no Sunnite (nor for that matter, Shiite) oligarch ever succeeded in organizing a political party in any viable sense of the term, not even one confined to his sect (such as Pierre Gemayel's Phalanges); nor until very recently could any Sunnite oligarch be said to have a permanent if rudimentary secretariat. Likewise, no Sunnite (or Shiite) oligarch has clearly or consistently identified himself with any overall political or socio-economic program or legislative strategy. These closely interrelated failures are probably to be attributed to a fundamentally proprietary state of mind which regards leadership as a matter of ascription rather than achievement. The organizational failure is as likely as not due to an aversion to sharing decision-making with "unequals," while the programmatic one probably reflects exaggerated concern for privileged status.

What, then, is the material power base of the Sunnite oligarchs? At the

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core are a few close relatives and family attendants, some on a more or less full-time basis with continuous access to the leaders. Beyond that are always-shifting alliances with heads of families and extended families, some of whom may be linked by ties of blood or marriage to the leader. Beyond that is informal sponsorship of various philanthropic, professional, commercial, or sports unions, clubs, committees, and organizations. This power was translated into potential physical force by way of the traditional Moslem urban network of *qabadais* or neighborhood strongmen. This is an indigenous institution with medieval roots originally related to requirements of self-defense and local security at times of chaos or invasion. In his modern version the *qabadai* could be a quayside boss, the owner of a cinema chain, or gas station, etc. His power is based on gangs of *mini-qabadais* numbering in each case a dozen at the most, who have a flair for throwing their weight about. Through these, the *qabadai*, under the umbrella of the leader (for it is a two-way relationship), can control a neighborhood or a whole urban quarter. With fellow *qabadais* (there are coalitions and counter-coalitions in the *qabadai* world) he can organize a demonstration and enforce or break a strike. Individual services can include insulting a rival oligarch (at odds with the *qabadai's* leader) or browbeating a bothersome journalist.

Above all, the *qabadai* acts as an election agent (known as *miftah*, literally "key"), securing votes through various means of persuasion or purchase for the leader at election times. In return, the *qabadai* receives a wide range of favors and exemptions through the leader's patronage. The *qabadai* has his ear to the ground and reports every grass-roots political nuance to the leader, to whom he always has direct access. The finest hour of the *qabadai* is when his leader is Prime Minister, but *qabadais* are mercurial. Hence the oligarchs, whether in or out of office, expend considerable energy in consulting the daily *qabadai* political maps of their city. Beyond the *qabadais* are the Sunnite Moslem masses—the "Street." These masses are concentrated in the major coastal cities of Beirut, Tripoli, and Sidon. Relatively sophisticated and volatile, it is to them that the leader "gestures" with Pan-Arab slogans and "tough" postures vis-à-vis the Maronites.

It is perhaps not difficult to understand why this Sunnite leadership was submerged at the point of confluence of the internal and external factors noted above. Not only were the Sunnite leaders unable to satisfy the demands of the rapidly expanding new intelligentsia in terms of job opportunities, but there was a deliberate turning away from them by the latter, especially the students, in the direction of the new radical or Marxist parties and the National Movement under the dynamic leader-

99

ship of Jumblat. The Palestinian commando organizations were natural magnets for the *qabadai* network, which was ironically set adrift by Saeb Salaam himself (when Prime Minister under Franjeh) through his dismantling of the Chehabist Deuxième Bureau.¹³⁴ As already noted, an important source of strength of the traditional Sunnite Moslem oligarchs had been close links with Arab heads of state. But the new radical Arab capitals were actively engaged in undermining the authority of these oligarchs as relics of feudalism. At the same time, the conservative Arab regimes were disposed to throw their weight behind the Maronite rather than the Sunnite Moslem establishment. Finally, the fickle "Street"—the urban Sunnite Moslem masses—by now had many alternative Pied Pipers of Hamelin to choose from both inside and outside the Lebanese frontiers.

In their new insecurity the Sunnite oligarchs hit all the harder not only at the Maronites across the Moslem-Christian cleavage line but at their fellow Moslem oligarchs as well, thus eroding still further the basis of the system. For a while the premiership of Salaam under Franjeh (1970-1973) concealed the extent of the shift in the balance of the power in the Sunnite community away from the oligarchs. But Salaam's fall after the Israeli Beirut raid in April 1973 could no longer obscure the reality that there was no Sunnite leader to deliver the Sunnite community nor any Sunnite "community" to be delivered. Given the pivotal role in the system of a functioning Maronite-Sunnite working rapport at the Presidential/Prime Ministerial level, it was not surprising that with the undermining of one of its two main pillars the central Lebanese arch fell crashing to the ground.

### 3. The Failure of a Model

Why were the Lebanon watchers misled about the viability of the system practically until the eve of the Civil War?¹³⁵ This would seem to have been due to the *ostensible* credibility of a model of the Lebanese system which alone seemed to account for its continued survival in the period 1943-1970. This was the model of what might be described as a virtual or functional (as opposed to a constitutional/territorial) federation which contained and controlled the dominant Christian-Moslem cleavage. The modalities through which this control was effected seemed to be: 1) the existence on each side of the cleavage line of semi-autonomous sects constituting the principal sub-national units of the system; 2) the more or less hierarchical structure of these sects; 3) the existence of recognizable strong leaders at the top of each sectarian hierarchy; 4) the commitment of the leaders to the perpetuation of the system, since, as its ruling

100

"federal" oligarchy, they were its chief beneficiaries through whom re-
wards and benefits were channeled to their respective sectarian
constituencies; and 5) the acceptance by the ruling oligarchy of the
consensual rules of the game.

Until the early 1970s the model seemed to retain its relevance to
political realities despite the obvious strains to which the Lebanese
system was increasingly being subjected. Like a convalescent recovering
from a bout of fever, the country seemed to have emerged none the
worse from the 1958 Civil War. As the Chehabist reforms floundered in
the 1960s, even "planless planning" seemed the unique Lebanese recipe
for "modernization without revolution."¹³⁶ Deeply divided as it was,
Lebanon somehow managed to retain its open system while avoiding
intense conflict. This seemed to qualify it alongside a small number of
other pluralistic democratic states whose stability did not derive from the
operation of the majoritarian principle.

In fact, the model never altogether applied. The viability of the
Lebanese system in the 1940s stemmed from two factors. On the one
hand, Lebanon was still in the premodernization stage; on the other, the
Lebanese ruling elite belonged to the same ruling elite that held power in
the other Arab capitals. This regional elite shared an essentially
conservative outlook buttressed by the essentially non-interventionist
commitment that was exemplified in the loose confederal formula on
which the Arab League was structured. It is to this period that Arend
Lijphart's and Eric Nordlinger's descriptions of Lebanese consensual
politics particularly apply.¹³⁷

Already by the mid-1950s, Lebanon began to be caught in the vise
which was subsequently to crush it: on the one hand, the increasing pace
of modernization in a laissez-faire economy on which mounting demands
were made by the now socially mobilized Moslem have-nots of society,
and on the other, an Arab world which had been radicalized in the
aftermath of the Arab-Israeli wars of 1948 and 1956 and the
Egyptian-Syrian union of 1958-61. The system appeared to escape the
vise because Chehab's leadership (1958-1964) brought it domestic respite
through an accelerated reform program and external respite through de-
tente with Nasser. But in fact Chehab's very reforms only served to
hasten the pace of "social mobilization" with the attendant multiplication
and intensification of demands on the system, while the fading out of
these reforms under Helou (1964-1970) magnified the sense of
deprivation and disillusionment. Concurrently, beginning with the
Syrian secession from union with Egypt in 1961 and climaxing in Nasser's
supreme humiliation in June 1967, the Egyptian leader began to lose his
grip over the radicalized and politicized Lebanese (and Palestinian)

101

intelligentsia, which underwent a deep doctrinal reappraisal from the
mid-1960s. By the late 1960s, the external factor was impinging with
particular intensity on the Lebanese scene from both the Arab-Israeli and
Pan-Arab areas; thus the explosion of the early 1970s.

At the risk of repetition, it must be emphasized that it is the cumulative
temporal confluence of the external and internal factors that hit Lebanon
with such devastating effect, taking Lebanon watchers by surprise. For
the fundamental interpretive weakness of the "federal" model described
above lies precisely in its concentration on the contents of the Lebanese
box. Perhaps the basic lesson to be learned from all this is simply that
when a deeply divided society (like Lebanon) belongs to a regional
system characterized by the level of turbulence prevailing in the Arab
world, and when the Pan-doctrine is actively espoused within this
system, the centrifugal tendencies within this member society are likely
to be maximized. In their assessment of the viability and future of the
society under consideration, watchers are therefore put on notice to
scrutinize the regional environment of the box no less than the contents
of the box itself.

NOTES

1. In the spring of 1916 a secret trilateral agreement was entered into by Great Britain, France, and Russia for the division of the Ottoman Empire into spheres of influence among themselves. That part of the agreement affecting the Arab provinces of the Empire is known as the Sykes-Picot Agreement after Sir Mark Sykes and F. Georges-Picot, the British and French delegates, respectively. See George Antonius, *The Arab Awakening* (London, 1938), p. 244 ff.

2. On June 28, 1919, the Treaty of Versailles and the Covenant of the League of Nations were signed. According to Article 22 of the Covenant, the general principle to be applied to the peoples in territories that formerly belonged to the vanquished powers was that their "well-being and development" constituted "a sacred trust of civilization." But the best method of giving effect to this principle was that "tutelage" of these people should be undertaken by "advanced nations" in their capacity as mandatories on behalf of the League. Certain communities formerly belonging to the Ottoman Empire had, however, "reached a stage of development where their existence as independent nations can be provisionally recognized subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance of the Mandatory." But the wishes of these communities should be "a principal consideration in the selection of the Mandatory." Acting on this last provision, President Wilson pressed for the dispatch of an inter-Allied commission to the Near East to ascertain the wishes of their peoples. When Great Britain and France balked at this suggestion, Wilson sent an American commission composed of Henry C. King and Charles R. Crane. The King-Crane Commission reported in August 1919 that 80.4 percent of petitions received specifically called for a united Syria, 73.5 percent for independence. A French mandate was rejected outright if it were "obligatory" and was favored by only 14.5 percent of the petitions if it came about by consent. On 22 April 1920, the Supreme Council of the Peace Conference at San Remo allotted the mandate for Lebanon and Syria to France. For the full text of the King-Crane Report, see Department of State, *Foreign Relations of the United States, The Peace Conference, 1919* (Washington, 1947), Volume XII, p. 758 ff.

160

3. For the text of the resolutions of the General Syrian Congress announced on 2 July 1919, see Antonius, *op. cit.*, p. 440.

4. For the administrative divisions of the Arab provinces under the Ottomans, see Map I.

5. The Sunnites are so called because they claim adherence to the *sunna* or life-style and rules of conduct of the Prophet Muhammad. They are the "orthodox" sect in Islam, and most Arab Moslems are Sunnites. The Shiites are so called because they originally were *shiah* or partisans of Ali (d. 661 A.D.), first cousin of Muhammad and husband of his only surviving daughter, Fatimah. The Shiites insist that Ali was divinely designated to succeed Muhammad and that his descendants were entitled to the caliphate by hereditary right. To most Shiites, Ali is an exemplar; to the extremists among them he is the incarnation of the deity.

6. The Druzes derive their name from their eponymous founder, al Darazi, "the tailor," a Persian who lived in Egypt during the reign of the eccentric Shiite Caliph al Hakim (996-1021 A.D.). Darazi carried his ultra-Shiite teachings to Lebanon where he died in 1019. These teachings and those of his successors included *inter alia* the concepts of the divinity of al Hakim, predestitution, and the transmigration of souls.

7. The Maronites are named after their eponymous patron saint, Marun, an anchorite who died about 410 A.D., although Yuhanna Marun (d. 707 A.D.) was the founder of the community. Originally the Maronites were probably monothelites, i.e., they emphasized the "one will" of Christ in the face of the controversy as to whether the divine and the human in Christ constituted one or two natures. In addition to the Maronites and the Greek Orthodox, there are several other Christian sects in present-day Lebanon. These, in the order of their numerical strength are the Greek Catholics, the Armenian Orthodox, the Armenian Catholics, the Protestants, the Syrian Catholics, the Syrian Orthodox, the Chaldaans, and the Latins. The Greek Catholics by and large identified themselves politically with the Maronites. The Armenians generally maintained their neutrality. The other Christian sects were too small to have a significant political impact. See R. B. Betts, *Christians in the Arab East* (Athens, 1975).

8. In 1861, the total population of Mount Lebanon was estimated at 296,000. Of this number, 264,000 were Christian and 32,000 Moslem. Of the Christian total, 225,000 were Maronites, while 25,000 of the Moslem total were Druzes. In 1913, the Christian population of Mount Lebanon was 329,415 (242,308 Maronites), while the Moslem population was 85,232 (47,290 Druzes). P. Rondot, *Les Institutions Politiques du Liban* (Paris, 1947), p. 28.

9. See Philip Hitti, *Lebanon in History* (London, 1957), Chaps. XXIX and XXX, and Kamal Salibi, *The Modern History of Lebanon* (New York, 1965), p. 80ff.

10. Compare Maps I and II for the frontiers of Mount Lebanon and Grand Liban.

11. Full union between the Maronites and Rome was effected in 1736, though a Maronite College for the training of Maronite clergy was established in Rome

Notes

161

as early as 1584. The French connection could be traced back to 1204 when Louis IV of France is said to have given the Maronites his protection. See Hitti, *op. cit.*, p. 247ff. and Salibi, *op. cit.*, pp.12-13, 118-119, and 121ff.

12. See Hitti, *op. cit.*, p. 244ff.

13. For the Maronite contribution to Arabic Letters and the modern Arab cultural and political renaissance, see Hitti, op. cit., Chap. XXXI, and Salibi, op. cit., pp.121ff. and 151ff.

14. See Antonius, op. cit. p.243ff.

15. For centuries, until the nationalist awakening at the turn of the nineteenth century, the Moslem Arabs in the Ottoman Empire had not regarded themselves as subjects of Constantinople. This was particularly true of the Sunnites, since the Ottoman Turks were Sunnites. The underlying theory of the Ottoman Empire was that it constituted the single *ummah*, or community of Islam, headed by the caliph, who was the Turkish Sultan.

16. The 1932 census put the total number of Christians "present or temporarily absent" at 396,746, and that of Moslems at 386,499. To the Christian total the census added 55,335 "emigrants possessing the Lebanese nationality," and 160,509 "who no longer retained the Lebanese nationality." This brought the Christian grand total to 612,590. To the above Moslem total the census added 11,580 and 25,285 in the latter two categories, bringing the Moslem grand total to 423,364. P. Rondot, *op. cit.*, p. 29.

17. See Hitti, *op. cit.*, p. 254ff., and Salibi, *op. cit.*, p. 151ff.

18. As Sunnites, the Ottomans tended to discriminate against non-Sunnite Moslems. See note 15 above.

19. In the early days of the French Mandate, Emile Eddé became Prime Minister once (1929-1930), Bishara Khoury three times (1927-1929). Subsequently, Eddé became President of Lebanon (1937-39). Each led a political grouping: Eddé's was called the National Bloc, Khoury's, the Constitutional Bloc. The competition between the two leaders reached its climax during World War II in anticipation of the post-war settlement of Lebanon. See Albert Hourani, *Syria and Lebanon* (London, 1954), p. 257ff. and p. 279ff.

20. After the collapse of metropolitan France, British forces together with small Free French forces occupied Syria and Lebanon to forestall a link-up between the Vichy-oriented "mandatory" administration and the Axis powers. The British were in little hurry to leave the two countries ahead of the French. See General Sir Edward Spears, *Fulfilment of a Mission* (Leo Cooper, London, 1977). General Spears was appointed by Churchill in 1941 to head a mission in Syria and Lebanon. See also Albert Hourani, op. cit., p. 230ff.

21. Solh belonged to a prestigious Sunnite family from Sidon, his father having been a member of the Ottoman Parliament. Riyad Solh had been resolutely opposed to the French and an advocate of union with Syria. He became the first Sunnite Prime Minister in the post-independence Khoury administration (see p. 13ff. below). He died by assassination in 1951.

22. The principles of the National Pact were enunciated in a speech delivered

162

by Riyad Solh (see note 21) in the Lebanese Parliament on 7 October 1943. It was on the basis of this speech that Solh won the Parliament's vote of confidence in his cabinet. See Note 27 below.

23. According to statistics compiled in 1942-43 (which were, however, not based on a census), the total population of Lebanon was put at 1,104,669, of whom 585,443 were Christian and 507,547 were Moslem. P. Rondot, op. cit., p. 29.

24. For the Christian minorities in the Arab World, see A. H. Hourani, *Minorities in the Arab World* (London, 1947), and Betts, *op. cit*.

25. In the Alexandria Protocol of 1944 preceding the formation of the Arab League the following year, the Arab countries collectively recognized the independence of Lebanon. See Albert H. Hourani, *Syria and Lebanon* (London, 1954), p. 303.

26. For the Covenant of the Arab League see *Ibid*.

27. The use of the word "face" was a compromise formulation between the outright description of Lebanon as "an Arab country" and the denuding of Lebanon of any Arab characteristics. The formulation occurs in Riyad Solh's speech to Parliament in 1943, viz., "Lebanon is a homeland with an Arab face seeking the beneficial good from the culture of the West," Jean Malha (ed.), *Majmu'at al Bayanat al Wazariyah al Lubnaniyah* (Beirut, 1965), p. 22. See also Note 22 above.

28. There had been precedents for this distribution of the three highest posts under the French Mandate, particularly in the period 1934-1942, but the arrangement now virtually became part of the National Pact of 1943.

29. Presidential powers are extensive. Executive authority is in effect vested in the President, although he is not accountable to Parliament except for constitutional violations and crimes. The President appoints the members of the cabinet, including the Prime Minister, and dismisses them. The cabinet submits legislative and budgetary proposals to Parliament and conducts foreign policy subject to his approval. With cabinet approval he may dissolve Parliament before the end of its term and implement legislative proposals deemed urgent on which Parliament has not acted within 40 days. On his own initiative he may summon Parliament to special session. He enjoys limited powers of veto over legislative and constitutional amendments. The President is elected for six years and may not be eligible for re-election until after a period of six years.

30. The relationship between Bishara Khoury, as President, and Riyad Solh, as Prime Minister, is generally considered to have approximated most closely to the model of the rapport needed to be established between Maronite President and Sunnite Prime Minister.

31. For Lebanon's involvement in the Palestine War of 1948, see N. Lorch, *The Edge of the Sword* (New York, 1961), pp. 154, 371.

32. The 1932 census had put the total population of Lebanon at 793,426, excluding emigrants who had either retained or given up Lebanese nationality (see note 16 above; also, Rondot, op. cit., p. 29). By 1956, the total population of ebanon was estimated at 1,411,000. F. I. Qubain, *Crisis in Lebanon* (Washington, 1961), p. 8.

Notes

163

33. Chamoun appointed Dr. Charles Malik as Foreign Minister in the new cabinet formed just after the Suez War of 1956. Malik held strong pro-Western and conservative convictions and was the proponent of an activist foreign policy role for Lebanon in regional and world affairs. See L. Meo, *Lebanon: Improbable Nation* (Bloomington, 1965), and F. I. Qubain, op. cit.

34. Chamoun was on close terms with Jordan, Iraq, Turkey, and Iran in an *ad hoc* coalition against Nasser.

35. The most important Christian personage antagonized by Chamoun was Msgr. Paul Meouchy, the Maronite Patriarch (see p. 72ff.).

36. President Chehab was a descendant of a princely family that had ruled Mount Lebanon in the 18th and 19th centuries. Its heyday was under Bashir II (1788-1840). The Chehabs were originally Sunnites (as some of them still are today).

37. For the Phalanges (Phalanges Libanaises) see M. Suleiman, *Political Parties in Lebanon*, New York 1966), p. 232 ff.

38. For the reforms under Chehab and Helou see E. Salem, *Modernization Without Revolution* (Bloomington, 1973).

39. For the intra-Maronite conflicts and coalitions during this period see K. Salibi, *Crossroads to Civil War: Lebanon 1958-1976* (Delmar, N.Y., 1976), *passim*.

40. On 12 May 1968, for the first time in two and a half years, Israeli and Lebanese forces exchanged fire across the border. This was the result of Israeli shelling of the village of Houleh in retaliation for Palestinian shelling of Kibbutz Margaliot (*Arab Report and Record*, 12 May 1968). On 20 May 1968, Lebanon complained to the Security Council that Israel had suspended the work of the Armistice Commission and threatened "to occupy the southern part of Lebanon" (*Ibid*., 20 May 1968). Lebanese villages came under Israeli artillery fire in June (e.g., Meis-el-Jabal-see *Ibid*., 15 June 1968) and in October (e.g., Majidiyeh, Hounine, and Malkiyeh-see *International Herald Tribune*, 28 October 1968). In these and the later incidents there were Lebanese civilian casualties as well as extensive destruction of houses and burning of crops and orchards. Already by mid-July the flight of the Lebanese peasants from the border area was under way. The Israelis justified their actions as retaliation against Palestinian operations from Lebanon. On 27 December 1968, Palestinian commandos attacked an El Al plane in Athens. On 28 December 1968, an Israeli helicopter-borne commando force attacked Beirut International Airport destroying 13 Lebanese civilian aircraft on the ground "in retaliation" for the Athens incident. On 31 December 1968, the Security Council unanimously condemned the Israeli operation. On 7 January 1969, the Israeli newspaper *Haaretz* warned the Lebanese that Israeli retaliation would devastate southern Lebanon as it had devastated the Jordan Valley in the aftermath of Palestinian activity against Israel. Israeli retaliation took several forms during 1969. In addition to the shelling of villages, the first aerial bombardment of Lebanon took place in this year, while commando raids were carried out both by helicopter-borne and mechanized units. The first air raid experienced by Lebanon occurred on 11 August 1969, against the villages of Hasbaya, Jouwaya, and Ain Qanya (*The Guardian*, and *L'Orient*, 12 August

164

1969). The Security Council unanimously condemned the raid, but Israel de-
scribed it as an act of self-defense. On 3 September 1969 an air raid was carried
out against the villages of Kfar Shouba, Kfar Hamam, Rashaya al Foukhkhar, al
Habariya, Freidis, Mimas, and Snaifer (Nahar, 4 September 1969); while on 6
September 1969 another air raid took place against Khraibeh, Tell Mari, Bhassa,
and Wadi Halta (Ibid., 5 September 1969). Raids by mechanized infantry started
as early as 16 March 1969 (e.g., against the village of Blida—see *L'Orient*, 17
March 1969) while on 3 September 1969 the village of Halta was the target of a
helicopter-borne commando attack. (Nahar, 5 and 6 September 1969). This was
the background of the Shiite peasant exodus from the border villages as well as of
the Lebanese ministerial crisis that led to the Cairo Agreement of 3 November
1969.

41. For the full text of the Cairo Agreement see Appendix I. The text was not officially released by Lebanon until its appearance in the government White Paper, *Le Livre Blanc Libanais: Documents Diplomatiques 1975-76* (Beirut, 1976), p. 196.

42. Both candidates were Greek Orthodox, but the majority of their consti-
tuency were Sunnites.

43. Even before the Civil War in Jordan in September 1970 and the consequent expulsion and transfer of the Palestinian commandos to Syria and Lebanon, the situation on the border between Israel and Lebanon had rapidly deteriorated (see Note 40 above). For a description of conditions on this border during 1970 and before September of this year, see *Newsweek*, 19 January, 16 March, and 8 June 1970. *The* (London) *Times* wondered on 9 March 1970 whether Israel's reactions to the border situation indicated that her aim was "to annex the headwaters of the River Jordan which are now in Lebanon." On 30 May 1970, *The Economist* estimated that some 30,000 had left southern Lebanon. On 8 June 1970, *Newsweek* reported that of the 5,000 inhabitants of the Shiite village of Bint Jubeil only 500 remained. This flight followed the Israeli shelling of the town on 22 May in retaliation for the ambush by Palestinian commandos of an Israeli schoolbus. On 7 September 1970, *The Guardian* estimated that a further 25,000 had fled from the Arkoub border region. As early as 11 May 1970, Moshe Dayan had warned that if guerrilla attacks continued from Lebanon "the same devastation that exists on the canal front and on the east bank of the River Jordan will exist on our northern border." *The Times*, London, 11 May 1970.

44. The Melkart Understanding is so called after the Beirut hotel in which it was reached on 15-17 May 1973. The Understanding dealt with such issues as the number of commandos and the level of armaments permitted inside and outside refugee camps, the location of training camps, and procedures to curb violations. Its most important provision was the suspension of operations across the border against Israel which seemed to annul the tacit understanding to allow such operations contained in the Cairo Agreement of 1969. For the text (in Arabic) of the Melkart Understanding see *Le Livre Blanc Libanais etc.*, p. 200 ff.

45. Hafiz's qualifications for the job included a doctorate in Political Econo-
my, membership of Parliament, chairmanship of the Parliamentary Foreign Re-
lations Committee, as well as experience as a university lecturer and journalist.

Notes

165

46. See p. 80 ff. and pp. 85-86.

47. Since 1943, there had been instances of intra-sectarian political proscription as well as of political proscription between individual leaders across sectarian lines (see p. 96 ff.). What was ominous about the proscription of the Phalanges was that it was aimed across the sectarian lines by one broadly based grouping (the predominantly Moslem National Movement) against another (the exclusively Maronite Phalanges).

48. For the full text of Arafat's statement, see *Journal of Palestine Studies*, Vol V, Nos. 17/18, Autumn 1975, p. 279 ff.

49. For the full text of the National Movement's Reform Program see *ibid*, p. 283 ff.

50. Raymond Eddé was the son of Emile Eddé (see note 19 above). Several times a member of Parliament and cabinet minister since independence in 1943, he was outstanding among Lebanese political figures for his commitment to parliamentary democracy as well as for the irrepressible forthrightness, if not the political timing, of his pronouncements.

51. See p. 71 ff.

52. The Committee for National Dialogue held nine meetings in all between 25 September and 11 November 1975. For the minutes (in Arabic) of these meetings and of the various subcommittees that it formed, see *al Tariq* (Beirut), Nos. 1-8, January-August, 1976.

53. In an interview with the author in Paris in January 1977, M. Couve de Murville indicated that France's intervention in Lebanon had been motivated by "sentiment." During his visit to the country he had concentrated on bridging the gap between Karami and Franjieh. He did not seem overly impressed by the Lebanese leaders he had met.

54. The Unforeseen had developed quite a habit of intervention in the Lebanese Civil War. Compare the mysterious murders of Maaruf Saad and Gemayel's bodyguard, pp. 44-45 above, respectively. These and subsequent similar incidents gave rise to persistent speculation about the role of a hidden "Third Party"—the favorite hypothesis of Conspiracy Theory addicts in Lebanon.

55. See C. Chamoun, *Crise au Liban* (Beirut, 1947) p. 13 ff.

56. The author was one of two people present during the telephone conversation in which Karami submitted his resignation to Franjieh at the height of the Maronite onslaught against Karantina.

57. Although the customary allocation of the three highest posts (point 3 in Khaddam's proposed program) was to remain the same, in contrast to the former state of affairs this custom was now to be put in writing, though not in a constitutional amendment. The account of this meeting at the Mufti's house is based on a copy of the verbatim minutes of the meeting, now in the author's possession, taken by someone present at the meeting.

58. See notes 22 and 27 above. For the full text of the Constitutional Document, see Appendix II.

59. Based on a copy of the verbatim minutes of a meeting in Damascus on 18 July 1976 between a Lebanese Sunnite delegation and Syrian Foreign Minister A.H. Khaddam.

166

60. Interview in Beirut, August 1977, between the author and a former member of the Lebanese High Command.

61. The constitutional article in question that required amendment was Article 73. This article (as amended by the Constitutional Law promulgated on 17 October 1927) read as follows: "At the request of the Speaker, the Parliament shall meet for the election of the new President, at least one month and at the most two months before the end of the Presidential term. Should the Parliament not be called to meet for this purpose, it shall necessarily meet on the tenth day preceding the end of the Presidential term."

62. See *Al Nida*, Beirut, 21 March 1976.

63. On the day of the attack on the palace, a shell burst in Franjieh's study seconds after he had left it. The newly built Presidential palace had, inexplicably, no air raid shelters. Interview of author with daughter of Franjieh in January 1977.

64. For the Syrian version, see speech by President Asad of Syria (in Arabic) in *Le Livre Blanc Libanais*, p. 114 ff.

65. Based on experiences as told to the author in May 1976 in Beirut by a Lebanese member of Parliament who had been at the receiving end of Syrian "persuasion."

66. Some P.L.A. units stationed in Egypt started arriving in Lebanon as early as January-February 1976.

67. For President Gissard d'Estaing's statement see the *New York Times*, 22 May, 1:8, 3:2. For reactions of various French political factions to this statement, see *Ibid.*, 23 May, 12:3, 3:3; 24 May, 1:1; and 27 May, 3:1. In his interview with the author, M. Couve de Murville (see note 53 above) observed that he was against foreign military intervention in Lebanon and believed that only an expansionary force of 100,000 men could restore law and order.

68. As reported to author by an eyewitness.

69. Eyewitnesses deny any Syrian prisoners were publicly displayed.

70. For the text of Franjieh's letter to the Secretary-General of the Arab league (in Arabic) dated 9 June 1976, see *Le Livre Blanc Libanais*, p. 57.

71. *New York Times*, 17 June, 1:8.

72. Most of the inhabitants of Jisr al Basha camp were impoverished Maro-nite Palestinians. (Ali Khalaf, *al Nuhud Marra Ukhra*, Beirut, p. 180). The Palestinians in Tel Zaatar camp numbered some 17,000. The rest of the inhabitants in the camp were Shiite refugees from the area bordering Israel. The eastern suburbs of Beirut where these two camps were located contained the largest concentration of light industries in the country—hence their "attractiveness" to refugees and the unemployed. Conditions in the camp were appalling: 6-7 persons per 1-2 rooms, 86% of dwellings without baths, 20% without lavatories, 60% without running water and 40% without heating. (*Ibid*., p. 42).

73. See Map II, for the Greek Orthodox population of North Lebanon. Many of the Greek Orthodox belonged to the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, for which see p. 77.

74. Most of those killed at Tel Zaatar were non-combatants. The casualties of the various Palestinian commando organizations have been given as follows:

Notes

167

Fath, 106, PDFLP, 128, PFLP, 39. (For these organizations see p. 79 ff.). In addition, the Lebanese Communist Party lost 8. *Al Nuhud Marra Ukhra*, p. 165 ff.

75. Interview of author with Salah Khalaf (Abu Iyad) in Beirut, August 1976.

76. For the text of Sarkis' address, see Appendix III.

77. For the resolutions of the Riyad summit, see Appendix IV.

78. For the resolutions of the Cairo summit, see Appendix V.

79. See statement by ex-Prime Minister Rashid Karami in *al Anwar*, Beirut, 22 November 1976.

80. Interview of author in Beirut in August 1977 with former senior member of Lebanese High Command. Also see *The Military Balance 1976* (IISS, London, 1976).

81. Statement by former Army Commander General Iskandar Ghanem in *al Nahar*, Beirut, 25 November 1976.

82. F. Lahhoud, in *Maisat Jaish Lubnan* (Beirut, 1976), p. 229, gives the following breakdown of these 24 battalions: 9 infantry, 5 armored, 6 artillery, 1 engineering, 1 intelligence, 1 transport, and 1 military police.

83. Interview of author with former member of High Command mentioned in note 80 above. For a more critical view of Franjieh's handling of the army and of the conduct of former Army Commander General Iskandar Ghanem, see F. Lahhoud, op. cit., p. 58ff. See also the Karami statement (note 79 above) in which Ghanem is accused of involving the army in the transfer and smuggling of arms to the Maronite militias.

84. According to *The Military Balance 1976* (p.35), the tanks were mostly Charioteers, the armored cars, M-706s, M-6s, the personnel carriers, M-113s, M-59s and M-3s. The artillery included 75mm and 122mm guns, as well as 155mm howitzers and 120mm mortars. The self-propelled anti-aircraft guns were mostly 20mms. The anti-tank guided weapons were ENTACs, SS-11s, and TOWs.

85. Most of the barracks fell into the hands of Khatib's rebel forces because of their location in predominantly Moslem areas. F. Lahhoud, op. cit., p. 204.

86. *The Military Balance 1976*, p. 36.

87. Michael Hudson believes that the most persuasive estimate of the annual rate of increase of Lebanese "residents" is 2.6%, which is the one arrived at by the Lebanese Ministry of Planning for the period 1945-1962. M. Hudson, *The Precarious Republic* (New York, 1968), p. 57.

88. For the text of the Constitutional Document, see Appendix II.

89. For these tensions, see C. Chamoun, op. cit., p. 22, 26-32, 34, 58, 103, 121, 129.

90. Estimates privately arrived at after comparison of estimates by several observers. See also Joseph G. Chami and Gérard Castoriades, *Days of Tragedy, Lebanon 1975-76* (Beirut, 1976), p. 387.

91. The automatic rifles were FN FALs, Kalachnikov AK 47s, and M16s, the machine guns, FN MAGs, Browning 1919 A4s, M2s and Degturyev and 12.7mm (Dushkas), the anti-tank guns, M40A2s, the anti-tank rockets, RPG-2s, RPG-7s, and SS-11s, the mortars of all calibres (60, 81, 82, 120, 160mm, the last Soviet-made), the field artillery, USM101s, Al 105mm, and French M-50 155mm, the

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rockets, BM-21s, the personnel carriers, M3/VTTs, M-113s, and BTR-152s and the armored cars, AML 90s.

92. Betts, op. cit., p. 140.

93. See pp. 38, 39.

94. See pp. 34, 35.

95. Cf. Joseph Frankel, *The Making of Foreign Policy* (London, 1967), p. 112 ff., and 123 ff.

96. The figure of 4% for the "upper crust of society" occurs in an income distribution table in *Besoins et Possibilités du Liban*, Volume I, p. 93. This was the report published in Beirut in 1960-61 by a survey team of the French Institut International de Recherches et de Formation en vue de Developpement (I.R.F.E.D.). The team had been invited to Lebanon by President Chehab. The following is the table in which the 4% figure occurs:

<table><thead><tr><th></th><th>% of Families</th><th>Below £ L p.a.</th><th>Average Annual Income (£ L)</th><th>% Gross National Product</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Wretches</td><td>8.8</td><td>1,200</td><td>1,000</td><td>1.8</td></tr><tr><td>Poor</td><td>41.2</td><td>2,500</td><td>2,000</td><td>16.5</td></tr><tr><td>Medium</td><td>32.0</td><td>5,000</td><td>3,500</td><td>22.4</td></tr><tr><td>Well Off</td><td>14.0</td><td>15,000</td><td>10,000</td><td>28.0</td></tr><tr><td>Rich</td><td>4.0</td><td>above<br>15,000</td><td>40,000</td><td>32.0</td></tr></tbody></table>

As was to be expected, this 4% figure became the rallying cry for the leftist radical political forces and the critics of Lebanon's free enterprise system.

97. For the Progressive Socialist and the Lebanese Communist Parties see Suleiman, op. cit., p. 213-227, p. 57ff., respectively; also Hudson, op. cit., p. 183ff., p. 168ff., respectively.

98. For the Syrian Social Nationalist Party see L. B. Yamak, *The Syrian Social Nationalist Party, an Ideological Analysis* (Cambridge, 1966), Suleiman, op. cit., p. 91 ff. and Hudson, op. cit., p. 178 ff. For the Baath Party see Suleiman, op. cit., p. 121 ff. and Hudson, op. cit., p. 178 ff.

99. After the death of Nasser in September 1970, the Lebanese Nasserist organizations were subject to the conflicting pulls of Nasser's would-be successors in Lebanon: Asad of Syria, Sadat of Egypt, Kaddafi of Libya and the Baath Party of Iraq. Hence the tendancy to splinter in the cause of "Correction" (i.e. "anti-revisionism") while retaining the original organizational name.

100. Interview of author with close friend of Jumblat's who accompanied him on a visit to Britain at end of World War II.

101. For the post-1948 Palestinian nationalist movement and the development

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of the PLO and the commando organizations, see W. Quandt, F. Jabber, A. Mosley Lesch, *The Politics of Palestinian Nationalism* (Berkeley, 1973).

102. The PLA forces were organized around three "regiments" or "brigades":

1) Qadisiya forces - raised and based in Iraq; moved to Syria during October war; units were moved into refugee camps in Lebanon in 1974 as part of an air defense scheme against Israeli bombing raids worked out with the Syrian army (with knowledge of the Lebanese authorities)—approximately one platoon per camp, plus AA units. During the civil war, further units—bringing the total in Lebanon to approximately 1½ battalions—were moved into the country in January 1976. Virtually all these forces came over to the PLO.

2) Ain Jalout forces - raised and based in Egypt; fought in Gaza 1956, 1967, on the Canal 1968-70, and in the October 1973 war. Small units began to arrive in Lebanon, via Syria, where they arrived by air, in January 1976, although officers of Ain Jalout were seconded to Lebanon as early as 1970-71—most politically reliable—i.e., vis-à-vis the PLO—of all PLA forces. Over the period from January - June, approximately 2½ battalions of Ain Jalout were brought to Lebanon, mainly by sea, from Egypt.

3) Hittin forces - raised and based in Syria; fought in the October War. These were the largest, but the least politically motivated of the PLA forces (raised by conscription among Palestinians in Syria). They were brought in initially to police cease-fires in the fall of 1975 in Tripoli and Beirut—approximately 2 battalions; approximately another 2 battalions were brought in in the winter to increase Syrian strength in the country. In June 1976 perhaps 40% of the men and officers came over to the PLO.

103. For the official Iraqi government position that these were "volunteers," see Le Livre Blanc Libanais, p. 188.

104. Syrian regulars often masqueraded as Saiqa.

105. Syrian regular-"Saiqa" units remained consistently loyal to Damascus (see note 104).

106. It is a moot point whether irrespective of Syrian military presence, the Maronite-Palestinian balance of power remained in favor of the Palestinians in the autumn of 1976, particularly after the Israeli aid extended to the Maronites—see pp. 91-92.

107. See above note 5. The Alawites, more accurately known as Nusayris, were an esoteric sect founded in the ninth century. Like other extreme Shiites they deified Ali (d. 661), first cousin of the Prophet Muhammad and husband of his only surviving daughter Fatimah—hence their name, Alawites. This name became current when the French Mandatory incorporated the Syrian region around Lattakia, in which the Alawites predominated, in a separate state under that name. (See P. Hitti, *Syria, A Short History* (New York, 1959), p. 172ff.) It is to be noted, however, that President Asad of Syria had announced his adherence to Sunnite Islam.

108. In addition to Iran, both the U.S. and Israel had supported the Kurdish rebellion. Early in 1974 Baghdad launched a major military offensive against the Kurds when a new plan for regional autonomy that it had offered was turned down by them. On 7 March 1975, agreement was reached by Iran and Iraq on a

170

long-standing dispute which included territorial issues. As a result of this agreement Iran withdrew its support from the Kurds and by mid-March 1975 the Kurdish rebellion had altogether collapsed. For the end of the rebellion see *New York Times* 7, 12, 14, 23, 30, 31 March and 6 April 1975. For U.S. aid to the Kurds see *Ibid.* 2, 4, and 30 November 1975.

109. See Suleiman, *op. cit.*, p. 121 ff., also Kamal Abu Jaber, *The Arab Baath Socialist Party, (Syracuse, 1966) passim* and John F. Devlin, *The Baath Party, (Stanford, 1976) passim*.

110. The Palestinian population in the countries of the Arabian Gulf and Saudi Arabia is estimated at 300,000. *New York Times*, February 19, 1978, p. 16.

111. King Faisal was assassinated by a member of the Saudi royal family on 25 March 1975.

112. For Kissinger's reaction to the Rabat summit's recognition of the PLO "as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinians," see Edward R. F. Sheehan, *The Arabs, Israelis, and Kissinger (New York, 1976)*, pp. 148-149.

113. On 6 November 1975, Kissinger sent a letter of support to the Lebanese government "conspicuously" addressed to Karami. See *New York Times*, 28 November 1975, 2:4.

114. According to Kissinger, Ambassador Brown was sent to Lebanon "with something like 24 hours' notice." (*Department of State Bulletin*, 17 May 1976, p. 627). According to Brown, in an interview with the author in December 1976, it was at a chance encounter with Kissinger at an airport in the U.S. that Kissinger sprang on him his decision to send him to Lebanon.

115. The author's impression of the diffuseness of Brown's mission is based on the study of minutes of meetings held between Brown and a key Lebanese official.

116. For U.S. support of the principles of the Constitutional Document, see statements by Kissinger on 22 April (*Department of State Bulletin*, 17 May 1976, p. 622), 5 June *ibid.*, 28 June 1976, p. 814), 22 July *ibid.*, 16 August 1976, p. 237), 11 September *ibid.*, 4 October 1976, p. 414) and Department Statement of 23 September *ibid.*, 11 October 1976, p. 460). On the specifically anti-partition stand of the U.S., see Kissinger's statements of 2 September *ibid.*, 27 September, p. 401) 29 September *ibid.*, 1 November 1976, p. 563) and 30 September *ibid.*, 25 October, p. 502). But see also Chamoun, *op. cit.*, p. 99, where Ambassador Brown allegedly urges that serious Maronite consideration of partition or a confederation be deferred for two years to try out a new coexistence formula.

117. Initial U.S. reactions to possible Syrian intervention were distinctly hostile. Cf. statements by Kissinger on January 14 (*Department of State Bulletin*, 2 February, p. 132) and 20 January (*ibid.*, 16 February, p. 162). Cf. also President Asad's version of his exchanges with the U.S. on the subject, *Le Livre Blanc Libanais*, pp. 141 ff. The tone of U.S. warnings to Syria, however, changes from early March onwards. Thus Kissinger describes Syria on 23 March as playing a "moderating role in Lebanon", (*Department of State Bulletin*, 12 April 1976, p. 466).

118. Minutes of meeting on 9 April 1976 between Brown and a key Lebanese official.

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119. Interview of author with President Franjeh in December 1975. See also memorandum from Camille Chamoun as Foreign Minister to the Lebanese ambassador in Moscow, complaining about activities and contacts of the U.S.S.R. Ambassador in Beirut. *Le Livre Blanc Libanais*, p. 161.

120. See above, p. 77.

121. See the *New York Times* 5 June, 3:2 for the Russian-Syrian communique.

122. For the Russian attitude towards the fighting in Lebanon, see *Current Digest of Soviet Press Volume XXVII, Nos. 21, 22, 38, 40, 41, 43, 44, 45, 46, and 50*, pp. 16, 20, 22, 23, 10, 21, 20, 21 and 29, respectively; also *Volume XXVIII, No. 2, p. 7*.

123. For a report concerning the curtailment of Soviet arms supplies to Syria during the Lebanese crisis in 1976, see Robert E. Harkavy, *The New Geopolitics: Arms Transfers and the Major Powers' Overseas Basing Networks*, paper prepared for the Conference at Cornell University on the Middle East, Ithaca, N.Y. 21-23 April 1977, p. 36. Harkavy quotes a report on the subject in *Defense and Foreign Affairs Daily*, 14 January 1977.

124. An interesting discussion and exchange of letters occurred between Israeli leaders early in 1954 on the feasibility and desirability of encouraging a Maronite separatist movement in Lebanon with the objective of partitioning the country and establishing a sovereign Maronite state. The issue was apparently first raised by Ben Gurion, then in political retirement, at his Tel Aviv home in the presence of Prime Minister Moshe Sharett, Pinhas Lavon, the Defense Minister, and Moshe Dayan. Ben Gurion followed up the discussion with a letter dated 28 February 1954 to Moshe Sharett. Sharett replied at length to Ben Gurion's letter on 18 March. Eliahu Sassoon, the leading Israeli Arabist, contributed a long commentary on Sharett's letter to Ben Gurion. Sassoon's reactions were given in a letter to Sharett of 25 March 1954. The texts of the three letters were published by the Israeli daily *Davar* in its issue of 29 October 1971 (p. 14).

In his letter to Sharett, Ben Gurion insisted on bringing up the subject of the partition of Lebanon which he had raised earlier at the Tel Aviv meeting between himself, Sharett, Lavon, and Dayan. Ben Gurion's thesis could be summed up as follows: Lebanon was the weakest link in the chain of the Arab League. The Christians (i.e., Maronites) were a majority within the frontiers of historic Lebanon (i.e., Mount Lebanon). The establishment of a Christian state within these frontiers was a natural thing. It would win the support of both Catholics and Protestants the world over. If such an objective appeared impracticable in normal times, it was eminently practicable at times of "confusion, disturbance, revolution and civil war." The time was now propitious. But a Christian state in Lebanon could not be established "without our initiative and effective assistance." This was the "principal task, or at least one of the principal tasks of our foreign policy." No effort, time, or resource should be spared. All means conducive "to a radical change in Lebanon" should be resorted to. Israeli Arabists, including Sassoon, should be mobilized for the job. Financial considerations, even if they meant "throwing dollars away," should not stand in the way. A historic opportunity beckoned to Israel and time was of the essence.

In his reply to Ben Gurion, Sharett made the following main points:

172

Interference in the domestic affairs of another country for the purpose of achieving a certain aim was futile unless there already existed an autonomous movement inside the country in question which also strove towards that aim. There was no movement in Lebanon which systematically sought to convert the country into "a Christian state under the absolute rule of the Maronites." To try to stimulate such expectations from the outside was like trying to resuscitate a lifeless body. This was not to preclude an effort at such stimulation "in the wake of some tempestuous disturbance that might sweep the Near East." Moreover, the Christians in Lebanon were not a unified group. The Greek Orthodox would rather see Lebanon and Syria unified than fall victim of a war for the establishment of a smaller Christian Lebanon that had seceded from the Arab League. Even the majority of the Maronites had become reconciled to the "lesser evil" of Christian-Moslem coexistence inside Lebanon at the expense of their dreams for the revival of former Christian glories. The Maronite assumption was that this course was likely to wean the Moslems from their nostalgia for union with Syria and so activate in them an attachment to Lebanese independence. The Maronites were therefore bound to regard as "fraught with catastrophe" any waving of the "flag of Maronite glorification," since it would lead to the annexation of the country by Syria. The secession of a Maronite Lebanon from the Arab League would be resisted by the League members and the "bloody war" that would result in the course of the secession would also lead to Syrian intervention. Nor would the Western powers stand by and wait to bless the birth of "Christian Lebanon." Economic considerations likewise decisively pointed in the same direction.

In the 30 years since World War I, Moslem Lebanon, including the Moslem areas added to Mount Lebanon in 1920, had become an organic economic unity. To attempt to put the clock back was to vivisect the country and ensure economic suicide, which no significant Maronite grouping could support. For all these reasons it was one thing to try and bring about this result in a deliberate manner, quite another "if change occurred as a result of unforeseen circumstances." Nevertheless, Sharett was prepared "to completely agree to the rendering of assistance to any agitation among the Maronites that aimed at increasing their power and tendency to secession, even though there was no probability of achieving the objective of secession." Such agitation would be a good thing in itself. It would disturb the existing stability of the country. It would cause problems for the Arab League. It would divert attention from the Arab-Israeli conflict. But, alas, no such agitation existed. And for Israel to try to stimulate it might be taken as evidence of recklessness and worse: as adventurism involving the basic security of others for ephemeral tactical advantages to Israel. Nor could Israel's role remain secret. It was bound to be discovered and to damage Israel's standing vis-à-vis the Arab countries and the Western world.

Sassoon's main points, largely in rebuttal of Sharett's arguments, were as follows: He conceded that no movement that had no base inside a country could be activated from outside. But it was wrong to assume that the Maronites were reconciled to the *status quo* and had accepted the lesser evil of coexistence with the Moslems at the expense of the revival of their dreams of glory. The Maronite attitude was based on the perception of the absence of alternatives rather than on

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conviction. The policy of the lesser evil was at best short-lived and bound to be jettisoned should an alternative course of action appear feasible. The Maronites were well aware that the policy of Moslem-Christian reconciliation and coexistence was also short-lived. In the long run it favored the Moslems. It guaranteed the independence of Lebanon within its present frontiers, but not the present character of Lebanon. Such a policy could not guarantee that the President of Lebanon would always be Maronite or that the Electoral Law and therefore the distribution of power would remain unchanged and in favor of the Maronites. It was true that there were no obvious signs of Maronite agitation, but it was not impossible to create it, given the "existence of very strong bases for its arousal." Nevertheless, the probability for such agitation to succeed in reaching its goal was remote. And it was remote because of a) the absence of qualified Israeli personnel for the job; b) the severance of contact between Israel and Lebanese personalities since the establishment of Israel; c) the absence of adequate funds; and d) the general temperamental unreliability of Lebanese Christians—"heroes with their tongues, weaklings in their arms." As to the discovery of the role of Israel, this would not cause much additional damage with regard to the Arab countries but was likely to embarrass Israel's standing vis-à-vis the Western world.

125. *Time*, 22 August 1977, p. 10.

126. As early as June 1975, Shimon Peres, the Israeli Defense Minister, was saying that "the Lebanon we know has gone and disappeared for ever" and that "what will take its place" should be the concern of Israel. (Davar, 4 June 1975, p. 2). A principal leitmotif in the early statements of Israeli leaders after the Ain Rummaneh massacre was the threat to the future of the Lebanese Christians posed by the fighting. See Shimon Peres in *Al Hamishmar*, 4 June 1975, p. 1; Yigal Allon, the Foreign Minister, *ibid.*, 21 September 1975, p. 1; Itzhak Rabin, the Prime Minister, in *Maariv*, 13 October 1975, p. 3, and *Al Hamishmar*, 29 October 1975, p. 2. Concurrently, Syria was warned against intervening militarily. See Allon *ibid.*, 21 September 1975, p. 1, and *Maariv*, 13 October 1975, p. 3; Rabin *ibid.*, 15 October 1975, p. 3. On 31 October 1975, Rabin first explicitly indicated the possibility that Israeli troops would enter Lebanon in the event of large-scale Syrian military intervention (Haaretz, 31 October 1975, p. 1).

127. See Rupert Emerson, *From Empire to Nation* (Cambridge, 1960).

128. See p. 34.

129. Karl W. Deutsch, "Social Mobilization and Political Development," *American Political Science Review*, Vol. 55, No. 3 (1961), pp. 493-94.

130. République Libanaise, Centre de Recherche et de Développement Pédagogique: *Statistiques Pédagogiques Année* 1973-1974, pp. 29, 330. See also *Lebanese Statistical Bulletin*, 1963, Ministry of General Planning, Beirut, p. 262.

131. See Walker Connor, "Nation-Building or Nation-Destroying," *World Politics*, Vol. XXIV, No. 3, April 1972, p. 319-355.

132. M. Hudson, *op. cit.*, pp. 53-83 and 330-331.

133. Eric Nordlinger, *Conflict Resolution in Divided Societies* (Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, 1972), p. 59.

134. See pp. 39 and 42.

174

135. See in particular, Leonard Binder (ed.), *Politics in Lebanon* (New York, 1966), Michael Suleiman, *Political Parties in Lebanon* (Ithaca, 1967) and Elie Salem, *Modernization Without Revolution* (Bloomington, Ind., 1973).

136. Cf. E. Salem, op. cit., p. 106 ff. See also the Foreword by George J. Stolnitz.

137. See Nordlinger, op. cit., *passim*, and Arend Lijphart, "Consociational Democracy," *World Politics*, Vol. XXI, January 1969, No. 2, p. 220-225.

138. Interview of author with Prime Minister Salim Hoss in Beirut in August 1977. The original official estimate widely reported in the Western press of 60,000 killed was mercifully wide off the mark. *The Report on the Effect of the Crisis on the Manpower of Lebanon*, published by the Beirut Chamber of Commerce and Industry (see *al Safir*, 4 September 1977), puts the number of Lebanese killed at 20,000-25,000, the maimed and handicapped at 3000-5000, the orphans at 25,000. A high-ranking Phalanges official interviewed by the author in January 1978 put the total number of Christians killed at about 10,000, of whom 2000 were combatants. At least half of the combatant losses were suffered by the Phalanges. *Fiches du Monde Arabe* (4 January 1978, No. 846) estimates that 70 percent of all the Lebanese war victims were below 20 years of age and predicts that these losses "will affect the demographic structure of the Lebanese population for two decades." PLO leaders (in interviews with the author) estimate total Palestinian combatant losses at less than 1000, that of the National Movement at about 600, and that of the Maronite militias at about 3000. Civilian Palestinian losses are put at 4000 killed. These figures do not include the casualties that occurred after the cessation of general hostilities in November 1976.

139. *Fiches du Monde Arabe*, 4 January 1978, No. 846.

140. Samir A. Makdisi, "An Appraisal of Lebanon's Postwar Economic Development and a Look to the Future," *Middle East Journal*, Summer 1977, Vol. 31, No. 3, pp. 267-280. There was a depreciation of the Lebanese pound from £ L2.25/U.S. $1 in June 1975 to £ L3.20-3.40/U.S. $1 in the third quarter of 1976. In March 1977 the rate was £ L3.00/U.S. $1.

141. *Ibid.*, p. 275, Nos. 21 to 22. One of the severest losses suffered by Lebanon during the Civil War was the flight of professional and skilled labor. The estimates for some of the sectors are as follows: industry 60-70 percent, trade 15 percent, transport and communications 10 percent, public administration 7 percent, hotels 20 percent. (*Fiches du Monde Arabe*, 4 January 1978, No. 846). In the liberal professions 1680 out of 4000 engineers and architects, 500 out of 3200 doctors and 400 out of 2600 lawyers left the country. Many (probably from 30-50 percent) of all these have since returned.

142. See Appendix IV. The Cairo Agreement was subject to the so-called Melkart Understanding negotiated between the PLO and the Lebanese government in May 1973. See Note 44 above.

143. See p. 33-34.

144. On 25 January 1977, Syrian troops tried to move into the town of Nabatiyeh, north of the Litani where Palestinians had concentrated. An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman said that the movement of Syrian soldiers to

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Nabatiyeh was a cause "of serious concern." (New York Times) On 15 February 1977 the Syrians withdrew from Nabatiyeh (New York Times). Thenceforth they kept well back, their southernmost advance posts being at the Zahrani in the western sector and at Hasbaya in the eastern sector—a distance of 10 miles from the Litani in the west. This is where they stayed throughout the Israeli invasion and withdrawal periods. (Interview by author with senior UN Secretariat official in New York in June 1978.)

145. Technically, Haddad was still a major in the Lebanese army and on its payroll like all the other members (both Christian and Moslem) of the disintegrated army. He was not, however, receiving his orders from the Beirut government. (Interview of author with Lebanese Prime Minister Salim Hoss in Beirut, August 1977.)

146. A major source of friction between the Maronite militias, and increasingly between Franjieh and his Maronite colleagues in the Lebanese Front, was disputes over "the ownership of what can be called either protection rackets or unofficial tax, depending on point of view." (Washington Post, 14 June 1978, p. A20).

147. See p. 35-36.

148. See Appendix V and Notes 142 and 44 above.

149. See Note 144 above.

150. See Appendix IV.

151. The moratorium on operations across the border was part of the Melkart Understanding—see No. 44 above.

152. See Note 144 above.

153. See p. 126.

154. See p. 34.

155. See Appendix II.

156. See p. 75.

157. The first provision of the 1969 Agreement guaranteed "the right to work and reside and freedom of movement for Palestinians already present in Lebanon" (see Appendix I). The right-wing Maronites maintain that at about the time of the Cairo Agreement (November 1969) the number of Palestinian refugees registered with UNRWA (The United Nations Relief and Works Agency) (in June 1968) was 166,264. They argue that the guarantee provision in the Cairo Agreement referred only to these refugees.

158. The U.S. provided $50 million in assistance, while the World Bank and the European Economic Community pledged loans of $50 million and $36 million respectively (*New York Times*, 19 June 1977, p. 3). In February 1978 a $150 million international reconstruction loan on the Eurodollar market in London was about to be finalized. (*The Christian Science Monitor*, 15 February 1978, p. 5.)

159. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait provided grants of $50 million and $30 million, respectively. The Abu Dhabi Fund was considering a $67 million loan. (*New York Times*, 19 June 1977, p. 3.) The Kuwait Fund for Economic and Social Development pledged a $167 million loan to start in May 1978 (*Christian Science Monitor*, 15 February 1978, p. 5).

176

160. See Note 146 above.

161. See Notes 40 and 43 above.

162. See pp. 51 and 61.

163. *New York Times*, 2 October 1977, p. 17.

164. See p. 65.

165. For the pro-Syrian groups see p. 77.

166. See p. 77.

167. The sons of three of the four principal members of the Lebanese Front were in direct line of political (and military) succession to their fathers: Tony (Franjieh), Basheer and Amin (Gemayel), Dory and Dany (Chamoun). But it could certainly be argued that they had earned their spurs in combat, though Amin Gemayel tended to be a dove. The same phenomenon, on a smaller scale, was observable on the Moslem side.

168. See p. 71.

169. The high-water mark during 1977 of the Carter Administration's positive movement towards a resolution of the Palestinian issue in the Arab-Israeli conflict was the joint U.S.-Soviet statement on 1 October. This, inter alia, declared that "the legitimate rights" of the Palestinians should be accepted in any overall settlement and that the Palestinians (though not specifically the PLO) should attend the peace conference. (See *New York Times*, 7 October 1977, p. 3, for the implications of this joint statement and the reactions of the various parties to it.) As a result of the opposition to this joint statement by Israel and pro-Israeli groups in the U.S., an Israeli-U.S. accord reached on 5 October 1977 virtually put the U.S.-Soviet statement into moratorium (see *Washington Post*, 6 October 1977). On 2 November 1977, in his address to the World Jewish Congress, President Carter stated that the U.S. does not "prefer an independent Palestinian state on the West Bank." (Text of speech as released by the White House Press Secretary, 2 November, p. 6.) Four days later C. L. Sulzberger outlined in the *New York Times* (6 November) Zbigniew Brzezinski's views on a Middle East settlement. Brzezinski allegedly held that "the Palestinians must abandon claims to total independence." On 27 December 1977 Brzezinski allegedly bid farewell to the PLO in the words "Bye Bye, PLO" to *Paris Match*, 28 December 1977. In a statement published by the London *Sunday Times* (30 April 1978, p. 8), President Carter declared categorically that a Middle Eastern settlement would not include an independent Palestinian state and that he would not change his mind on the subject. American *preference* for a certain outcome (no Palestinian state) had changed into a determination to preclude it even before negotiations with the Palestinians had started.

170. See p. 126.

171. For the Begin Plan, see the *New York Times*, 28 December 1977, particularly article 21.

172. On 2 April 1978 the Arab League Council prolonged the ADF's mandate for another 6 months.

173. See p. 45.

174. See p. 101.

175. *Time*, 22 March 1978. The security "failure" in intercepting the raiders

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was the subject of considerable comment in the Hebrew press. (Y. Shimshi in *Davar*, Y. Ben Furat in *Yediot Ahronot*, and U. Dan in *Maariv*, 12 March 1978; Z. Schif in *Haaretz* and Y. Allon in *Maariv*, 13 March 1978.

176. *Fiches du Monde Arabe* (10 May 1978, No. 952) lists 22 PLO operations inside Israel and the occupied territories in the period April-March 1978. These occurred in Jerusalem, Beersheba, Tel Aviv, Nablus, and Nathanya.

177. *Time*, 10 April 1978, p. 29.

178. See Notes 40 and 43 above.

179. *Fiches du Monde Arabe*, 19 April 1978, No. 933.

180. E.g., *New York Times*, editorial of 19 March 1978.

181. *Fiches du Monde Arabe*, 17 May 1978, No. 959.

182. *Time*, 27 March 1978, p. 26.

183. *New York Times*, passim.

184. *New York Times*, 3 September, p. 3.

185. *New York Times*, 17 September, p. 3.

186. The sequence between the death of the three Lebanese fishermen (5 November) and the firing of the rocket at Nabariya (6 November) is noticed by the *New York Times* (7 November). For the names and photographs of the fishermen see *al Safir* (8 November, p. 1). The civilian nature of the casualties is referred to in the letter addressed by Lebanon to the Security Council (*al Nahar*, 11 November, p. 1).

187. See p. 127 ff.

188. *New York Times*, passim.

189. See *Economist*, 25 March 1978, p. 9; *Time*, 27 March 1978, p. 30; *Newsweek*, 27 March 1978, p. 32 attributes the almost total "elimination" of guerrilla activity across the border to Israel's construction of an electronically monitored security fence along it.

190. See p. 124.

191. *New York Times*, 15 March 1948, p. 1.

192. *Davar*, 14 March 1978, reported the unanimous Knesset resolution (with the Rakah party abstaining) which called *inter alia* for, "the need to direct blows at the terrorist organizations and their delegates with a view to their liquidation."

193. The three camps were Al Buss, Burj alhemali, and Rashidiyeh.

194. *New York Times*, 6 August 1978, p. 3; *Fiches du Monde Arabe*, 12 April 1978, No. 927.

195. *New York Times*, 20 February 1978, p. 7.

196. For the continued Maronite offensive in April in the south with Israeli backing, see *New York Times*, 4 April 1978. For Begin's pledge to save the Christians from "genocide," see *New York Times*, 8 August and 15 August 1978.

197. *New York Times*, 27 August, p. 3.

198. *New York Times*, 11 September, p. 14.

199. *New York Times*, 15 September, p. 8 and 17 September 1978, p. 3.

200. *New York Times*, 20 September, p. 13, 21 September, p. 6, 22 September 1978, p. 22. On 20 September, UN Secretary General Waldheim appealed to all parties to show restraint. On 21 September Secretary of State Vance called for an immediate cease-fire.

178

201. Interview of author with high-ranking U.S. official in Cambridge, Mass., in late September 1977.

202. *New York Times*, 23 September 1978, p. 3.

203. *New York Times*, 10 November 1978, p. 5; *Fiches du Monde Arabe*, 12 April and 19 April 1978, Nos. 928 and 933, respectively.

204. *New York Times*, 10-12 November 1978.

205. *New York Times*, 10 November 1978, p. 3.

206. *New York Times*, 11 November 1978, p. 1.

207. *Newsweek*, 27 March 1978, p. 31. The raid is described as "a triumph for Israeli intelligence."

208. See *The Economist*, 25 March 1978, p. 62.

209. *Washington Post*, 30 April 1978.

210. *Time*, 3 April 1978, p. 31. According to the editorial of the *New York Times* of 17 April 1978, estimates of the civilian Lebanese and Palestinian dead "range up to several thousand."

211. The figure of over 250,000 new refugees is given in a press release (ICEF/1354) dated 23 March 1978, by the UN Press Section, New York. This press release also states that "many" of the refugees were children and "most" were Lebanese civilians "along with Palestinian refugees." The figures for the houses destroyed or damaged are given in a document entitled *Affected Villages in South Lebanon Visited by UNHC (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees)* on 26 April and 10 May 1978 (Beirut, 19 May, 1978) p. 7.

212. *Ha'aretz* (4 April 1978) reports that "over 50' Israeli soldiers, including junior officers, were court-martialed for looting. Writing in *Yediot Ahronot* (15 April 1978), Knesset member Shulamit Aloni refers to the "enormous destruction and looting" that took place as a result of the invasion.

213. *New York Times*, 20 March 1978.

214. *New York Times*, 26 February 1978, p. 11.

215. *Time*, 27 March 1978, p. 29.

216. *New York Times*, 30 March 1978.

217. For the background of Israel's interest in the Litani, see H.F. Frischwasser-Ra'anan, *The Frontiers of a Nation* (London, Batchworth Press, 1955) pp. 101-2, 107-8, 115, 117-118, 122-123, 128-129, 135, 139.

218. For Israeli views on the desirability and possibility of the partition of Lebanon, see Note 124 above.

219. For the U.S. view on the need to suppress publicity for Israeli support of Maronites, see *New York Times*, 9 August, p. 1, and 13 August, p. 5.

220. See Note 201.

221. See Note 169 above.

222. Cf., for example, the observations of Ze'ev Schiff, the senior Israeli military commentator in *Ha'aretz*, 31 March 1978: "There is no doubt that the Americans knew about the operation [the Israeli invasion] beforehand. It is not inaccurate to say that they had a general idea about the principal points that Israel intended to occupy in the area adjacent to the border. Indeed, they expressed their concern that the operation might have adverse effects on the peace negotiations. But it seems to me that they did not frankly express their

Notes

179

opposition to it. If they had wanted to, they would undoubtedly have been able to delay and probably to prevent the operation altogether. In September 1977, when they wanted the withdrawal of the Israeli army from the [Maronite] enclaves in South Lebanon, it was sufficient for President Carter to send a letter to that effect to Prime Minister Begin. Therefore, American silence with regard to the operation was tantamount to endorsement."

223. *Washington Post*, 30 April 1978.

224. Some 600 Palestinian volunteers, mostly from Iraq, arrived in Lebanon via Syria within 48 hours of the opening of Syria's borders.

225. *New York Times*, 17 March 1978.

226. *New York Times*, 18 March 1978, p. 1.

227. See Appendix VI.

228. See Appendix VII.

229. *Report of the Secretary-General on the Implementation of Security Council Resolution 425 (1978)*, S/12611, 19 March 1978.

230. For text of letter reporting the possible Israeli violation from Mr. Vance to House Speaker Thomas O'Neill, Jr., see *New York Times*, 6 April 1978, p. 14.

231. *New York Times*, 8 April 1978, p. 1.

232. *New York Times*, 18 March 1978.

233. *Fiches du Monde Arabe*, 3 May 1978, No. 946.

234. *Progress Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon*, S/12620/Add. 1, 2 April 1978.

235. *Progress Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon*, S/12620/Add. 2, 8 April 1978, pp. 2-3.

236. *Ibid.*, p. 3.

237. *Ibid.*, p. 3.

238. *Ibid.*, p. 4.

239. *Ibid.*, p. 4.

240. *Progress Report of the Secretary-General of the United Nations on the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon* S/12620/Add. 3, 17 April 1978, p. 1.

241. Unpublished minutes (in Arabic), in the author's possession, of the meeting between Mr. Waldheim and Mr. Arafat.

242. United Nations Press Release SG/T/847, 19 April 1978.

243. *Monday Morning*, Beirut, 15 May 1978.

244. *Boston Sunday Globe*, 11 June 1978, p. 30.

245. *The Economist*, 17 June 1978, p. 67.

246. For the estimate of Haddad's force at about 3000, see John Cooley in the *Christian Science Monitor*, 15 June 1978, p. 6. For Israel's brusqueness towards UNIFIL in the border area during the final pullout, see *The Washington Post*, 14 June 1978, p. A20.

247. According to Security Council Resolutions 425 and 426 (19 March 1978), Israel was to "withdraw forthwith its forces from all Lebanese territory," while the UN interim force UNIFIL was to confirm the withdrawal, restore international peace and security, and assist the Lebanese government in ensuring the return of its authority in the occupied territories. Israel and Haddad seem to have resorted to a stratagem to give the appearance of compliance with these

180

resolutions during Israel's final withdrawal scheduled for 13 June 1978: Haddad (who along with all the other rebel officers, whether Christian or Moslem, was still technically on active service, inasmuch as he was on the army payroll) "pledged" to President Sarkis to confine himself to his barracks together with his troops at Marj Uyun to permit UNIFIL units to take over the enclave he controlled. On the appointed day, however, a "coup d'état" was staged against Haddad by his own militiamen. This was to save Sarkis' face vis-à-vis Damascus and his Sunnite Prime Minister Hoss. The coup lasted for one day, the deadline for Israeli withdrawal from the rest of the six-mile belt. This enabled the Israelis to claim that their pullout was in conformity with the Security Council resolutions and that they had no alternative but to hand over the enclave to Haddad (who had meanwhile reappeared on the scene), particularly as in the first place they had not invaded this enclave. Since no eyebrows were raised in Washington, Sarkis (though not his Prime Minister Hoss) looked the other way, while the UN could not appear more Lebanese than Sarkis. (Interview with Prime Minister Hoss.) See also Note 145 above.

248. For the battle of Karameh and its significance, see W.B. Quandt, F. Jabber, A. Mosely Lesch, *The Politics of Palestinian Nationalism* (Los Angeles, 1973), pp. 57, 122, 179, 190, 195, 215.

249. The Israelis estimate the number of Palestinian guerrillas killed at 250. Materiél seized, according to the Israelis, included 10 tanks, 20 anti-aircraft guns, 20 recoilless rifles, 20 rocket launchers, 120 machine guns, 250-300 rifles, 35 tons of ammunition. How much of this equipment belonged to the Palestinians and how much to the rebel units of the Lebanese Arab Army is not indicated. (Yediot Aharonot, 27 March 1978). Palestinian sources put total guerrilla casualties for the first eight days of fighting at 71 dead and 131 wounded (*New York Times*, 1 April 1978, p. 2.).

250. Palestinian sources reported several thousand Palestinian volunteers to have come from Kuwait, Jordan, and Iraq (*New York Times*, 1 April 1978, p. 2).

251. Western sources generally put the strength of the Israeli invading force at some 25,000 (e.g., *The Economist*, 18 March 1978, p. 12). Some give a higher figure (cf., Townsend Hoopes in *The Washington Post*, 22 March 1978). General Mordechai Gur estimated Palestinian forces south of the Litani at the time of the Israeli invasion at 2000 (*Time*, 27 March 1978, p. 27).

252. A *New York Times* correspondent, writing from the West Bank, reported the conservative Palestinian mayor of Bethlehem as saying that whereas opinion on the West Bank had been 55 percent pro-PLO before the invasion, it had risen to 95 percent in favor after it (*New York Times*, 30 March 1978, p. 12). For the rise in pro-PLO sentiment among Israeli Arabs as a result of the invasion, see Maariv (20 March 1978), quoting Moshe Sharon, Advisor on Arab Affairs to Prime Minister Begin. For pro-PLO agitation on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip during the invasion, see Davar, 16, 17, and 19 March 1978, and Yediot Aharonot, 21 March 1978, and particularly the commentary of Dani Rubinstein in Davar, 24 March 1978.

253. *New York Times*, 7 May 1978.

Notes

181

254. *New York Times*, 3 and 12 June 1978, respectively. The site of the attack in the Jordan Valley was Mehola, a settlement established on the West Bank.

255. First reported by *Le Monde* on 17 April 1978.

256. *New York Times*, 25 May 1978.

257. For the text of the Hoss-Arafat agreement see *al Nahar*, 25 March 1978, p. 1. Arafat agreed to a) facilitate UNIFIL's task; b) stop Palestinian transgressions in the south; c) end Palestinian armed "manifestations" in the south; d) return volunteers who had arrived in the country after the Israeli invasion; e) continue negotiations to arrive at a new arrangement compatible with Lebanese sovereignty and the interests of the Palestinian revolution. See p. 140.

258. *al Nahar*, 25 March 1978, p. 2.

259. See note 257 above.

260. See p. 47.

261. P. 113.

262. Pp. 38-39.

263. See pp. 95-96.

264. See p. 35 ff.

265. See p. 34 ff.

266. See pp. 33-34.

267. The last census to be held in Lebanon was in 1932. (See p. 35 and Notes 8, 16, 23, and 32 above). No census has been taken since that year because of the sensitivity of its political implications. The total current Lebanese population is assumed to be about 3,250,000. The Maronites assume and assert that the Christians are still in the majority. The probability is that (because of the higher Moslem birth rate) the distribution of the population is now 45-50 percent Christian and 50-55 percent Moslem; but no one really knows.

268. See Memorandum Prepared by the Political Sub-Committee of the Conference of Lebanese Studies in regard to Four Possible Formulae for the Building of a New Lebanon (in Arabic), Beirut, October 1976.

269. See Appendixes II and III, respectively.

270. See Memorandum Prepared by the Political Sub-Committee, etc. (Note 268 above), pp. 17ff.

271. *Ibid.*, pp. 12-13.

272. See p. 52.

273. For the extent of Presidential powers under the Constitution, see Note 29 above. The Constitutional Document (see AppendixII) allowed for the election of the Prime Minister by a 51 percent majority of the Parliament instead of his virtual selection and appointment by the President. For Maronite criticism of the Constitutional Document see *Texte du Document Constitutionnel* (14 Fevrier 1976): *La Reponse a ce Document* (1976).

274. See p. 67 ff.

275. As early as December 1975 the Syrians had tried to establish a rapport with the Phalanges. See p. 50 ff.

276. The revitalization of the debilitated Israeli-Lebanese Mixed Armistice Commission (ILMAC) was envisaged in the *Report of the Secretary-General* on

182

the Implementation of Security Council resolution 425 (1978), S/12611, 19 March 1978, which was endorsed in toto by the Security Council—constituting Security Council resolution 426, 19 March 1978.

277. See author's article, "Thinking the Unthinkable: A Sovereign Palestinian State," in *Foreign Affairs*, July 1978.

APPENDIXES

I. The Cairo Agreement, 3 November 1969

II. Lebanese President Suleiman Franjieh's Message to the Lebanese People, Beirut, 14 February 1976. The Constitutional Document (Excerpts)

III. Inaugural Speech by President Elias Sarkis, Shtaura, 23 September 1976 (Excerpts)

IV. Resolution adopted by the Limited Arab Summit, Riyad, 18 October 1976

V. Resolution adopted by the Arab Summit Conference, Cairo, 25-26 October 1976

VI. UN Security Council Resolution 425, 19 March 1978

VII. UN Security Council Resolution 426, 19 March 1978

THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY

# Beirut Again Seeks Truce; Many Americans Leaving

## Premier Seeking Strong Support to Act Against Violators—U.S. Embassy Shuts Its School and Starts Evacuation

By JAMES M. MARKHAM

Special to The New York Times

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Thursday. (Can Embassy sent. Lieut. Col. Walter Braun to the hospital in the bulletproof limousine of Ambassador G. McMurtrie Godley, Mr. Caputo was taken to the car in a wheelchair, as automatic weapon fire echoed in the neighborhood.

In Tuesday, Mr. Karami, summoned nine traditional political chiefs to his office in downtown Beirut, but three major figures—Interior Minister Camille Chamoun, Foreign Minister Phillip Takla and Pierre Gemayel, who is head of the strong right-wing Christian Phalangist party, did not appear.

The Premier, a Moslem with broad support, said the leaders should make decisions for a firm cease-fire and that he would then “denounce before public opinion any party that does not adhere to the decisions.”

Shortly before midnight, Premier Karami announced, a cease-fire that was said to include arrangements for armed men to withdraw from the con- tested Kantiari area by sunset today. There was no indication whether this, the latest of many cease-fires would be observed.

On the battlefield in Beirut, Moslem-forces appeared to move forward somewhat in the area of luxury hotels near the Mediterranean. Gunmen of the Phalangist militia were reported to have withdrawn from Clemenceau Street, on a hill above the hotels.

About 160 people were executed by an armored convoy out of the rocket-damaged Holiday Inn; where they had been trapped for three days. Phillip Caputo, correspondent of The Chicago Tribune, was rescued from the besieged Trad Hospital, where he had been for three days after being wounded.

### Americans Are Leaving

Jonathan C. Randell, correspondent of The Washington Post, was unable to leave the New Georges Hotel, which was under automatic-weapon fire late this afternoon.

Mr. Caputo was freed after John Andrews, a British correspondent for NBC, made his way to the hospital.

"It was very relieved to see him," Mr. Caputo said, lying in bed at the American University Hospital. "I called up a security man at the embassy and said, 'When the hell are you going to get me out of here?'"

After hearing that Mr. Andrews had made it safely to the Trad Hospital, the Ameri-

Like most foreign reporters here, Mr. Caputo has sent his wife and children abroad. He expects to be flown today to a United States military hospital in West Germany.

Yesterday 110 American officials and their families left Lebanon by air, bringing the embassy's estimate of the number of Americans remaining here down to 2,500 from 4,500 a few days ago.

A caravan of Americans set off for the airport yesterday from the Riviera Hotel by the sea in buses and private cars.

Among those evacuated were teachers from the American Community School, the one educational institution that had tried to remain open during the weeks of crisis. It announced yesterday that it was closing for "two weeks."

The American University in Beirut announced, that it was deferring its opening until it was

The only safe neighborhoods now are the bulk of Ras Beirut, which juts into the Mediterranean and is home to many foreigners and a thin coastal strip known as Raouche running along the sea to the airport road. Also, most of the Palestinian quarters of the city have been untouched by the violence.

The city increasingly looks like a ghost town, with few cars or pedestrians moving in the day and none at night. Most food stores are closed, filling stations lack gasoline and cooking gas is hard to find. In some quarters electricity has gone off.

Most of the city echoed to the sound of gunfire and explosions. The American Embassy was struck by a few apparently stray rounds of automatic-weapon fire. Lebanese soldiers stationed outside the embassy opened fire in the reaction.

Rightist and Christian politicians have been demanding that the army intervene to re- store order, but Premier Karami has resisted on the ground that Moslems regard the officer corps as sympathetic to the Christians.

### U.S. Calls for Restraint

Special to The New York Times

WASHINGTON, Oct. 29—The State Department said today that in recent days it had asked other "interested Governments"—primarily Israel and Syria— not to intervene in the crisis in Lebanon.

In answer to questions raised at a news conference, a spokesman said that the essence of the diplomatic effort was to reiterate the American position announced on Sept. 30. "We have a special interest in the independence, territorial integrity, national unity and co- hesion of Lebanon."

There has been concern for some time that because of the inability of the Lebanese fac- tions to abide by a cease-fire, neighboring Syria might be tempted to send forces into the country to maintain order. Such an move might revoke an

A man hurrying around a standing automobile as a gunman aimed

## A Cloudy 10th Anniversary

By MICHAEL T. KAUFMAN

Special to The New York Times

SASBURY, Rhodesia — On Nov. 11 white Rhodesians will mark the 10th anniversary of their declaration of independence from Britain. They demonstrate pride in having prospered

News Analysis

under sanctions but also show a showing recognition that the minority rule they have championed

in the face of world opposition is threatened and possibly doomed.

On that same day the new black nation of Angola is scheduled to come into being. The Portuguese are leaving after 491 years, abandoning the rich but undeveloped land to three armies now battling for the right of succession.

The two independence days are linked by more than chronological coincidence. Both white Rhodesia's pessimism and Angola's pre-independence chaos stem from the same event: Portugal's decision to leave the country and half ago to withdraw from her territories in southern Africa, territories that had served as buffer zones in a region where white governments abut black ones.

### Black Nations' Needs

While the major effects of the Portuguese departure are currently being felt in Rhodesia and Angola, there are also significant shock waves being registered in South Africa. Zambia, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. A South African diplomat said in an interview this summer in New York that "the Portuguese withdrawal has changed everything."

"It has forced us to revise old policies," he said, "and attempt new alliances and to affirm the need for black and black governments, are in Africa to stay."

On the side of the black nations there are also reasons for closer relations with South Africa. They find her policies of apartheid repellent, but they recognize, too, that they are poor and weak while South Africa is rich and strong.

Zambia would like to get her copper out through Rhodesia's rails to ports in Mozambique, Mozambique needs the rail traffic for her foreign exchange.

Malawi has many of her men working in South African mines sending money home. And even Angola, whoever may lead it, may well be dependent for some financial reserves on diamond mining administered in part by South African interests.

So far the moves toward change have centered largely on Rhodesia. Prime Minister John Vorster is dependent for some input pressure on Prime Minister Ian D. Smith to do what sanctions have so far failed to do: to accept discussions with at least one nationalist faction on ending white minority rule. The reaction to this pressure by most of Rhodesia's 263,000 whites verges on a feeling of having been betrayed by the one government that had sustained them during what they saw as their fight for survival. That sense of betrayal is, however, tempered by the view that South Africa is still their economic mainstay and perhaps ultimately their refuge.

Such a clash of feelings was evident early in October when Mr. Smith first publicly criticized Mr. Vorster for meddling in Rhodesian affairs and then publicly apologized for his statement, made to a British television interviewer.

This ambiguity is underscored daily in dozens of finance conversations. A young woman working as a public relations-consultant-here-lamela that she can no longer even think about politics. She says she has no future in the country of her birth and calls Mr. Vorster a coward. But she says her most prized possession now is her British passport because she knows she can go to Johannesburg.

Two men drinking at a bar make a bitter reference to the Beitridge Gallop, meaning the expected exodus through Beitridge, a Rhodesian town on the South African border, should the country's six million blacks ever turn Rhodesia into their own nation, Zimbabwe. They comment on a newspaper report that during a recent month more whites left the country than arrived as immigrants, the first time this has happened in years.

"And that's despite the huge numbers of Portuguese we've been getting from Mozambique and Angola," said one of the drinkers.

"Cheerful, efficient, and intelligent," he says. "A Jew, other pat belligerent visitor, a Nazi? Yes, I try, man, expect us, and so do you."

The drapes contrast standard years ago as broke the Prime Minister's predicted trade down the weeks to a week.

"It has been a long, hard, and through and through by a go to Rhodesia: dependent Rhodesians way to be many and British and British and British, but brand available. pools are polo is now a

iniversa is a senile jeopardy, many who were negative to Nkomo and Council. Council will soon full on

18

place. "of "The "I am" who blast surcharge away in

round been of elec- blican ing to from with

I did not find any text in the image.

are men, but iden-

r an illows, with-

Yard sus- while ring con-

## The Proceedings In the U.N. Today

Oct. 30, 1975

### GENERAL ASSEMBLY

Political and Security Committee — 10:30 A.M. and 3 P.M.

### Special Political Committee

3 P.M. Economic and Financial Committee 10:30 A.M.

Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee—3 P.M. Administrative and Budgetary Committee—10:30 A.M.

Legal Committee—3 P.M.

Tickets may be obtained at the public desk, main lobby,

U.S. and Lebanon: Echoes of 1958

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Nov. 26—As would-be mediators from the Vatican, France and the United Nations come and go, the American role in the Lebanese crisis has been obscured.

Moreover, that role remains a subject of speculation and controversy because of the overt support for the Prime Minister, a Moslem, and of questions about the supplying of guns to Christians.

In 1958, shortly after United States marines landed on Beirut's beaches in the midst of a civil war, they established liaison with a highly disciplined Christian party called the Phalanges Libanaises, which was thought to be the bedrock of anti-Communism in Lebanon. The Americans reportedly furnished the Phalangists with weapons and a radio transmitter.

An identity of interests was created—at least in the Arab mind—that the Americans are still living with. Times have changed, though, and today the hardly, disguised official policy of the United States Government is sympathetic toward the Prime Minister, Rashid Karami, who is a centrist, and chilly toward President Suleiman Franjeh, a Christian allied with the Phalangists.

Signal from Kissinger

The policy was signaled on Nov. 6 in a letter from Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger—conspicuously addressed to Mr. Karami, not to Mr. Franjeh, and made public by the embassy—that said: "I want you to know that my Government wants much hopes to see an end to the fighting in Lebanon and fully supports your Government in its efforts to bring this about."

Then, in an apparent bow to Moslem demands for modification of the requirement of Moslem-Christian balance, Mr. Kissinger wished Mr. Karami "well in your effort to encourage all concerned to show the moderation and spirit of compromise that would seem to be necessary if there is to be an end to the violence and the commencement of a process of political accommodation leading to a new basis of stability with security for all your countrymen."

Mr. Karami has been the champion of gradual change in Lebanon's political system, which has the effect of giving a predominant role to the Christian community though it is "now a minority" American officials do not hide their belief that it is partly the inclusiveness of some Christian leaders, including the President, that is blocking reform.

Infrequent Contacts

The letter is said to have outraged Mr. Franjeh, who has been irritated at the American Government since last year, when narcotics detectives, leading specially trained dogs, inspected the luggage of his entourage when he arrived in New York to address the United Nations General Assembly, President Franjeh and the

Americans Still Try
to Live Down Old
Phalangist Link

American Ambassador, G. Murtrie Godley, see each other infrequently. However, Mr. Godley is on good terms with Mr. Karami and is a friend of Raymond Edde, a Christian centrist who would like to succeed Mr. Franjeh next year.

A lively conversationalist, Mr. Godley, in what appeared to be a series of calculated indiscretions, aired his feelings on the remains of the cocktail and dinner circuit. Beirut is a small town; such signals are not missed.

Though the Americans seem to be backing Mr. Karami, their policy remains the subject of some mystery as well as controversy because it is not clear whether they are arming the Phalangists or some favored faction in the Christian camp.

American officials insist that their hands are clean—that the days of 1958 are over. The United States interest in Lebanon, they maintain, is that it should remain stable since instability endangers the much larger enterprise of Mr. Kissinger's painstaking Middle Eastern diplomacy. If Syria and Israel were to come to blows in Lebanon, the Sinai agreement between the Israelis and Egyptians and other accords still in embryo would be shattered.

This assessment is widely accepted by European diplomats and others essentially sympathetic to American policy in the Middle East.

Third World's Assessment

Another view, sometimes voiced by third world diplomats, is that the Americans need the Phalangists to keep the Palestinian guerrilla movement preoccupied and on the defensive, so it is less likely to upset Mr. Kissinger's diplomacy.

Partisans of the second school of thought recall a quickly forgotten incident last July, when Representative Les Aspin, Democrat of Wisconsin, pointed an accusing finger at a Lebanese representative of Colt Industries named Sarkis G. Soghanalian, who had received embassy and State Department approval for the sale of $250,000 worth of handguns and ammunition to unspecified clients here.

Mr. Soghanalian, who is known to have contacts on the Lebanese right, denied that he had intended to sell the weapons to the Phalangists, the Palestinians or any of the growing private armies. Nonetheless, a State Department of-

ficial-assured a reporter that the 2,000 Colt pistols were destined for "responsible elements—that is, Christian elements."

That was before the factional conflict exploded into a confrontation that has taken at least 4,000 lives and assumed international dimensions. It was also before the Sinai disengagement accord and before a marked evolution in official American thinking on the Palestinian question, which culminated two weeks ago in the testimony of Harold H. Saunders, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, who said: "The issue is not whether Palestinian interests should be expressed in a final settlement, but how. There will be no peace until an answer is found."

Hard-Liners Have Lost Out

This attitude, which has unsettled the Israelis, has not been lost on the Palestine Liberation Organization nor on other Arabs who closely follow American decisions.

"I think the hard-liners have lost out," an Arab diplomat who knows the United States said of Lebanon. "I think the Americans have decided to back the mainstream rather than to try to profit from the divisions in Lebanon for short-term gains."

"I wouldn't call it a constructive attitude," he continued, "but at least it's not divisive."

A well-placed Palestinian guerrilla echoed the theme. "We are even hearing that the Americans are not selling guns to the Phalangists," he said.

If it is a fact that the Americans are not arming the conservatives or sanctioning indirect sales, the United States may begin to shake off the image that has stuck since 1958. But a number of skeptics remain to be convinced that it is not sanctioning gun sales here still.

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THE NEW YORK TIMES, TUESDAY JANUARY 20, 1978

The New York Times

Founded in 1851

ADOLPH S. OCHS, Publisher, 1896-1935.

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It is unfortunate that controversy
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veloper interested in making a profit
from a site over which he has contro-
over has already-developed over-finding a
alternate site for the West Side Cor-
vention Center.

I naturally believe that Battery Park
City would make an excellent site for
this facility. Even The Times, which
supporting the Penn Central 340
Street yard, notes persuasive consi-
erations for Battery Park City (edit-
rial Jan. 19). There are no less than
four subway lines and the PATH tub
within 2,300 feet of our site. We a-
only three miles and ten minut-
er farther by taxi from midtown hot-
restaurants and theaters than any
the midtown locations so far co-
sidered.

Examination of convention centers in other major cities shows that suc-
cessful centers depend not on loca-
tion but on exhibition, hall size, serv-
ices and amenities—offered—to exhibit
and visitors. The convention center
Battery Park City would be able
to meet all of these criteria.

The most important point to keep
mind, however, is that the convent-
ent center, regardless of where it is bu-
dget, is desperately needed to bolster
New York City's economy. It is estimat-
ing that a convention center will gener-

Budget Cuts vs. At

To the Editor:

On Jan. 5 a front-page article in The Times, called attention to the city virtual, abandonment of hundreds its seriously disturbed and handicapped children, among them our most troubled adolescents, because new "money-saving" budget procedures were preventing the Department of Social Services from providing facilities their care and treatment. On Jan. we learned that the next group children to be sacrificed in the name of municipal budget balancing will the victims of child abuse and neglect.

Obscured in your Jan. 10 story a planned Jan. 30 layoff of city workers ordered by the Mayor, the fact that 100 of those to be fired are caseworkers responsible for investigations of child abuse and neglect. They represent almost one quarter the city's entire child protective services staff. Children's lives depend on these caseworkers. In 1978, the Department of Social Services projects reports of almost 30,000 cases of neglect and abuse of children.

As professional social workers

To Enter C.U.N.Y.

To the Editor:

An odd premise appears to figure
current arguments in favor of ret-
ing Open Admissions at C.U.N.Y. I
that since students unable to meet
proposed entrance requirements
not to blame for their inability, t
deserve to be let in; they should
be penalized because it is not t
fault that they cannot read.

A 'New Realism'

In an election year, a President usually takes a benign
view of the state of the union. President Ford last eve-
ning was no exception to this custom.

Rather than a "new realism," the President's message
in foreign as well as domestic affairs reflected an old
complacency. It was a standard pedestrian speech of the
kind that Mr. Ford often delivered in his days as House
minority leader. Despite the Bicentennial trimmings, the
President's doctrine of "the less government, the better"
speaks at theme more familiar to his party's faithful than
it is challenging to his nation's future.

The nation's economy is still affected severely by the worst recession in nearly forty years. But because of the partial recovery of recent months, Mr. Ford at least did not have to repeat the grim economic news that dominated his message a year ago. As was only natural, he took credit on behalf of his Administration's economic policies for the partial recovery, and he confidently asserted that the improvement would continue. Whether either the claim or the prophecy is well-based is open to dispute.

The nation's chief concern now is that the economic upturn not peter out or be swallowed up in a resurgent inflation. Mr. Ford spoke to the inflationary worry when he urged that the unavoidable rise in the budget be severely limited and that the extension of the tax cut beyond June be conditioned on staying within this spending ceiling.

Even-accepting Mr. Ford's contention that a slowing of the growth in Federal Government spending is the most important step that could be taken to restrain inflation, it does not necessarily follow that Medicaid payments to the elderly, for example, are the right program to bear the brunt of the anti-inflation policy.

Yet that will surely be the anti-inflation, Califor-
nia and other progressive states of the President's
proposal for "block grants" in the health field. Mr. Ford
resists national health insurance for all as too costly but
proposes coverage of catastrophic illnesses among those
over 65. This is likely to be viewed as a vote-catching
scheme among the "senior citizens" in the primary
states of New Hampshire and Florida.

The President is on spind ground in urging that the
deficit in the Social Security accounts be closed. There
is no disagreement on that point. But it is highly ques-
tionable that the entire sum should be raised as Mr.
Ford suggests out of higher taxes on workers and
employers. Congress, reasonably enough, is likely to
combine a rate increase with a rise in the income base
to make the change less regressive.

On a wide range of other issues—from crime to for-
eign affairs—it was difficult to find a new or inspiring
thought in the President's message.

Let Them Find Bread

Former Gov. Ronald Reagan's plan to transfer to
the state governments the bulk of existing Federal

nationalization of large enterprises, more land reform,
legalization of the Communist Party, curbs on foreign-
investment and other measures the military fear.

Mr. Kukrit's compromises so far have held off military
pressure. But unless the new elections produce a more
stable Parliament with fewer parties and the possibility
of a stronger governing coalition, Thailand's democratic
future will be in doubt.

Thunder Out of Lebanon

The sense of despair with which Lebanon's courageous
Prime Minister Karami resigned Sunday must be shared
by everyone concerned with the stability of the entire
Middle East. The only remaining hope rests on still
another shaky truce worked out late yesterday which
could conceivably permit Mr. Karami to regain his post
and his-stabilizing influence. As the hour of "cease-fire"
passed, the fighting scarcely paused.

The threat of disaster in the coming days and weeks
is very real, involving partition of Lebanon into Christian
and Moslem zones, armed intervention from Syria and
parallel response from Israel, and thereafter the proba-
bility of another Middle Eastern war,

This recurrent nightmare became an awakening prospect when last week the right-wing Christian Phalange militias launched an apparent offensive to isolate and overrun Moslem communes—including Palestinian refugee camps—located within areas north of Beirut where Christian influence is greatest. For the first time, incipient territorial division lines seemed to dictate the combat of civil-war, and the Palestinians could no longer avoid entanglement in the Lebanese fighting.

Partition, and the creation of an unequivocally Christian
stronghold along the Levantine coast, has long been
considered the last-ditch goal of Lebanon's Christian
minority as it found its traditional dominance fading
over the life of the divided nation. Yet aside from the
Phalange activists, there is virtually no one inside or
outside Lebanon who believes that a partitioned state
could survive or become anything but a source of even
greater tension than now exists.

The Syrian Government has repeatedly warned that it
would invade and join forces with Lebanese Moslems
and Palestinian main-units rather than tolerate partition.
leaders in Jerusalem have left no doubt that a Syrian
invasion from the north and east would trigger an Israeli
advance from the south, to neutralize Palestinian en-
campments in southern Lebanon and possibly to link up
with the Christian forces' stronghold along the coast.
Once this kind of battleground were drawn, there would be
no way of calculating with any confidence which other
nearby countries would be drawn in, against the
Lebanese Christians or against Israel.

Rivalries inside the Arab world, particularly that be-
tween Syrian President Assad and Egyptian President
Sadat, have immobilized the Arab League from effective
mediation up to now. The United Nations Security Coun-

June 19, 1976

## A DELEGATES BY PRESIDENT

U.S. Judge-Blocks Food Stamp Cut Ford Had Sought

By LESLEY OELSNER
Special to The New York Times

"Shows Strength, Balance of Winning of 18 Contests"

W. APPLE, Jr.
The New York Times

JOINES, Iowa, June 18 Ford won the first strength tonight at the Republican district con- but former Gov. Reagan of California having more strength been expected. Relatively liberal First National District, which Iowa City, home of the of Iowa, the Presi- ll three district dele-

gates in five regions showed Mr. Reagan control of two well-ahead in one, content closely divided others. Mr. Reagan stand a good-chance at least half of the delegates that were

WASHINGTON, June 18, In a blow to the Ford Administration, a Federal district judge ruled today that the Agriculture Department "exceeded its Congressional mandate" when it promulgated regulations designed to cut back $1 billion to $1.2 billion in food stamp benefits.

Judge John Lewis Smith Jr. announced his finding in an opinion in which he issued a "preliminary" injunction that barred the Administration from implementing the proposed cut-backs.

The injunction is to be in effect only pending the judge's resolution of various challenges to the cut-backs, on both constitutional and statutory grounds. The objections have been raised by a broad coalition of food stamp recipients, private groups, states, including New Jersey and Connecticut, and several cities, including New York.

But the effect of the judge's ruling appears to be that, unless it is reversed on appeal, on Page 8, Column 3

## FORD DROPS TRIP, GITING LEBANON

### Cancels Campaign Journey After Ordering Help for Those Leaving Beirut

By DAVID BINDER
Special to The New York Times

WASHINGTON, June 18 President Ford canceled an election-campaign trip to Iowa today after having directed the United States Embassy in Beirut to assist American citizens who wanted to leave Lebanon.

Ron Nessen, the White House spokesman, said that the Iowa trip had been called off because of the impending evacuation and the situation in Lebanon."

In a personal statement on Lebanon, Mr. Ford avoided the word "evacuation" with regard to the estimated total of 1,400 American citizens still in the country.

The President had been scheduled to attend a testimonial dinner in Des Moines for Mary Louise Smith, the Republican Party's national chairman, before the selection of Iowa's delegates to the Republican National Convention.

### Surprise Is Expressed
Some State Department of-

ficials privately expressed surprise at the President's abrupt change of plans. White House officials, however, credited Mr. Ford with having put policy ahead of politics. [Page 8.]

At the State Department today, Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger told reporters that it was appropriate for Mr. Ford to remain in Washington because the Lebanese situation had become "very ticklish" and "an emergency could develop" in the evacuation.

Today's statement by the President said:

"Due to the continuing un-Continued on Page 7, Column 2

bodies of the United States. Ambassador, Francis E. Meloy Jr., and Robert O. Waring, who was the embassy's economic counselor.

[The convoy was caught in crossfire in the Lebanese mountains, The Associated Press reported, but it reached Damascus safely. It took seven hours to make the journey, which ordinarily takes three hours.]

### Another Convoy Planned
Ambassador Meloy, Mr. Waring and their Lebanese driver, Zoheir Moghrabi, were slain on Wednesday, while on their way from the American Embassy to the Christian suburb of Hazzimiyeh for a meeting with Lebanon's President-elect Elias Sar-kis.

In Washington early today a State Department spokesman said President Ford had directed the embassy "to organize a departure of an overland convoy of those United States citizens who wish to depart at this time." But no rush to depart appeared to be developing.

American citizens were invited to join another British-organized convoy due to leave tomorrow, passing through Palestinian and Syrian lines. But late today only 100 Americans were reported to have registered to drive their own cars.

Continued on Page 7; Column 1

other smell-

## Outrage Talk of V

By

NAIROBI, Kenya. Reaction in black Rioting and killings in Soweto, South Africa, have been outrage-cou- nting threats of, black against the white South African Government.

In Addis Ababa, Etekli, the secretary of the Organization of Unity, declared that ings in Soweto—he fore news had spread-ening fighting townships—"constit- antly in the hands of the white South African regime in Pretoria— international commu-

Mr. Etekli said the member organization "to opposevio violence if such is to be adopted—by the Pretoria regime" and the organization's sup- port in Mauritius month would discus- s black African states their support to those that said were fighting

## Voids Player Sales;ley Threatens to Sue

By JOSEPH DURSO

Owner Bowie Kuhn, the biggest sale of baseball history yes- en he ordered the Yankees and Boston to return the three had bought earlier from the Oakland Col- lege. The Oakland sports- manship may have provoked a series of lawsuits that is already in legal challenges over the "free-

soon as the commissioner had canceled the following sales: Vida Blue to the Yankees for $1.5 million and Joe Rudi and Rollie Fingers to the Red Sox for $1 million apiece.

The deals were made last Tuesday just hours before the midnight trade deadline in the big leagues. The next day the commissioner "froze" the sales because "they raise cer-

Continued on Page 15, Column 1

Catholic Order's Missions Got

NY Times

The Cairo Conference

OAY, OCTOBER 27, 1976

25 cents beyond 50-mile zone from New York City, except Long Island. Higher in air delivery cities.

20 CENTS

Associated Press

Columbia, S.C. and President Ford
les are on page 20.

The New York Times/Gary Saltie

Nixon Tapes
d or Broadcast

NER

Times

Herbert J. Miller, announced that the

New York's Law
On Death Penalty
Is Found Invalid

By DENA KLEIMAN

A State Supreme Court justice ruled yesterday that New York State's death penalty law was unconstitutional, in the first legal test of the law since a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court last summer.

In so doing, Justice Peter J. McQuillan spared the life of Joseph Velez, who had been sentenced to death for killing an off-duty policeman in 1975, and reduced the sentence to life imprisonment. Mr. Velez, who is 11 years old, will be eligible for parole after 25 years.

Justice McQuillan ruled that the statute, which mandated execution for the murder of a policeman or prison guard, was "cruel and unusual punishment" because it did not give a judge or a jury leeway to exercise discretion in deciding an appropriate sentence for a particular case.

Since Justice McQuillan serves on State Supreme Court, the trial court of general jurisdiction, his ruling is not binding on other Supreme Court justices. However, It is expected to be given great weight by them: It is the first decision giving reasons why the statute is constitutionally defective, and Justice McQuillan is considered one of the leading authorities on the state's criminal law.

The State Court of appeals, the state's

Continued on Page 46, Column 3

U. N. ASSEMBLY VOTES
A REBUFF OF TRANSKEI

U.S. Abstains on Resolution Asking Members to Prohibit Dealings

By KATHLEEN TELLSCH
Special to The New York Times

UNITED NATIONS, N.Y., Oct. 26—The General Assembly demonstrating disapproval of the policy of apartheid practiced by South Africa, called today on member governments to prohibit all “contacts” with the Transkei, the first of the South African black homelands to secure independence.

The request to members to prohibit trade and "any dealings" with the Transkei, which became independent this morning, was made in a resolution approved 134-0, at the opening of the Assembly's week-long debate on apartheid, or separate development of ethnic groups.

The new state, roughly the size of Denmark, has about three million people,

CAIRO MEETING ENDS
WITH NO FINAL PACT
ON A LEBANON FORCE

MAKEUP OF PEACE UNIT UNCLEAR

But the Arab Leaders Appear to Imply That the Syrians Will Have Dominant Role

By JAMES F. CLARITY
Special to The New York Times

CAIRO, Oct. 26—Arab leaders held a two-day conference here without final agreement on arrangements for an expanded Arab peacekeeping force for Lebanon. But their closing statements appeared to imply that Syrian troops already in Lebanon would dominate it.

A fund to pay for the force was agreed on, with the richer oil-producing Arab countries pledging to provide most of the money.

After two days of sometimes rancorous argument over Syria's role in Lebanon and the composition of the peacekeeping force, the meeting ended tonight several hours later than scheduled and with an unexplained cancellation of a final open session of the 14 heads of state and senior officials representing the 21 Arab League members at the conference.

It was officially announced that there would be no immediate disclosure of how many troops would be provided for. the force, which now consists of about 2,300 and which is to be expanded to 30,000. The exact composition, the announcement said, will be worked out by the secretary general of the Arab League, Mahmoud Riad of Egypt.

Syria Would Predominate

Arab officials said they interpreted the announcement as meaning that Syria, which already has 23,000 soldiers in Lebanon, would make up more than half, and perhaps two-thirds, of the force. The conference action, taken despite objections to Syria's role in Lebanon that were raised by Iraq, Libya and the Palestine Liberation Organization, was seen not only as confirmation that Syria would dominate the peacekeeping force, but also as tacit acceptance of Syria's large military intervention in Lebanon.

Another official statement issued as the meeting ended said that necessary guarantees would be taken to achieve peace in Lebanon. It also unbraided Israel, charging it with escalating aggression in southern Lebanon, but did not say specifically how the Arab countries would react. There was no hint of any military ultimatum to Israel.

OCT

27

President Hoswar el-Sadat welcomed
President Nishts to Egypt.

For two days kings, presidents and emirs met in the ornate rooms of the Arab League's headquarters and in their Nile-view suites in the Hilton Hotel next door.

The gaps of wealth and culture within the Arab world were evident in the dress of the leaders. The Palestinian guerrilla leader, Yasir Arafat, unshaven as usual, in brown khaki clothes and red and white checkered headdress, sat in the conference hall next to Sheik Khalifa bin-Hamad al-Thani, the Emir of Qatar, who wore a white kaftan, a black cloak embroiled with gold and a white headcloth.

Sheik Sabah al-Salem al-Sabah, the ruler of Kuwait, wore a jeweled dagger at his waist. The flowing robes of the leaders from the Persian Gulf countries were in contrast with the neat business suits of King Hussein of Jordan. President Hafez al-Assad of Syria and President Sadat, who as chairman of the

The two leaders are attempting to improve relations after years of conflict.

King Hussein of Jordan held a private meeting with President Assad. The King was the center of attention at the last Arab leaders' conference in Morocco, two years ago today, when he tried unsuccessfully to resist a decision to designate the Palestine Liberation Organization as the representative of the Palestinian people. But this week he was in the background, generally agreeing with the decisions worked out by others.

President Sadat and President Assad met to try to further the reconciliation begun at their meeting in Saudi Arabia last week. Only a few months ago, students here were carrying signs ridiculing President Assad's name, which means lion in Arabic.

Yet when President Sadat met the Syrian leader at the airport on Sunday, the two kissed on the cheeks in the Arab tradition and laughed at each other's jokes, as if the Egyptian agree-

Colonel Qaddafi to send at least a low-level delegation.

When the Libyans arrived on Monday, just at the end of the first session, diplomats and reporters were startled to find at its head Foreign Minister Abdel Moneim el-Huni, who fled from Libya to Egypt a year ago after a dispute with Colonel Qaddafi and then was living in Rome. Last spring he was the intended victim of an apparent kidnapping attempt organized by the Libyan leadership.

Mr. Huni evidently came to terms with Colonel Qaddafi only a few days ago. The Egyptians, who so far have resisted Mr. Qaddafi's attempts to end the bitter dispute between the two countries, were glad to see the affable and well-dressed minister at the airport.

Despite the unexpectedness of their arrival, the Libyans found rooms waiting for them at the Hilton, as one half-floor had been reserved for each Arab country.

be able to a large extent to exit or to direct Palestinian operations.

Control over the Palestinian guerrillas has been one of the main goals of the Syrian intervention in Lebanon. Such a goal, it is believed here, is approved by the United States and indirectly by Israel.

Palestinian officials indirectly confirmed the reports of Syrian-Palestinian cooperation regarding the south. They said that Yasir Arafat, head of the P.L.O. and the Fatah guerrilla force, had raised the issue in Damascus on his way to a meeting of Arab leaders in Cairo and had received a promise of support from President Hafez al-Assad.

The speed and extent of the Syrian-Palestinian accommodation has come as an unwelcome surprise to the Lebanese right-wing Christians.

Sources in: Ashrafiyeh, the Christian center of eastern Beirut, said yesterday and today that they feared an alliance between Syrian and the Christian leaders had run its course and that the Christians could no longer hope to obtain Syrian

intervention in Lebanon, which turned the course of the war in favor of the Christian-dominated rightist forces, it was careful not to condemn it or even mention it explicitly.

Those expected to provide new troops for the peacekeeping force, in addition to Syria and the P.L.O., are Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Southern Yemen, Libya, the United Arab Emirates and the Sudan. Egypt and several other countries, including Algeria and Morocco, have reportedly refused to provide troops. Some Arab countries, such as Egypt, have agreed to supply weapons.

The cost of maintaining the enlarged peacekeeping force, $15 million a month, is to be shared by the Arab League members, with the richer oil-producing countries, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates expected to pay about 65 percent.

U.S. Is Set to Help Rebuild Lebanon

Special to The New York Times

WASHINGTON, Oct. 26—State Department officials said today that a worldwide effort costing as much as $300 million to $500 million might be needed to help Lebanon in postwar reconstruction if the present cease-fire proved effective.

These officials, as well as Congressional aides, stressed that pending a reliable postwar survey, any figure on assistance could only be a rough approximation. But they said that the United States was prepared to play a significant role in the reconstruction. They estimated that Congress would be willing next year, no matter who was President, to appropriate a fourth of the total finances.

During the last session, Congress appropriated $20 million for a start, and

$10 million additional has been spent by the United States to help the International Committee of the Red Cross and the American University Hospital in Beirut with emergency relief.

In the eyes of American officials, it is for the Lebanese themselves to take the lead in a reconstruction effort. The wealthy and middle-class Lebanese who fled the country during the civil war must be persuaded to return, officials said, if Lebanon's economy is to be restored.

The United States has already invited the new Lebanese President, Elias Sarkis, to send a special representative to Washington to discuss what the Lebanese Government would like the United States and the international community to do.

ARAB LEADERS END
CAIRO CONFERENCE

Continued From Page 1

evidence that Syria intended to withdraw a substantial number of its troops from Lebanon. The enlarged Arab peacekeeping force—augmenting the relative inactive multinational contingency that has been in Lebanon for several months—was expected, according to officials here, to be in place within two or three weeks.

The enlarged force is nominally to be under the command of President Elias Sarkis of Lebanon, who was elected seven months ago with full Syrian political and military support. While the conference here did not praise Syria for its

that the man in the mortars, infantry that Phoen men had camps.

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NY Times 10/27/76

THE NEW YORK TIMES, WEDNES

Syria

United Press International

President Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt, left, welcoming Yasir Arafat, head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, to dinner at the Cairo Hilton on Monday. At right is Hafez al-Assad, the President of Syria.

At Cairo Talk, Arab Tradition and Some Confusion

Special to The New York Times

CAIRO, Oct. 26—As the President of Lebanon, Elias Sarkis, arrived at the Cairo airport for the conference of Arab leaders, the commander of the Egyptian honor guard gave the order to shoulder arms instead of the proper command to come to attention.

Half the soldiers obeyed the order and snapped their rifles to their shoulders. The other half came to attention, and so the group stood in mixed array throughout the ceremony in which President Anwar el-Sadat welcomed President Sarkis to Egypt.

The gaps of wealth and culture within the Arab world were evident in the dress of the leaders. The Palestinian guerrilla leader, Yasir Arafat, unshaven as usual, in brown khaki clothes and red and white checkered, Arab headdress, sat in the conference hall next to Sheik Khalifa bin-Hamad al-Thani, the Emir of Qatar, who wore a white kaftan, a black cloak embroidered with gold and a white headcloth.

conference, sat above the others the dais.

The formal business was conducted in the conference room of the Arab League, but it was in the privacy of the hotel rooms next door where the crucial conferences took place aimed at reducing the conflict within the Arab world.

King Khalid of conservative Saudi Arabia has twice met with Salem R豫aya, head of state of Saudi Arabia's Marxist neighbor, Southern Yemen. The two leaders are attempting to improve relations after years of conflict.

ment with Israel on Sinai last year and the Syrian intervention in the civil war in Lebanon had never come between them as a cause of tension and dispute.

Another major rift in the Arab world is the one between Egypt and Libya.

The Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, had announced that Libya would boycott the Arab conference, presumably because the Libyan revolutionary leader did not want to come to Cairo. But Mr. Arafat, who needed all the support he could get from hard-line radical states like Libya, presuaded Colonel Qaddafi to send at least a low-level delegation.

Mr. Huni evidently came to terms with-Colonel Qaddafi only a few days ago. The Egyptians, who so far have resisted Mr. Qaddafi's attempts to end the bitter dispute between the two countries, were glad to see the affable and well-dressed minister at the airport.

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intervention

NY TIMES 10/28/76

'Pax Syriana' in Lebanon

At Arab Conference in Cairo, Damascus Wins
Endorsement of Its Objectives in Country

CAIRO, Oct. 27—The kings, emirs, presidents, foreign ministers and other officials of the 20 Arab nations and the Palestine Liberation Organization who left Cairo today, after the most ambitious and serious attempt of the Arab world to settle the Lebanese civil war, had achieved some of their goals but left others

News

**Analysis** still far from achieved. The conference, which approved the establishment of a 30,000-member Arab peacekeeping force in Lebanon, set the stage for peace in Lebanon and the possible restoration of a functioning Lebanese government. It has also done much to restore Arab unity.

Western and Arab analysts here feel that while the situation in Lebanon is always volatile and widespread fighting could erupt again, it probably will not in the coming weeks.

There is no question, the analysts say, that Arab solidarity—a particularly elusive objective in the Arab world in recent years—has been strengthened as a result of the Cairo meeting and the smaller six-party meeting a week earlier in Saudi Arabia, where the basic Arab agreement on Lebanon was reached.

The most important achievement was between Syria and Egypt, which had been hurling inventive at each other sporadically since Egypt signed the Sinai disengagement pact with Israel 13 months ago.

Presidents Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt and Hafez al-Assad of Syria, according to officials close to them, agreed in private meetings here that their difference over Sinai, as well as Lebanon, had hurt both other countries.

From Accusations to Smiles

Many Arab and Western analysts here noted that only a few weeks ago Syria was still upbraiding Egypt as a traitor to the Arab-cause that had signed a de-featist accord with Israel, and Egypt was attacking Syria for having undertaken an illegal and bloody intervention in Lebanon.

Now the two Presidents are talking and joking with each other again.

Other evidence of strengthened Arab solidarity emerging at the meeting here consisted of approaches by Libya to Egypt on ending their dispute. Libya, which was not expected to send a delegation, finally did so. And the Libyans have circulated reports that in return for a restoration of friendly relations with Egypt, their country would forgive Egypt's considerable economic debt.

Even King Khalid, the conservative ruler of Saudi Arabia, met here privately with President Salem Rubaya of Southern Yemen, the Marxist state that has been considered the worst neighbor of Saudi Arabia in recent years.

At the Cairo meeting, only Iraq refused to go along with the other Arab nations in their implicit but unmistakable acceptance of the Syrian intervention in Lebanon and Syria's expected domination of the enlarged peacekeeping force. The Iraqis fought in private sessions to have the Syrian role discussed and condemned, but the demands were brushed aside.

While Iraq remains in apparent isolation in the Arab world, its stand at the Cairo talks found unspoken support among many delegations here, according to Arab officials, particularly in the Palestine-Liberation Organization. But Iraq's hope that Syrian intervention would lead to the ouster of President Assad's rule

in Damascus is seen as wishful thinking in the immediate aftermath of the Cairo conference.

Arab and Western analysts agree that if there was a winner at the Cairo meeting it was Syria, which in effect obtained from the other Arab countries approval of what amounted to a "Pax Syriana" in Lebanon.

While most analysts acknowledge that the catalyst in the conferences in Saudi Arabia and here was King Khalid, much of whose influence stems from the Saudi oil riches, it is also widely felt that Syria agreed to the conference because it had acheived all it could safely hope to have achieved at this point in Lebanon.

Syrians Opposed a Leftist State

The Syrian goals were the prevention of the creation of a leftist state in Lebanon that could draw Syria into an unwanted war with Israel and also to weaken the militants in control of the P.L.O. If the latest Lebanese cease-fire holds, the country's Syrian-supported President, Elias Sarkis, is seen as having a reasonable chance to begin to negotiate an agreement, for peaceful political coexistence among the Moslems, Christians and Palestinians who have been killing each other for 18 months.

The two Arab conferences did nothing in this area, leaving it all to Mr. Sarkis.

As the Syrians were the winners at the leadership meeting, as on most of the Lebanese battlefronts, the Palestinians were the losers. But analysts here assert that the Palestinians did not lose everything. They still retain considerable supplies of heavy military equipment and they proved to Syria that they could fight skillfully and bravely.

Palestinian performance in the field is considered a strong factor in the Syrian decision to stop short of sending its intervention troops into the major cities like Beirut and Saida, where the guerrillas would have almost certainly inflicted heavy casualties on Syrian troops.

But the Palestinians were unable at the meeting here to persuade the Arab nations purporting to be devoted to the cause of the Palestinian people that a Syrian-dominated peacekeeping force would not further weaken the Palestine Liberation Organization.

One of the failures of the Cairo conference, or one of its deliberate oversights, was that it did not stipulate precise conditions for carrying out the 1969 Cairo agreement, which sought to regulate the Palestinian guerrilla presence in Lebanon.

Some Arab analysts feel that this gives the Palestinians, in effect, room to renegotiate the entire question of their sites of residence and camps and their retention of weapons for raids into Israel. As the Palestinians are still firmly in position in several cities in Lebanon, these analysts say, they have something to bargain with.

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and turns it into the most marvellous dress ever. So versatile in its kimono-like simplicity, that it is outstanding enough to stand alone. But do feel free to add a provocative touch at the neck, a bracelet slipped around the wrist or just a wild smile on you. In black or beige supple rayon crepe, $66. Expressions Shop (Dept. 165), Third Floor, Herald Square only. Sorry, no mail or phone.

Macys

DIAMONDS BY
SET MY BUTTERFLIES A

My favorite things are tiny and delicate. The smaller the better. Like Wells's prettier butterflies sparkling with a 1 pt. of Oh so fragile earrings and pendants. Sure to become part of your special Pierced Earrings 16.50. pendants 13.50. Fine Fashion Jewels

AT THE A&S NEAREST YOU. MAIL
Call in New York City (212) MAI

<table>
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    <tr>
      <td colspan="2">THE NEW YORK TIMES</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td colspan="2">229 West 43d St., N.Y. 10038 (212) 556-1234</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td colspan="2">Published daily, Second-class postage paid at New York, N.Y. and at additional mailing offices.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td colspan="2">MAIL SUBSCRIPTION U.S., TERRITORIES</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Weekday and Sunday</td>
      <td>6 Mo., $2.50</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Weekday only</td>
      <td>31.35</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Sunday only</td>
      <td>31.40</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td colspan="2">Rates to other countries on request</td>
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</table>

The Associated Press is entitled exclusively to the use of republication. All news dispatches credited to it or not otherwise credited in this paper and local news of spontaneous origin published herein. Rights of republication all other matter herein are also reserved.

["In that dispute was apparently denning them, but Mr. Richenthal also said that if a satisfactory plan could not be worked out, \"I'll go back to the court.\"", "I want 100 cents on the dollar,\" he said. \"Optimism of the sort is appeared to be based on the confidence that once they gave Mr. Richenthal a detailed description of an fiscal condition of the city and state, he would—with", "Continued on Page 3, Column 4", "## Israelis, in Warning\nTo Syrians, Display\nArms Near Lebanon", "Special to The New York Times", "TEL AVIV, Nov. 23—Israel paraded tanks and armored personnel carriers on its side of the Lebanese border today in a new warning to Syrian troops and Palestinian guerrillas not to approach the frontier.", "This development followed reports from Beirut, Lebanon, that Syrian troops of the Arab League's peacekeeping force were considering moving closer to the Israeli border as part of their mission of ending the Lebanese civil war.", "To underscore the new warning, Israel allowed correspondents here to send out dispatches reporting that Israeli forces along the Lebanese border had been reinforced by armored, artillery and infantry units. Normally military censors prohibit the reporting of Israeli troop movements.", "Earlier Israel had used the United States as an intermediary to reiterate to the Syrians its long standing warning that their forces in Lebanon must not move south of the so-called red line.", "### River Serves as Line", "The line has never been officially designated but it is understood to be the Litani River, which is 20 miles from the Israeli border on the Mediterranean coast but which before reaching the sea flows within two miles of the border.", "The Syrians were also told that the Israelis regarded them as the authority in Lebanon and therefore responsible for curbing Palestinian guerrillas and preventing military actions such as the rocketing attack last weekend on Nahariya, a seaside town, and on an army border patrol.", "The diplomatic activity continued in Jerusalem today as Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin received Ambassador Malcolm Toon of the United States.", "Earlier in the day the Israeli Cabinet was convened in special session to receive a briefing on developments in Lebanon.", "Continued on Page 3, Column 1", "WHICH Penicillin drugs can cause skin rash? Before you take another pill, get THE PEOPLE'S PHARMACY by Joe Graedon, the book that \"belongs near every household medicine chest.\" (New York Magazine.) St. Martin's Press.-Advt.", "company, which publishes The Observer and The Sunday Observer Magazine.", "The American oil company is headed by Robert O. Anderson, a 59-year-old entrepreneur who has not previously ventured into newspaper publishing.", "### Acquisition Through Subsidiary", "The company considered it a great newspaper and have no intention of interfering with its policy,\" Mr. Anderson said last night through a spokesman.", "The observer said in Los Angeles that Mr. Anderson was being acquired through a British subsidiary of Atlantic Richfield, but he would not name the organization. The spokesman also declined to discuss other terms of the agreement.", "But last night in New York City, one of the competing bidders, Ruppert Murdoch, the Australian publisher, said that under the terms that had been discussed with him for several months, the buyer", "days ago, Mr. Anderson said the same time that the bidding.", "### Needs Brit", "The purchase of foreign companies proved by themselves to be a ceding to Richfield.", "But the agreement did not seem to please Mr. Anderson. The company acquired a newspaper?", "Mr. Anderson said, \"Our intent is for The Observer to be the only one for the Obse-", "A resident cago-born in 1946, of the Aspe Studies. The", "Continued on Page 1", "## Andre Malraux, 75, Dies\n### Writer, War Hero, de", "Special to The New York Times", "PARIS, Nov. 23 — André Malraux, writer, hero of the French Resistance in World War II and President de Gaulle's long-time Minister of Culture, died today at the age of 75.", "The writer, whose career also included archeology in Indochina, flying with the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War and writing provocative studies on the history of art, was hospitalized eight days ago for pulmonary congestion. A statement by the Crétteil Hospital near Paris gave the cause of death as a pulmonary embolism. According to friends, the lung condition was a relapse from cancer. Mr. Malraux had been a heavy smoker—for which surgery was performed in August.", "President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, in a message of condolence to Mr. Malraux's daughter, Florence, spoke of his \"life of commitment, marked by an exceptional dialogue between creative work and action\" and praised him as the defender of \"a certain vision of man, with which he lived and for which he fought.\"", "Hervé Bazin, president of the Goncourt Academy, which awarded its 1933 prize to the novel \"Man's Fate,\" said that as a novelist, Mr. Malraux—ranked with Proust as the greatest of the century.", "According to the wish of Mr. Malraux's relatives, he will be interred in a private ceremony. The Government said that \"national homage\"—a solemn ceremony on a grand scale—would be paid. Mr. Malraux a few days after the burial.", "## Intellectual and Man of Action", "By ALDEN WHITMAN", "The life of André Malraux, the stuff of which legends are spun, was cloaked in hyperbole and filled with contradictions.", "Friends and critics alike conceded that", "Al", "he was the archer who was also a agreed that he: trarity of impbraced, both a lal a marriage to C his attachment ever, some ques observers. To th", "Continued on Page 1", "CONGRATULATIONS", "Zittel Asso. See buv.", "CO. B-1", "THE HELL", "1967\n1968\n1969\n1970\n1971\n1972\n1973\n1974\n1975\n1976\n1977\n1978\n1979\n1980\n1981\n1982\n1983\n1984\n1985\n1986\n1987\n1988\n1989\n1990\n1991\n1992\n1993\n1994\n1995\n1996\n1997\n1998\n1999\n2000\n2001\n2002\n2003\n2004\n2005\n2006\n2007\n2008\n2009\n2010\n2011\n2012\n2013\n2014\n2015\n2016\n2017\n2018\n2019\n2020\n2021\n2022\n2023\n2024\n2025\n2026\n2027\n2028\n2029\n2030\n2031\n2032\n2033\n2034\n2035\n2036\n2037\n2038\n2039\n2040\n2041\n2042\n2043\n2044\n2045\n2046\n2047\n2048\n2049\n2050\n2051\n2052\n2053\n2054\n2055\n2056\n2057\n2058\n2059\n2060\n2061\n2062\n2063\n2064\n2065\n2066\n2067\n2068\n2069\n2070\n2071\n2072\n2073\n2074\n2075\n2076\n2077\n2078\n2079\n2080\n2081\n2082\n2083\n2084\n2085\n2086\n2087\n2088\n2089\n2090\n2091\n2092\n2093\n2094\n2095\n2096\n2097\n2098\n2099\n2100\n2101\n2102\n2103\n2104\n2105\n2106\n2107\n2108\n2109\n2110\n2111\n2112\n2113\n2114\n2115\n2116\n2117\n2118\n2119\n2120\n2121\n2122\n2123\n2124\n2125\n2126\n2127\n2128\n2129\n2130\n2131\n2132\n2133\n2134\n2135\n2136\n2137\n2138\n2139\n2140\n2141\n2142\n2143\n2144\n2145\n2146\n2147\n2148\n2149\n2150\n2151\n2152\n2153\n2154\n2155\n2156\n2157\n2158\n2159\n2160\n2161\n2162\n2163\n2164\n2165\n2166\n2167\n2168\n2169\n2170\n2171\n2172\n2173\n2174\n2175\n2176\n2177\n2178\n2179\n2180\n2181\n2182\n2183\n2184\n2185\n2186\n2187\n2188\n2189\n2190\n2191\n2192\n2193\n2194\n2195\n2196\n2197\n2198\n2199\n2200\n2201\n2202\n2203\n2204\n2205\n2206\n2207\n2208\n2209\n2210\n2211\n2212\n2213\n2214\n2215\n2216\n2217\n2218\n2219\n2220\n2221\n2222\n2223\n2224\n2225\n2226\n2227\n2228\n2229\n2230\n2231\n2232\n2233\n2234\n2235\n2236\n2237\n2238\n2239\n2240\n2241\n2242\n2243\n2244\n2245\n2246\n2247\n2248\n2249\n2250\n2251\n2252\n2253\n2254\n2255\n2256\n2257\n2258\n2259\n2260\n2261\n2262\n2263\n2264\n2265\n2266\n2267\n2268\n2269\n2270\n2271\n2272\n2273\n2274\n2275\n2276\n2277\n2278\n2279\n2280\n2281\n2282\n2283\n2284\n2285\n2286\n2287\n2288\n2289\n2290\n2291\n2292\n2293\n2294\n2295\n2296\n2297\n2298\n2299\n2300\n2301\n2302\n2303\n2304\n2305\n2306\n2307\n2308\n2309\n2310\n2311\n2312\n2313\n2314\n2315\n2316\n2317\n2318\n2319\n2320\n2321\n2322\n2323\n2324\n2325\n2326\n2327\n2328\n2329\n2330\n2331\n2332\n2333\n2334\n2335\n2336\n2337\n2338\n2339\n2340\n2341\n2342\n2343\n2344\n2345\n2346\n2347\n2348\n2349\n2350\n2351\n2352\n2353\n2354\n2355\n2356\n2357\n2358\n2359\n2360\n2361\n2362\n2363\n2364\n2365\n2366\n2367\n2368\n2369\n2370\n2371\n2372\n2373\n2374\n2375\n2376\n2377\n2378\n2379\n2380\n2381\n2382\n2383\n2384\n2385\n2386\n2387\n2388\n2389\n2390\n2391\n2392\n2393\n2394\n2395\n2396\n2397\n2398\n2399\n2400\n2401\n2402\n2403\n2404\n2405\n2406\n2407\n2408\n2409\n2410\n2411\n2412\n2413\n2414\n2415\n2416\n2417\n2418\n2419\n2420\n2421\n2422\n2423\n2424\n2425\n2426\n2427\n2428\n2429\n2430\n2431\n2432\n2433\n2434\n2435\n2436\n2437\n2438\n2439\n2440\n2441\n2442\n2443\n2444\n2445\n2446\n2447\n2448\n2449\n2450\n2451\n2452\n2453\n2454\n2455\n2456\n2457\n2458\n2459\n2460\n2461\n2462\n2463\n2464\n2465\n2466\n2467\n2468\n2469\n2470\n2471\n2472\n2473\n2474\n2475\n2476\n2477\n2478\n2479\n2480\n2481\n2482\n2483\n2484\n2485\n2486\n2487\n2488\n2489\n2490\n2491\n2492\n2493\n2494\n2495\n2496\n2497\n2498\n2499\n2500\n2501\n2502\n2503\n2504\n2505\n2506\n2507\n2508\n2509\n2510\n2511\n2512\n2513\n2514\n2515\n