Once Again, Palestinians on the Ropes

"I'm fed up with hypocrisy. From now on, I'm going to say it publicly and bluntly: 'I prefer the Israelis to the Palestinians.'"

--Lebanese Christian soldier

As the soldier's exasperated candor suggests, after more than a year of inconclusive fighting, the patterns of violence in Lebanon have been shaken up by some extraordinary reversals in roles. The Moslem Syrians, who originally entered the Lebanese quagmire in a peacemaking effort, are now deeply committed--on the side of the Lebanese Christians. The Christians, who seemed to be losing the struggle against their Moslem compatriots only a few months ago, are now apparently winning. The Israelis, once just worried spectators, have been quietly shipping arms to the Christians, thus becoming, in effect, allies of the Syrians.

Most surprising of all, perhaps, is what has happened to the Palestinians in Lebanon. Having swaggered into the fighting on the Moslem side for what looked like certain triumph earlier this year, the erstwhile heroes of the Arab world were suddenly being battered by Christians on the battlefield and abused in most Middle East capitals outside of Cairo.

How had it all happened? Lebanon's Christian population has bitterly resented the Palestinians ever since they first arrived in the country as refugees in 1948; the hatred increased over the years as the Palestinians--encouraged by other Arab nations--demanded more and more autonomy. Now, and in large part because of their Israeli-supplied arms, the Christians find themselves not only ready but able to try to eradicate Palestinian power in Lebanon.

Jerusalem, too, wants to see the Palestinians crushed. Earlier this year, the Israelis began surreptitious shipments of small arms to Jounieh, the Christians' chief port; now the shipments include heavy Soviet-made weapons captured by the Israelis in past wars--among them T-54 tanks, armored personnel carriers and 120-mm. and 130-mm. artillery. In addition, some Christian troops have been brought to Israel for training. The Christian debt to the Israelis is such that, says a Christian leader, "in the end, we may find that we will have to choose between Syria and Israel."

Ghastly Irony. Syria's 15,000 troops in Lebanon now control fully half of the country, allowing the Christians room to maneuver in their drive to mop up their opponents. The bitterest battle of the entire war drags on between Christians and Palestinian commandos at Tel Zaatar (Hill of Thyme), a Palestinian camp on the rim of East Beirut. The battle, in which 1,500 combatants have already been slaughtered, is freighted with ghastly irony. It was the massacre of 27 Tel Zaatar residents by the Christians more than a year ago that first stoked Lebanon's smoldering resentments into open warfare.

Both Israel and Syria seem to be doing nothing to block the Christian plan to end the conflict by "cantonizing" Lebanon into religious zones. Last week, as a Palestinian peace mission set out to negotiate a cease-fire in Damascus, Syrian President Hafez Assad launched into a three-hour speech that flayed Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian Liberation Organization boss, for carrying on the war. Said Assad: "Those who declare that they wish to liberate Jounieh do not aspire to liberate Palestine." Peace, he made clear, would come only on Syrian terms.

The Palestinians brought their difficulties on themselves. Arafat's decision to take up arms in Lebanon to help the Moslem Lebanese, who had long supported the P.L.O. in its fight against Israel, was a grave error. It was indeed Arafat's worst mistake since 1970, when Palestinian forces operated so openly and defiantly in Jordan that King Hussein's army finally tossed them out in that year's famous Black September.

The P.L.O. subsequently became the idol of the Arab world; indeed, two years ago, Assad helped maneuver a P.L.O. presence at the United Nations and an Arafat appearance before the General Assembly. But the P.L.O.'s Arab support, even when it appeared broad, was always thin, because most Arab regimes fear the disruptive presence of the scattered Palestinian refugees within their borders. When Assad's support of the Palestinians waned after the fighting between his forces and the P.L.O., for instance, Egypt sprang to the Palestinian defense. But that Arafat ignored Cairo's support was not so much pro-Palestinian as anti-Syrian: the Egyptians supported the P.L.O. chiefly because they were riled by criticism in Damascus of Cairo's peace negotiations with Israel. Continuing his verbal jousting with Damascus last week, Egypt's President Anwar Sadat demanded a Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon, angrily suggesting that Damascus had entered the fighting through "miscalculation and conspiracy."

Palestinian Rage. The P.L.O. was losing on another front also. Says one Western diplomat in Beirut: "They missed a real opportunity to show the world that even temporarily they could run a de facto emergency government based on sanity, justice and efficiency." Even the fact that the Palestinians protect the U.S. embassy in Beirut--and claim to have arrested the killers of Ambassador Francis Meloy and his aide--has not offset that failure. Moreover, the cancellation of a U.S. convoy out of Beirut last week because the Palestinians said they could not guarantee its safety, may be further evidence of the Palestinians' weakening position.

Defeat and humiliation in Lebanon will be a staggering blow for the Palestinians. It will weaken P.L.O. arguments for a place at any peace conference between the Arabs and Israel. Beyond that, when the shooting finally fades in Lebanon, the Palestinians may be forced as part of the peace to find a new base. Whether or not this would curb the P.L.O.'s troublemaking potential is unclear. But the Palestinians could, as they did after Black September, vent their rage and frustration by reverting to full-scale "revolutionary terrorism," meaning the Entebbe skyjack on a much broader basis.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.