Beirut Under Siege

By Thomas A. Sancton

Poised on the ground, Israel blasts the P.L.O.

The attacks came by air, land and sea. Relentlessly, day after day, Israeli forces rained destruction on Lebanon in their determined drive to crush the Palestine Liberation Organization and oust Syrian forces from the country. Waves of Israeli F-16s and F-4 Phantom jets screamed in over Palestinian-and Muslim-controlled West Beirut, dropping bombs. Israeli warships bombarded the city's coastline all the way from the airport area south of the capital to Beirut's Manara district, and the Avenue de Paris, near the sea, where many embassies and foreigners' residences are situated. From trenches, bunkers and pockmarked buildings in the besieged city, some 6,000 Palestinian guerrillas led by Yasser Arafat fought back with sporadic rounds of artillery and antiaircraft fire.

Finally, after three days of intensifying attacks, President Reagan personally drafted his own forceful demand for a ceasefire, and the guns fell silent--but only for a day. At week's end, Israeli warplanes attacked and destroyed a Syrian SA-6 missile battery in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, and an Israeli armored column was closing in on Beirut's airport. For the first time, Israeli forces were poised to advance into the heart of Beirut to deliver a knockout blow to the P.L.O. leadership.

The apparent aim of the earlier Israeli assault on Beirut was to pressure P.L.O. leaders into laying down their arms and leaving the country that has been their haven, sometimes reluctantly, for the past 18 years. But in blasting P.L.O. and Syrian positions in West Beirut, the Israelis also struck nearby civilian buildings, including the Soviet embassy grounds, hotels, private residences and even a sanitarium. Rescue workers dug with their hands in the rubble for victims as the wail of ambulances sounded throughout West Beirut. The acrid smell of cordite filled the air. Splintered glass and chunks of concrete littered streets lined with tottering, half-collapsed buildings.

As the Israelis stepped up the shelling, thousands of civilians tried to flee the fighting. The U.S. and French embassies closed down in West Beirut and urged their citizens to evacuate the country. Lebanese officials estimated that 200 civilians were killed and 500 wounded on the day of the ceasefire, raising the week's casualties to some 2,000 dead and injured in the city.

In the hills above the capital, meanwhile, Israeli and Syrian forces battled fiercely for control of the Beirut-Damascus highway. On Wednesday, the Israelis began reinforcing their positions in the hills southeast of Beirut and advanced on the town of Aley, located at a key crossroads on the highway. Supported by air attacks and artillery fire, Israeli tanks and infantry engaged the Syrians at close range in some of the most ferocious fighting of the three-week-old war. Damascus claimed to have destroyed 17 Israeli tanks and other armored vehicles, while losing two of its own MiG jets in dogfights over the combat zone. Jerusalem said that Syria had lost about 80 tanks and armored vehicles.

The immediate object of the Israeli advance was to drive the Syrians from their strategic but scattered positions in the hills above Beirut. As the battle progressed, however, it became apparent that the Israelis also intended to push the Syrians off the mountainous stretch of highway from Aley all the way to Dahr el Baidar, near the entrance of the Bekaa

Valley. That would not only prevent any reinforcement of the beleaguered Palestinian and Syrian fighters in Beirut but would give the Israelis a commanding position over the Bekaa Valley, where the bulk of Syria's Lebanon-based forces were concentrated. At week's end Israelis controlled the highway from the Beirut suburb of Baabda to Dahr el Baidar and claimed that Syrian troops in central Lebanon were rapidly withdrawing toward the Syrian-Lebanese border.

The U.S. State Department feared that Prime Minister Menachem Begin, despite his repeated suggestions to the contrary in Washington last week, was planning a direct assault on West Beirut. Having come so far and spent so much blood and treasure, the Israeli leadership clearly was reluctant to pull back without having achieved its main goal. "What are we going to do?" asked a high-ranking Israeli official. "Keep our army there forever? We're going to have to do something." In an interview on Israeli TV last week, Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, the Cabinet superhawk who had masterminded the invasion, left little doubt. Said Sharon: "So long as there are terrorist headquarters in Beirut, it is hard to say that the Israel Defense Forces' task has indeed been fully accomplished."

The consequences of an attack on West Beirut, however, could prove to be catastrophic not only for the Palestinians but for the long-term interests of Israel and the U.S., which Arabs widely suspected of complicity in the invasion. The P.L.O. has vowed to turn the city into a Stalingrad. World opinion would hold Israel largely responsible for the appalling civilian casualties virtually certain to result from fierce house-to-house fighting in West Beirut. Moreover, a broader war with the Syrians might follow, and that in turn could prompt Moscow to move from mere rhetorical support of its Middle East allies to more active intervention. The unprecedented Israeli invasion of an Arab capital could galvanize the region's moderate and radical states into a solid anti-Israel, anti-U.S. front and possibly dash all hopes of a comprehensive Middle East peace.

One immediate casualty of the Israeli offensive was the fragile attempt to forge a unified government out of Lebanon's bitterly divided religious and political factions. With the help of Philip Habib, President Reagan's special envoy, Lebanese President Elias Sarkis had just succeeded in cobbling together a seven-man National Salvation Committee, representing the main factions of Lebanon's splintered society, to try to negotiate an Israeli withdrawal and set up a coalition government. At week's end, however, the committee was shaken by the resignations of two key members: Prime Minister Chafik Wazzan and Walid Jumblatt, a hereditary chief of the Druze sect and head of the leftist Muslim group known as the People's National Movement, which was allied with the P.L.O.* Jumblatt's two representatives in the Cabinet, Tourism Minister Marwan Hamdeh and Economy Minister Khalid Jumblatt, also quit their posts.

In a radio broadcast, Wazzan, a Sunni Muslim leader, called the continuing Israeli attacks "escalated blackmail that renders me unable to execute the duties of my office." His resignation, however, was not accepted. Walid Jumblatt, who served as a key conduit in the delicate negotiations involving the U.S., Israel and the P.L.O., announced his resignation at a news conference at which he stated that the Palestinians were ready for an honorable surrender but that Israel would not grant it. The Israelis, said Jumblatt, "just want to kill [the Palestinians] and the Lebanese with them."

Until last week's resignations, the U.S. harbored faint hope about the National Salvation Committee's chances for success. Jumblatt had finally been persuaded by Habib to leave his native village in central Lebanon and join the negotiations. Habib provided Jumblatt with a car and a safe-conduct pass for his trip to the presidential palace in Baabda. That kind of skillful arranging was only one of the rare blend of talents that Habib, 62, brought to his latest daunting assignment. Last year it was the blunt-spoken Habib who persuaded Israel and the P.L.O. to accept an unwritten ceasefire, which lasted until the Israeli invasion of Lebanon began. But his latest peacemaking chore is undoubtedly the most difficult task of his career.

Thanks to Habib's efforts, Jumblatt became a pivotal force in working for a settlement that would avoid a final military confrontation. But the Druze leader objected from the beginning to negotiating under the shadow of Israeli guns. After the committee's first meeting early last week, Jumblatt accused Sarkis and Wazzan of being Israeli "messengers" asking him to deliver the P.L.O. Said Jumblatt: "Why don't we invite Sharon and save time?" As he spoke, dozens of Israeli tanks occupied positions overlooking the presidential palace, where the committee held its meetings.

In the middle of the second stormy session of the National Salvation Committee, Habib was summoned to the palace from the nearby residence of U.S. Ambassador Robert Dillon. Strongly urging the Americans to get Israel to cease hostilities, the committee informed Habib that they had agreed to a Palestinian plan for saving West Beirut. The P.L.O. proposals reportedly called for 1) an Israeli pullback to a distance of five kilometers from the capital, 2) the reopening of the Beirut-Damascus highway and 3) the return of the guerrillas to Palestinian refugee camps in and around Beirut, with the Lebanese army assuming law-and-order duties in West Beirut. Habib was asked to present this plan to Israeli authorities in Jerusalem.

Before he could do so, however, Israeli radio reported that the P.L.O. plan had been rejected by the Begin government because it did not provide for the disarming of the guerrillas or for their expulsion from Lebanon. Habib returned to the National Salvation Committee on Wednesday with the U.S. plan for a settlement. First, both the P.L.O. and Israel would agree to a ceasefire. Second, the P.L.O. would lay down its arms, and the 25,000-man Lebanese army would enter West Beirut to collect the weapons and take charge of the city. (At week's end the U.S. vetoed a French-sponsored U.N. Security Council resolution that did not require P.L.O. disarmament but called for an Israeli withdrawal from Beirut.) Third, the P.L.O. would move out of Beirut, either to their camps south of the city or to centers in the north near Tripoli. The Israelis, meanwhile, would pull back a few kilometers. Once these steps had been taken, Habib would begin the complex negotiations to establish a stable Lebanese government and create some kind of peacekeeping buffer force in the south--perhaps with the help of U.S. troops--that would be strong enough to persuade the Israelis to withdraw from the country altogether.

But senior P.L.O. officials quickly rejected the proposals, claiming that they had been receiving a more acceptable set of terms from the U.S. through Saudi Arabia (see Arafat interview). TIME has learned that both Faisal Alhegelan, the Saudi Ambassador to the U.S., and Prince Bandar ibn Sultan, the son of the new Deputy Prime Minister, had been meeting with Alexander Haig prior to the Secretary of State's resignation, and with William Clark, the National Security Adviser to President Reagan. In separate sessions with the Saudis, Haig and Clark outlined the same U.S. position, but Clark appeared to the Arab leaders to be much more sympathetic to their general views, which naturally were anti-Israeli. TIME also has learned that Saudi Ambassador Alhegelan inaccurately flashed word to Riyadh that Clark had said the Israelis were willing to pull back. Throughout the week, Saudi Arabia's King Fahd and Foreign Minister Prince Saud al Faisal had been in constant contact with the P.L.O. and occasionally with the Lebanese. The P.L.O. was not alone in its belief that two sets of signals were being flashed by Washington. Despite assurances from other State Department officials that no second line of communication existed, Haig angrily complained about being "back-channeled" by the National Security Council.

As the confusion increased and the Israeli attacks intensified, a mood of despair settled over the city and the negotiators. Instead of proceeding to Jerusalem, as previously announced, Habib remained in Beirut. Then, on Friday, came the Reagan-sponsored cease-fire and new hopes for a peaceful solution.

One factor that probably influenced the Begin government's decision to accept the cease-fire was a rising public and political opposition within Israel to the war. In spite of the military successes, the country was touched more by sadness than euphoria as Israeli casualties mounted. Said one Israeli housewife: "I think everyone knows at least one family who has had a son or a brother or a son-in-law killed or wounded in this war." On Tuesday, some 250 Israeli women demonstrated in a Jerusalem park, carrying placards that proclaimed GIVE US BACK OUR SONS and WE BORE CHILDREN, NOT CANNON FODDER.

Though they were still in the minority, more and more Israelis were asking whether a prolonged invasion would be worth the price--not only in blood spilled but in damage to Israel's international standing and, above all, its relations with the U.S. One of Israel's best-known doves, Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz of Hebrew University, drew sharp criticism from Knesset members for urging soldiers to refuse to serve beyond Israel's borders and for characterizing Begin's policy as "Judaeo-Nazi." Even Opposition Labor Party Leader Shimon Peres, who initially supported the invasion, strongly warned against an assault on West Beirut. Said Peres: "The temptation is great, but the price will be that much heavier. You must never enter an Arab capital."

Finding himself increasingly the target of such criticism, Sharon struck back at his detractors with characteristic bluntness. Asked by a BBC interviewer about the high number of civilian casualties, the burly and irascible Defense Minister thundered: "I remember how you [the British] totally destroyed cities in World War II. I never heard one word from you when Jews were killed by the P.L.O. in Israel and in Europe. I never heard one word about the [P.L.O.'s] massacre of Christians in Lebanon. We have shown more humanity in this operation than you British have shown anywhere, at any time."

At a briefing of the Knesset's restive Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Sharon was pointedly reminded that the war was lasting far longer than the 8 to 24 hours he had orginally promised, and that its aims had shifted from simply clearing out a 25-mile buffer zone to besieging the capital and threatening a bloody assault. "Unlike other wars, this one was one war on the first day and it became a different war," charged Victor Shem-Tov, a leader of Napam, the left-wing ally of the Labor Party, who demanded Sharon's resignation. Outraged, Sharon shot back: "I don't intend to resign."

As the Israelis pressed their attacks in Lebanon, a heated debate was growing over the number of civilians killed, wounded or made homeless by the invasion. Estimates provided by the International Red Cross, the Lebanese police and Palestinian sources indicated that at least 10,000 people, mostly civilians, had been killed through out Lebanon, while more than 300,000 had been temporarily or permanently displaced from their homes. In his meetings with U.S. officials last week, Begin hotly insisted that the true figures were about one-tenth of those totals. Estimates compiled by TIME's Jerusalem bureau, based on unofficial figures, military counts and spot checks at hospitals and combat areas, fell between those two tallies.

They put the combined Lebanese and Palestinian death toll in Israeli-controlled territory at 3,000 to 5,000, and the total number of homeless at 70,000 to 85,000.

According to one Western diplomat who visited Palestinian refugee camps that had been devastated by the invasion, the behavior of the Israeli army toward the surviving Palestinians indicated that it intended to make the sites permanently uninhabitable for refugees. Said he: "We could only see a lot of homeless women and children. Every young man over 14 had been taken away. Only a few pitiful old men were left trying to clear up what was left of their houses." Other observers, however, reported that life was slowly returning to a semblance of normality in some of the camps.

Two Norwegian doctors, who had been working near a refugee camp in Sidon and were briefly taken prisoner by the Israelis, accused their captors of brutally maltreating the Palestinians. According to a BBC report, the Norwegians claimed that Israeli soldiers beat some Palestinian prisoners with clubs or lengths of rubber, kicked others unconscious and killed at least ten men before their eyes. Reflecting on such scenes, a Western ambassador in Beirut remarked sadly: "I ask myself what has happened to those Jews who were filled with spirit and light, who gave us hope and inspiration. Have they all gone? I come back from my trips to the south, and I am sick. Sick at heart. Sick to death."

(An Israeli army spokesman denied the charges and accused the Norwegians of being linked to P.L.O. organizations. Said he: "We do not use brutality against P.L.O. prisoners or refugees.") An Israeli attack on the P.L.O. in West Beirut could arouse Arab anger even more, sowing new seeds of radicalism and terror among remnants of the Palestinian movement scattered throughout the Middle East. Said George Habash, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a radical Marxist branch of the P.L.O.: "If they got rid of all of us and not a gun was left here [in Beirut], the revolution will continue. There are secret organizations all over the world." Former Lebanese Prime Minister Saeb Salam similarly warned that "if Begin and Sharon are allowed to finish off the P.L.O. here, it will be the greatest mistake for the U.S. A dozen P.L.O.s will spring up all over the world, and they will be the most extreme of the extreme."

Sharon's massive and sustained attack on the P.L.O. forces has succeeded for the time being in removing the large-scale military threat to Israel and the ability of the organization to act as a state within a state. Even if the Palestinians are allowed to remain in Lebanon, they will inevitably lose their broad freedom of action. Said Camille Chamoun, former President and head of the Christian Lebanese Front: "The Palestinians can have no military existence in Lebanon whatsoever. Those Palestinians who remain in Lebanon will have to comply with Lebanese laws."

Nor would the Palestinians enjoy much independence in any other Arab state that might admit them. Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak last week extended an offer initially suggested by his predecessor, the late Anwar Sadat, for the establishment of a "provisional Palestinian government" in Cairo to pursue the "Palestinian political struggle." But Mubarak stressed that the government-in-exile must lay down its arms and become a strictly political body. Jordan's King Hussein, who ousted the P.L.O. guerrillas from his country in 1970-71, has made similar offers of sanctuary if the Palestinians disarm and accept his authority. Syria too would probably compel Arafat and his beleaguered band to give up their freedom of action. Saudi Arabia's King Fahd was reportedly on the phone with Arafat at least five times last week, telling him, "I am with you. If you die, I die. If you live, so do I." But while Fahd might offer Arafat money and diplomatic support, the Saudis would hardly take the political risk of harboring the P.L.O. on their soil.

Most Middle East experts doubt that the P.L.O. could transform itself into a purely political entity, work for diplomatic recognition, and wait for international pressures to force Israel to deal with Palestinian aspirations.

The analysts point out that the P.L.O. has always had political, military and terrorist components. Israelis like Tel Aviv University Professor of Arabic Studies Mattityahu Peled argue that if Arafat did forswear the use of force and go to Cairo, "he'd cease to be the leader of the P.L.O." Former State Department Official Harold Saunders believes that any decision by P.L.O. moderates to disarm under Israeli pressure would split the organization and lead to more terrorism among the radical fringes.

But Begin and other Israeli leaders have insisted for years that even if the P.L.O. did lay down its arms and be come a purely political entity, they would not recognize or deal with the organization they see as their obdurate enemy. As Israeli Cabinet Secretary Dan Meridor emphatically put it last week, "Israel will not negotiate ever with the organization calling itself the Organization to Liberate Palestine from the Jews--ever." Israeli strategy currently focuses on dealing with the more moderate Palestinian elements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. That is the aim of Begin's limited autonomy policy, which could conceivably be nudged toward a broader form of political self-expression for local Arabs but could never embrace the idea of a Palestinian state--militant or otherwise. "The next public debate in Israel," said former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Simcha Dinitz last week, "will not be over the possibility of annexing the West Bank or establishing a Palestinian state, but over reconciling Israel's wish for secure and recognizable boundaries with the interests of the Palestinians." That, indeed, has been the crux of the Middle East problem since 1948. Tanks, guns and bombs have never solved it.

--By Thomas A. Sancton. Reported by David Halevy/Jerusalem and William Stewart/Beirut

* In addition to Wazzan and Jumblatt, the seven-man National Salvation Committee includes: President Sarkis, a Maronite Christian; Foreign Minister Fuad Butros, a Greek Orthodox; Parliamentary Deputy Nasri al Mallouf, a Greek Catholic; Bashir Gemayel, a Maronite and leader of the combined Christian militia known as the Lebanese Forces; Nabeh Berri, a Shi'ite Muslim and leader of the Shi'ite militia known as Amal.

With reporting by David Halevy, William Stewart

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