Can Lebanon be left alone?

Press, 26 August 1982, Page 20

Can Lebanon be left alone?

Argument about the civilian casualties and the damage caused by the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon has masked understanding of the Israelis’ behaviour in the last 10 weeks. Criticism of Israel is easy and not without foundation. Nevertheless, if a rapid Arab attack had overrun much of Israel, so that a remnant of the Israeli armed forces was bailed up in Tel Aviv, would the victorious Arabs have waited for more than two months while the rest of the world attempted to find homes for the Israeli soldiers? Would Israeli civilians have streamed towards Arab lines, welcoming the conquerors as liberators? The answer to both questions must be “No.” Once Israel decided that the behaviour of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation in southern Lebanon had become intolerable it acted swiftly, with great vigour. Many Lebanese have been killed or injured; a great deal of damage has been done. Lebanese have every reason to protest that others, including the Israelis, have chosen their country in which to settle arguments by force. Even so, the Lebanese so far have shown a decided preference for the Israelis, rather than for the Arab armies they have displaced. Perhaps the unfortunate Lebanese feel that they have no choice or that, if the P.L.O. forces are dislodged, the Israelis will withdraw and stay away. Amid protests about the June invasion it has been easy to forget that the Israelis are the third foreign army to impose its rule over a portion of Lebanon. The P.L.0., and their Syrian allies in the guise of an “Arab, peace-keeping force,” have been there for years. Lebanon, divided into warring factions and cursed by geography to be a wedge between Syria and Israel, has not been master of its own destiny for nearly a decade. Lebanese have suffered additional misery because the P.L.O. has been adept at siting its military positions in the midst of civilians — Lebanese as well as ’Palestinian refugees. The Lebanese administration has been too. weak to evict them. The result has been high civilian casualties in spite of Israeli restraint. Most of the disgust from Lebanese has been directed where it should be — at the P.L.0., in spite of sustained effort by the P.L.O. and their friends to saddle the Israelis with responsibility for “atrocities.”

To many Lebanese, the departure of the P.L.O. is welcome. No people likes to see a sizeable portion of its territory administered, or looted at will, by an unwelcome and seemingly permanent foreign presence. Lebanese reports suggest that the P.L.O. “refugees” have been greedy and sometimes brutal neighbours. As the P.L.O. leave, the Israelis, an army of citizen soldiers called from their normal lives, appear to be making a start on their own withdrawal. Israel’s internal politics, and its economic difficulties, make it difficult for the country to fight a long war, or to mount a long-occupation in Lebanon. * Satisfaction’ in Israel, and in much of Lebanon, because the P.L.O. has been dispersed, may be destroyed by what happens in the next few months. Israel’s supporters in Lebanon, many of them Christians, have won a political victory. They are not likely to be accepted as rulers by many of Lebanon’s Muslims. Much of the Syrian army of occupation remains in central Lebanon. Lebanon without the P.L.O. has still to shake off its other armies of occupation before it can discover whether something like independence and normal, political management is possible after nearly a decade of strife. If Lebanon’s religious communities, and the factions within those communities, discover that they cannot co-operate after all that has happened, each will be tempted to call on its supporters outside the country. This could well lead to the tragedy of a new and fiercer war between Israel and Syria, fought on Lebanese soil. Israel has still to prove that the invasion of Lebanon has been worth the cost in lives, and in approbrium in many parts of the world. The P.L.0., dispersed among seven or eight Arab countries, many of them far from Israel, may be impotent for years. On the other hand, the dispersal of the Palestinians may provide focal points to build up greater Arab support for a crusade against Israel. Israel has achieved a kind of security on its northern border that it has not known for a decade. Lebanon is being rid of one unwelcome occupation. Any more lasting Middle East settlement, which would require a resolution of Israel’s occupation of Palestine west of the Jordan river, remains as remote as ever.