Israel and the Lebanese Truce

...and that all the parties will realize Israel's warnings against outside intervention played a role in the outcome...

...The process was intensified when the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees (almost all Moslems) who had come to live in scores of camps throughout Lebanon heightened tensions and became an instrument for Palestinian and Syrian intervention...

...Pressured by Jumblat and Moslem Leftists, the Lebanese Parliament finally convened, and as Syria urged, voted to amend the Constitution to allow an orderly replacement of Franjieh...

...In this topsy-turvy situation, Sadat obviously hopes to demonstrate he is a more reliable friend of the Palestinians and Moslems than Assad is...

...So Israel finds itself facing an extremely difficult question: Which is the lesser evil, a Syrian-dominated Lebanon where the Christians still retain a measure of influence, or a Leftist-controlled Lebanon where the Syrians are removed from the picture...

...Israel's concerns amid all this Arab activity are necessarily even more complex...

...at least, they want to make certain Hussein would resist if Israel responded to a Syrian offensive by launching a counter-offensive via northern Jordan...

...Their anxieties were strengthened when the Syrian-officered As Saiqa "Palestinian" commandos enforced the latest cease-fire by moving with equal firmness against Fatah units and the rival Christian Phalangists...

...it urged replacing Franjieh with a Christian and other moves that stopped short of assuring Moslem dominance...

...But gradually the high Moslem birth rate, combined with a significant Christian emigration rate, shifted the balance...

...Democratic, Christian-dominated Lebanon had been the Jewish State's least troublesome Arab neighbor...

...It appeared Damascus would take control of most, if not all, of Lebanon...

...And as the Moslems began to express dissatisfaction at their position their radicalization was encouraged by neighboring Syria...

...The leaders of neighboring Iraq, on the other hand, are "radical" Baafhists and rather openly support their counterparts in Syria who want to overthrow Assad...

...and, to a lesser extent, Western Europe held things in check...

...Palestinians and Druze leader Kamal Jumblat, who emerged as the dominant figure of the Left, demanded the unconditional resignation of Lebanon's Christian President Suleiman Franjieh as well as far-reaching political changes that would give them the upper hand...

...Another difficult question involves intervention...

...As long as there is the faintest hope the Egyptian disengagement agreement might, despite everything, become the start of a gradual move away from war, Jerusalem would like to forestall a new conflict...

...This year it was translated into superior Moslem firepower, the stalemated local fighting begun in April 1975 flared into all-out war and a Christian retreat followed...

...But in a Syrian-imposed settlement the Beirut government would rule by the grace of Damascus, and southern Lebanon could become a well-prepared staging ground for a future Syrian attack on Israel...

...To further complicate matters, Egypt entered the picture...

...There is now a slim chance the new regime will be neither completely Leftist-dominated, nor wholly subservient to Damascus...

...The civil war and outside intervention has threatened to change this situation...

...Similarly, a pro-Fatah outcome would probably boost the PLO's prestige on the West Bank and possibly among Israeli Arabs, while an uncontested Syrian intervention would erode Sadat's prestige and undermine his more leisurely timetable for the next round with Israel...

...In the second case, of course, the neighboring territory would become a total Fatah sanctuary, exposing all of western and northern Galilee to escalating terrorist attacks...

...Sadat, siding with the guerrillas, sent his own "Palestinian Army" to protect the Fatah units (and Cairo's interests...

...The Christians were given more real power, though, because they were better educated and, by and large, wealthier, and because the state was intended to guarantee them a separate national entity...

...A third wrinkle is Palestinian unhappiness about the rapidly improving relations between Syria and Jordan...

...and the impotence of Western Europe all grew increasingly evident, the Syrian involvement and the Leftist ideological coloring of the Moslem side became much more pronounced...

...Some Christians, meanwhile, saw Damascus as their momentary protector...

...The hope here is that the need to produce answers to these questions will be obviated by events in Lebanon, and it could be fulfilled???if only temporarily...

...When the French established what came to be known as the Switzerland of the Levant after World War I, its constitutional structure assumed an equilibrium between Moslem and Christian Arabs, then roughly equal in numbers...

...Damascus, accusing Cairo of "opting out of the war" by signing the second (Sinai) disengagement agreement with Israel, has sought to insure that Jordan would not follow Egypt's course...

...For a time, the limited political support of the Christians by Israel, the U.S...

...Damascus, having second thoughts, insisted that the constitutional niceties be observed...

...Hafez al-Assad, belong to what in Leftist Arab terms is considered the "moderate" wing of the Baath party...

...Divided along religious lines, the Beirut government did not prevent the Palestinian guerrillas from moving their operations to Lebanon after Hussein crushed their attempt to overthrow him...

...On the other hand, Israel has warned against overt Syrian control in Lebanon with such consistency that its credibility would suffer dangerously should it fail to back up its words...

...Then the Moslems...

...At best, the Syrians would like Jordan to join them in attacking Israel and create a second front should they decide to renew the war without Egypt...

...Syria countered by mounting a coastal blockade of Lebanon, preventing more Egyptian reinforcements from landing...

...albeit through its Palestinian and Moslem proxies, since Jerusalem had warned that a substantial Syrian military presence would be considered an intolerable threat to Israel's security...

...Because of his running feud with Assad, President Anwar el-Sadat (who certainly is to the right of the moderate Baathists) threw his weight behind the Palestinians and the Leftists...

...Fatah soon charged the Syrians were conspiring with Hussein to destroy the Palestinians in Lebanon, just as the King defeated them in Jordan...

...Lebanon, however, also accepted the fact that Israeli forces would cross the border and attack Palestinian bases to curb the incursions...

...For one of the avowed aims of the Palestinians and Moslem Leftists is linking Lebanon to Syria and Egypt in an "Arab line of confrontation with Israel...

...Assad, besides his domestic considerations, wants to present an image of moderation and reasonableness as he attempts to establish a Lebanese regime beholden to him...

...With Jumblat veering sharply to the Left and clearly gaining Iraqi support, Assad began to fear that an ideologically hostile regime in Lebanon would strengthen his opposition...

...In the true Byzantine tradition of "mine enemy's enemy is my friend," Jerusalem and Cairo thus found themselves on the same side in appealing to Washington to caution Syria against imposing its solution by occupying Lebanon...

...Yet the situation there, and its implications for the entire Middle East, cannot be understood unless it is recognized that the violence which has upset the country's delicate Christian-Moslem balance is more a result of external machinations than of internal dissension...

...It avoided entering the wars of 1956, 1967 and 1973, and was always considered "the second country that would sign a peace treaty with Israel,' as soon as one of the bigger Arab countries took the step...

...As the restrictions upon Israel, the hesitation of the U.S...

...The explanation for this caution lies in Syria's domestic politics...

...Its present rulers, including President EILAHU SUPETER reports regulations regularly in these pages on Mideast affairs...

...The Palestinians feel the Syrian friendship confers respectability on Hussein in the "progressive" Arab camp and makes the Black September events seem forgivable...

...Southern sections of the country became "Fatahland," ruled by the terrorist bands who launched raids into nearby Israel...