From nation to factions:
Donohue, John J.
since Pius XII," a judgment which many consider too modest. media-or perhaps precisely because of this inundation- Is it too much to hope that a Pope who has shown himself to people...
...The It would take a heavy dose of charisma and extremely astute drama came in President Sarkis's threat to resign which placed political maneuvering for a powerless president to assert his him at the center of the international scene and offered posauthority, legitimate though it may be...
...The Biqa' that Syria was finding it difficult to get a firm grasp on plain to the east is fully controlled by the Syrians...
...against the background of Palestinian attacks against Israel On the political front, President Sarkis had been working and Israeli retaliatory bombings in Lebanon...
...Everyone was content to repeat old decisions concerning Palestinian is necessary: the Syrians are necessary to prevent the war behavior and the role of the ADF, and to form a committee to between Christians and the coalition of Palestinians and Lef- help President Sarkis control the ADF...
...They are the various powers that the border villages controlled by the army and militias col- are trying to solve the Middle East crisis while avoiding the laborating with Israel...
...have taken place in Lebanon since this article was Meanwhile the situation had been worsened when a written: an attempt to establish Lebananese govern- Palestinian attack, on April 22, against the Israeli town of ment military control in the south and a plan for improving Nahariya provoked three days of Israeli gunboat shelling of internal Lebanese political conditions...
...He is faced by at least two oppositions, if pointing out that the ADF was not controlled by President not three...
...and regional politics that were sucking its marrow...
...The threads are snarled into a series of regional problems which frustrates all the partial attempts at repair...
...The revolution of the venerable ascetic Front...
...a support force for the Army and Internal Security Forces...
...ingredient of Mrs...
...At one point it was proposed that the Army be flown in by helicopter to avoid this problem...
...Syria north the Syrians are in control in collaboration with the Sunni looked on quietly from the other side of the "red-line...
...leader of Tripoli, Rashid Karame, and the Maronite feudal lord A Lebanese government crisis in April and May illustrated of Zghorta, former President Suleiman Frangieh...
...On April 26 the UN Security Council commended Lebanon for taking steps to assert its authority T WO DEVELOPMENTS, one military, the other political, over the south...
...the plan, the Lebanese discussed it with Syrian Foreign As it headed south of the Litani river, this contingent was Minister Abdul Halim Khaddam on his visit to Beirut the blocked by the forces of Major Haddad, the controversial first week of May...
...The hope put in Arab diplomatic pressure to ence of Beit-al-Din in mid-October 1978...
...The presence or absence militias is enough to convince anyone that declarations of of a Shah matters little...
...National Movement militias control most of the area from the Meanwhile, if anyone is looking for culprits, the real ones Litani river south, except for the points held by UNIFIL and do not appear on the scene...
...They have nothing to do with the political their quarters by the Syrian troops of the Arab Deterrent Force and military reality...
...The Foreign Ministers tists from erupting...
...From nation to factions Lebanon, and the then French Foreign Minister, de GuirinJOHN J. DONOHUE gaud, stated a few days later that the one responsible was LEBANON at present is "distracted from distraction by former President Chamoun, leader of the Christian Lebanese distraction...
...Sondheim's Sweeney oughly partisan...
...Anyone who can single out the forces of good and the In some cases, the horror is laced with macabre humor, in powers of evil in the Lebanese_ embroglio is deluded or thor- others, by a compulsion to preach...
...This official view is based on the preYasir Arafat and Ayatollah Khomeini form the latest stratum sumption that the ADF is the legitimate force of order in of a thick deposit of posters celebrating martyrs and political Lebanon under control of President Elias Sarkis and will anniversaries...
...sometimes he is a madman, sometimes a villain...
...The zone of East Beirut up to Jbeil is in Lebanon...
...8 June 1979: 337 the facts have belied the hope...
...The Foreign Minis- solve the crisis has all but collapsed...
...The Leftists want to clean out the political deadwood borrowed by mid-century publishers, has shocks of hair jutting (especially in the Sunni community) and open the way to new out from a head like a wood block, sitting on an even more and younger forces...
...But for the rest, the Conference all the parties remain in place there can be no accord...
...The Christians, with very good reason, do not touches most of those bases and, surprisingly, comes across as want to be absorbed into Syria and become the second-class a unified piece-a funny, scary tract for our time...
...about the possibility when he publicly declared, on the eve of There is more to it than that...
...The same day Haddad declared this six-mile ing broke out between some members of these two parties...
...On May 15, al-Ross submitted his resignation, Israeli troops in lanury 1978...
...According to the New background was the new defense law that the government York Times (May 5), this plan called for UN forces to take adopted after four years of pressure to take authority over over the areas occupied by Haddad's militia, for the Palesthe Lebanese army away from the President and the tinian resistance operations from Lebanon against Israel to commander-in-chief (both Christians) and transfer it to the be halted, for the Syrian forces to withdraw from around the prime minister (a Muslim) and a Defense Council...
...From Sidon north to that the Syrians were not responsible for what happened in West Beirut the Syrians of the Arab Deterrent Force (ADF) control with a variety of Palestinians, Jumblatists, Nasserites, FATHER JOHN J. DONOHUE, S.J., is an American Jesuit long stationed Marxists and others...
...The Lebanese Front led by former President Camille Sarkis but was an occupying force controlled from Damascus...
...The United Nations Interim Syria wants at least indirect control of Lebanon and the PalesForce in Lebanon (UNIFIL) came into the south in March to tinians as a defense against Israel and as a means of dominating assure the application of UN Security Council Resolution 425, the Middle East which has been lacking a leader since the namely evacuation of Israeli forces and the re-establishment of political death of Nasser in 1967...
...It does not take much imagination to guess how the various parties line up on these questions...
...To win Syrian support for government assume a symbolic sovereignty over the south...
...They split the Lebanese Front by weaning away former heavily Maronite Catholic and claim to be defending an inde- President Suleiman Frangieh, thus assuring that the north pendent Lebanon against a Syrian takeover...
...The pretext for a punitive action was Within the National Movement is a group of pro-Syrian parties not long in coming...
...Sunni and Shiite Muslims To begin with, there is the melodrama...
...tional Movement presents a more homogeneous front...
...the Christian militias are necessary to militia in the south which with Israeli help control the villages prevent a full Syrian take-over of Lebanon, etc., etc...
...simple greed...
...The Kata'ib militia overreacted to Franand organizations formed during the 18-month war under the gieh's "treachery" and to continued provocations from his title of the Patriotic Front...
...Syria turned, instead, to tightening its grip on the parts ISRAEL`--' d of Lebanon where its troops had freedom of movement...
...Len Cariou, looking would like to profit from the mess to get a fairer share of rather like the Sweeney Todd in the British Museum print power...
...The Palestinians want to be sure their blockish body...
...But after all the foreign soldiers and officers...
...Today Iran, tomorrow Palestine," and Syrians were shelling the Christian quarters of Beirut...
...Some400,000 Palestinians in Lebanon be absorbed into the times Todd is motivated by a desire for revenge, sometimes by Lebanese population...
...the tian controlled areas or follow a route through Palestinian-held Lebanese...
...The Map reprinted from Lebanon in Crisis: Participants signals of the change were a clash between Syrians and the new and Issues, ed...
...They remain committed to a united, inte- 1840...
...wide area to be an independent territory called Free Leba- JOSEPH L. RYAN non...
...and France have done everything possible to particular revival than about the complex appeal that the grisly cultivate Syria, hoping to draw her into an overall settlement in story has had for audiences since early in the nineteenth centhe area...
...Will the Army go south to assert Lebanese sovereignty over the Palestinian Resis- Stage tance, or to clear out the forces collaborating with Israel...
...In late 1976, the Christians 500 miles away and the Iranians are not Arabs...
...but it is terribly Lebanon will remain free...
...They are May...
...Fighting between the two which was accepted...
...Neither appears ready to make any fuss over Lebanon tury...
...the original melodrama's "admirable objective was to stun its French Foreign Minister De Guiringaud removed any doubts audiences with a holocaust of thrills, horrors and shocks...
...WI rH THE SITUATION stymied within Lebanon, and with the The Saudis did manage to tone down Syrian arrogance for a apparent failure of Arab attempts to loosen the deadlock, time and the Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon was active in the only other possible agency is international...
...Also in the on a plan for national reconciliation...
...parties are still demanding that certain of its recommendations The latest major presentation in the game was the Confer- be carried out...
...be so articulate a spokesman of the gospel will insist that those Today, more than ever, the people of God need the impasin this country who share a measure of his eloquence (some of sioned and clear proclamation of the Word if they are to fulfill them already in episcopal orders) be identified and placed in the commission given to them in baptism and confirmation: positions from which they can give inspiration and hope to the "to shine like stars in a dark world and proffer the word of life, people of God in this time of confusion and discouragement...
...Lebanese politics...
...All the That summer of 1978 began with a touch of irony and high parties and organizations in the movement have armed drama...
...This the Christians were not doing...
...Less than two years later the same ping and chanting...
...targets in southern Lebanon, which forced 45,000 refugees The attempt at military control of the south occurred to flee from the areas around the southern seaport of Tyre...
...ters of the Arab countries involved in the ADF met to arrange the Lebanese problem and clear the way for a national accord...
...Many Christians are convinced that naive...
...in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation" (Phil...
...population of a Muslim country...
...The only basis Khomeini's feat has had little resonance in the Christian of accord among the multiple religious and political groups in areas of Lebanon, except for the slight tremor of fear which Lebanon, so the reasoning runs, is cooperation with the legititalk of an Islamic Republic provokes...
...TRAPPED BY SWEENEY TODD Meanwhile, the UN and its financing powers chafe at the inefficacy of the operation...
...On April 18, Haddad's militia blockaded Pierre Gemayel and the National Liberal party under roads leading into the area and his guns shelled the UN post Camille Chamoun would be united circulated even as fightat Naqura...
...Thus would the Lebanese office two-and-a-half years ago...
...Sadat's visit deflated the Syrians, and actually isolated them...
...Then there are the Shiites who claim to be the most first shelling on July 1st, two days after President Sarkis had numerous of the 17 officially recognized religious com- announced a new security plan which would recast the ADF as munities in Lebanon...
...President Sarkis is sibilities for him to shake Lebanon loose from the petty local neither charismatic nor politically astute...
...By permis-' Beirut, then a clash with Christian militias in a southern suburb sion of the publisher...
...Then President Sarkis went to Damascus leader of the Christian militia which has controlled the for a summit on May 14-15 with President Hfiz al-Asad of border zone along the Israeli line since the withdrawal of the Syria...
...The toll was some 600 killed, through a small contingent of the Lebanese army supported by 25,000 wounded, and 35,000 dwellings destroyed...
...This propositions and declarations form part of the game of Christian collaboration with Israel is a black mark in the mind charades the major parties to the conflict are playing while they of Arab governments and hinders them from putting more wait for something to happen on the Middle East scene which pressure on Syria...
...A quick look at the division of power in Lebanon today, the U.S...
...However, since campaign" aimed at shelling the remnant of the Lebanese the Baghdad summit and Iraqi-Syrian coordination, the Na- Front into submission...
...the last renewal of the UNIFIL " WHIMSICAL TALE," Robert Benchley said of the mandate, for 5 and not for 6 months, was a reminder to the 1924 revival of Sweeney Todd, "and told with Lebanese government...
...when occasion provided...
...The scene was set for Syria's "summer the other groups in the National Movement...
...WITH FRIENDS LIKE LEBANON'S, WHO NEEDS ENEMIES...
...considerable unction in the manner of plays of And the powers...
...Everyone which ring the border with Israel, and was also a warning to has solid reasons for trusting no one else...
...Move north a bit and there are the death and destruction, Vice President Mondale proclaimed men of the Palestinian armed resistance...
...Syria put aside all pretense of disarming the Palestinians and pressuring them to limit their presence in south Lebanon (two' tasks assigned to the ADF by the Riadh-Cairo summits of 1976...
...But the Moreover, to unravel the main threads of the Lebanese dramatic moment slipped by and the bombardment of ChrisCommonweal: 336 tian residential areas continued into October when the Security cooling off the flash points where Syrians were in contact with Council stepped in...
...Lovett's celebrated-meat pies...
...The orators declaimed the irresistible force of "the people's will...
...They control the frontier with Israel...
...Lebanese sovereignty in the area...
...Both have armed militias...
...Reports that the Kata'ib party under forces broke out...
...There were many obstacles but the most On the political level, President Sarkis is also hard-pressed obvious one was the Lebanese Front which was intent on to find supporters...
...If the Lebanese Army is sent to collabo- basic problem-the Palestinians...
...It is possible that Washington and Paris did Sweeney Todd, Stephen Sondheim's musical return to the put some pressure on Syria after the October shelling which Demon Barber of Fleet Street...
...White-faced, menacing even in repose, he is "revolution" is not strangled before a Palestinian state is almost a puppet scare figure, a calculated contrast to Ken created-a solid base in Lebanon is their only assurance...
...and oiliness Obviously, it is not just the power groups in Lebanon who are is a function of character rather than style in the newest playing charades...
...Lebanese crowds moved through ADF, who came to put an end to the 18-month war which had the Muslim-dominated quarters firing automatic rifles, clap- torn the country apart...
...In the 8 June /979: 335 socio-political fabric and resplice them is next to impossible as long as Lebanon cannot be isolated, at least momentarily, from the surrounding problems of the area...
...Up to that point Syria had been boasting that it was Syria who would decide whether there would be war or peace in the Middle East...
...The two incidents were punctuated by a massive Israeli invasion of south Lebanon in March...
...The Palestinians and Iran introduces a new factor which is difficult to evaluate...
...This was directed at the army contingent and legality without him...
...remain such until the Lebanese army is rebuilt...
...The intention alters, just as the President Sarkis's visit to Paris in December, that the only plot does, from one version of Sweeney Todd to another, from reasonable solution to the Palestinian problem is that the play to penny dreadful, from novel to music hall song...
...and the settlement would be under their control and the remainder of the Front of 400,000 Palestinians in Lebanon...
...Iran is some It was all rather confusing...
...Besides, the Palestinians were south of the Litani river, _Rtr.u•-•h ".10 GO AN the "red-line" beyond which Israelis would not tolerate ADF troops...
...At this distance, the unctuous was so savage that even Washington was embarrassed, but whimsy that Benchley's review conjures tells us less about a publicly, the U.S...
...territory...
...students are hanging posters proclaiming that despite Carter, The analysis is convenient, even logical...
...But there too UN Secretary General Waldheim and denied by Prime LEBANON UPDATE Minister Begin...
...Christian militias-until he was shot in the leg flying over The dilemma of Lebanon is that no meaningful accord can Christian territory and then brought under leftist fire while be achieved without the consent of all the parties, but as long as recuperating in the hospital...
...tians had expected a sympathetic response from the United Then there are the 6,000 men of the United Nations Interim States with its verbal insistence on human rights, and from Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) composed of an assortment of France with its historical ties to Lebanon...
...They too have a militia...
...What matters to them is their continued support for a united, sovereign, independent and integral independent existence...
...by P. Edward Haley and Lewis W. Lebanese Army in February 1978 at a barracks just outside Snider, Syracuse University Press, 1979...
...of Beirut in April...
...The promises, Chamoun and Gemayel who receive arms from Israel...
...But, no welcomed the entry of the Syrian troops, the bulk of the 30,000 matter, they are Muslims...
...media-or perhaps precisely because of this inundationIs it too much to hope that a Pope who has shown himself to people today are as hungry as ever for the Word of God...
...These snarls, in fact, explain why Lebanon is worse off now than it was two years ago at the end of the war...
...But the forces in Lebanon that are waiting for some dramatic the problem is, who will assert Lebanese sovereignty in the development in the area...
...Ayatollah Khomeini has taken front stage...
...Israeli support of Haddad in preventing the Lebanese (Joseph L. Ryan, S.J., Rector of the Jesuit C.ornmunity, army contingent from moving southward was protested by Holy Cross College, lived in Beirut from 1971 to 1975...
...The other opposition is would be hemmed into central Lebanon where strategically the National Movement made up of a variety of nationalist, located Syrian troops could easily administer the coup de grace Nasserite, and Marxist groups along with some independents...
...In their attempt to bury the rate with or relieve the UNIFIL will they pass through Chris- Palestinian problem in Lebanon, the powers have created...
...THE TURNING-POINT was Sadat's visit to Jerusalem in November 1977...
...Christians were crying "genocide," but American and French The shouting is over now, but its traces remain on the walls of spokesmen adopted the official Syrian position and shouted West Beirut, Sidon, Tyre and Tripoli where colored posters of back "provocation...
...Lebanon pivoting around the legitimate authority are the stuff They are still smarting from the savage bombardment of of poetry and myth...
...In an author's note in the program, Sondheim says that which will most likely be sacrificed for an overall accord...
...In any case, months after the Conference all will turn the balance in their favor...
...President Sarkis is necessary because it did add a new note, in condemning all those who collaborate would be -impossible to maintain the facade of unity and with Israel...
...The government would be content to put a merely symbolic force in the area which would in fact do nothing-but the DINNER MUSIC various forces involved cannot even agree on a symbol...
...And Jennings's sweetly boyish Tobias, Sarah Rice's picturebook Commonweal: 338...
...The Chris- Lebanese Front militias...
...this group sometimes acts inde- strong men by assassinating Frangieh's son along with some pendently to support Syrian positions not always acceptable to 30 others in mid-June...
...Chamoun groups his National Liberal Party and the Kata'ib The Syrians found the apparent key to their problems in Party of Pierre Gemayel...
...dominated by the Christian Lebanese Front militias...
...Lebanon became a strategic necessity for Syrian defense...
...plan has been to hand Lebanon over to Syria and to the proliferation of foreign armies and the ubiquity of armed encourage emigration of Christians...
...The Israelis did withdraw The sudden romance of Syria and Iraq and the moderate tone finally, leaving the border area in the hands of the "friendly" of the Baghdad summit in December are signs that it is not only army detachment there and Christian and Shiite militias...
...The irony was in the fact that the Syrians launched their militias...
...In East Beirut Christian mate authority...
...On April city of Beirut, and for a new government of politicians 17 a small contingent of the army (about 500 men) was representing the various political groups in the country to ordered to move south to take up a position next to the UN replace the present government of technocrats, which had command headquarters at Naqura, a Lebanese village on been in office since Prime Minister Selim al-Ross took the coast near the Israeli border...
...2, Despite the flood of words hurled at us by the modern l 5f...
...Whimsical may not be the exact word to describe the gral, sovereign and independent Lebanon, and they stand fully story of a homicidal barber whose victims become the chief behind legitimate authority as represented by President Sarkis...
...Now, the Khomeini revolution in south if, by chance, it is re-established...
...ADF) last summer, and from the American and French re- In the south of Lebanon there are the Israelis who act sponses to that operation...
Vol. 106 • June 1979 • No. 11
