Impressions from Beirut

...But even this group acknowledges, with sadness, that the major 1 "Le Manifeste du 5 juin 1967," Esprit, March 1968, p. 438...

...Anti-Semitism exists in Lebanon...

...For the second group, the more moderate Palestinians, such a possibility is not unwelcome provided it is accompanied by their recognition...

...Among the independent writers is the "poet of Lebanon," Adonis, alias Ali Ahmed Said, who writes for the newspaper Lisan al-Hal and recently launched a new journal entitled, Mawaqif (Positions...

...and the U.S.S.R., as it excludes the basic question of why Lebanese and Palestinians are hostile to Israel to begin with...

...the first a nation, the second a potential nation in search of recognition...

...Adonis is in close touch with the Baghdadi poet Jabra L. Jabra, the writer Layla Baalbaki who scandalized Beirut with her novel I Live, and a host of other writ ers in the city...

...All these men keep returning to the Palestinian question and the impact of the June War...

...Among the latter are academicians as well as lawyers, a profession which has traditionally supplied Lebanon's ruling class...

...Maintaining its traditional noncommitted pose, the Lebanese government does not seek opportunities to take a radical stand on the question of Israel...

...Yet the generalization remains accurate...

...Adonis represents the secular intellectuals, of whom there are a substantial number...

...In fact, the sectarian nature of Lebanese society explains in part the Lebanese response to Israel...

...With this new "realism," the treatment of the Palestinians at the hands of individual Arab governments is also no longer hidden...

...Formal organizations, such as the CUnacle Libanais, directed by the sophisticated Michel Asmar, represent a tendency both closely attuned to Western thought and representative of the concerns of Arab intellectuals...

...Palestinians are publicly endorsed, al-Fatah is admired, but Palestinians within the refugee camps in Lebanon remain under the usual surveillance...

...There is still a difference between sympathizing with Fatah, which is not new, and following the path of Hussein, who appears to have virtually lost control of his Jordanian Kingdom...

...Opinions may vary, but most agree that these people have become a factor to be reckoned with...

...For the third group, which includes men with a vague nostalgia for the binationalism discussed in earlier days, implementation of such a plan is unclear...

...And again, those Lebanese who support the Palestinians as a whole, do not condemn the terrorism, because they feel it is as justified as was the Algerian terrorism against the French during the war of 1954 62...

...Individual Palestinians who have become members of Fatah complain that they are as much under Lebanese scrutiny as they are under that of the Israelis...

...It seeks good relations with its sometimes difficult Arab neighbors, which in practice means pursuing the "normal" line on Israel...

...For this, the poet is naturally suited since all creation entails risk, struggle, and the destruction of forms that are considered obsolete...

...More single-minded in their political activity are such men as Walid Khalidi, the Palestinian political scientist at the American University of Beirut, Constantin Zurayq, eminent historian at the same university, and Gebran Majdalany, the wellknown Ba'thist lawyer who is a frequent participant in discussions between European and Arab socialists...

...and organized activity in the city, among Palestinians who are not bound to the camps, remains under an irregular but more or less constant watch...

...There are the Palestinians themselves, there are the Lebanese militants who support them, and there are the political dilettantes who latched on to them...

...Not that all Christians, that is to say Lebanese Maronites and Greek Orthodox, are intolerant of Arab unity or Arab nationalism...

...As in 1948, although not yet to the same extent, there is a decided relationship between military defeat and internal political developments...

...Some of the intellectuals are familiar with the works of Sartre, Camus, Yevtushenko, Voznezenski, and Adam Schaaf, as well as with the writings of Egyptian realists and Abbassid poets...

...Europeans and Americans may lament the ignorance of recent history which explains this to their satisfaction...

...In Beirut, I rael is openly discussed, and an effort of sorts is made through the libraries of the Palestine Research Institute and the Palestine Liberation Organization to educate the population about Israel and the Jewish question...

...The IRENE GENDZIER Protocols of the Elders of Zion are to be found in local bookstores along with Ford's anti-Semitic tracts...

...In Lebanon, as elsewhere in the Arab world, one of the results of the June War was the emergence of the Palestinians as a separate political force...

...Lebanon does not differ significantly in this regard...

...At the present time, this potential concern cannot counteract the fear Israel inspires, particularly in regard to possible territorial expansion...

...Today, it is the science of meaning, the meaning of History, of society, of the truth, of the universe...

...For the sake of accuracy, it should be said that public opinion in the United States remains behind the times in this respect...

...That such a process of modernization will have to occur in a political environment dominated by nationalism is accepted without argument...

...The War destroyed the myth of Arab solidarity as well as the promise of liberation...

...But it is axiomatic, at least among radicals encountered in Lebanon, that the Palestine question, the military defeat, and the more profound explanations for the disparity between Israeli and Arab society reflect a turning point within the Arab world...

...Something of this sort also disturbs Lebanese who cannot or choose not to accept Israel as an all-Jewish state...

...But as the populace grows more impatient with the privileged position that the Lebanese Maronites and Greek Orthodox have held, and as these two groups become more involved in the Palestine question, it is reasonable to predict that the direction of Lebanon's foreign policy may also change...

...This discussion, admittedly a limited one, excludes the U.S...

...This prospect is not regarded as unfortunate by those Palestinians who see their activity as mainly negative, that is a disruptive one, which they regard as a preliminary to positive action...

...It comes as no surprise to those familiar with resistance movements of this kind, that the more activist militants often come to the fore...

...Westerners are on occasion suspicious of Hourani, feeling he speaks freely only because he is a wandering intellectual...

...It is common knowledge that Lebanon was reticent in its relations with more militant Arab nationalist governments, expressing the fear among its Christian population of being absorbed in a Muslim Arab union...

...Although Hourani is considered somewhat suspect in more militant circles, it is nevertheless characteristic of the post-1967 War period that there is less talk about revolution, socialism, or ideology than there was in an earlier period...

...It is this which they are afraid to see blurred by the Arab governments that claim to speak for them...

...But after all, the need to modernize and to become "scientific" was felt as a result of the very same situations which first inspired the emergence of an intense nationalism...

...Adonis expressed the senti ments of many of his followers and associ ates in his eloquent "Manifesto of June 5," which appeared in Beirut and subsequently in the French liberal Catholic periodical, Esprit...

...An independent, itinerant critic, he is attacked by militant Arab nationalists who are annoyed by his criticism and who resent his irregular residence in Lebanon...

...The long-term causes, he writes, remain the same: "the disparity of civilization is at the root" of the defeat and it can only be remedied by making Arab society "scientific...

...The change in the Lebanese Cabinet that followed on the Beirut raid suggests that a more lenient line will be pursued with respect to Palestinians in Lebanon...

...To say that they are moderate, however, should not raise false ideas as to their methods...

...Art is no longer the science of formal aesthetics...

...ity of Lebanese are not about to abandon their religious outlooks...

...One has only to go to Jerusalem or Tel Aviv to hear countless discussions on what is to be done with the Palestinians...

...For the same reason, Lebanon's attitude toward Israel has differed from that of her neighbors in its striking moderation...

...but it is also a fact of life that the recent history Israel brings to our mind is not the same to the Lebanese...

...PALESTINIANS WHO JOIN Fatah and those who are engaged in political action share the same position on one key issue: not that Israel must be destroyed, but that they must achieve some form of recognition for themselves as a distinct people...

...That terrorism will polarize sentiment between Israel and the Arab world at large, seems fairly obvious...

...There is a concentration of cosmopolitan characters from various corners of the Arab world, who congregate to conspire or to evade conspiracy...

...In his "Manifesto of June 5, 1967," Adonis sees the June War as provoking a crisis of conscience, and he questions the complacency and myths current in the Arab world today...

...The experiences of the last months confirm it...

...In fact, Hourani speaks in the same way whether he is in the East or the West...

...Adonis' language makes it clear that he thinks as a poet, but the context of his words makes it equally clear that the changes he seeks to inspire are themselves inspired by external conditions and, specifically, by the events of June 5. While the references to man in History or man making History may strike a Westerner as a form of retarded sophistication, it is important to recall that Lebanon is not only a pluralist society, but also a society in which religion is not easily or publicly dismissed...

...Some factions among the Lebanese intellectuals are allied to the local Establishment, This essay, in an earlier draft, was written in the fall of 1968, shortly after a trip to Beirut...

...Thus far, it has not yet happened...

...Majdalany, the Lebanese Ba'thist mentioned earlier, writes and talks against it, though he is also passionately anti-Zionist and a fervent supporter of al-Fatah...

...The ties that connect the Arab thinker with himself, that link him with the truth, that connect him with liberty, are all broken...

...Among members of Fatah encountered in Beirut, some were devoted to the idea that Israel must be totally "liberated," while others spoke in terms of coexistence, and still others spoke of the creation of a pluralist state...

...But it may be wise to bear in mind that the example of Jordan is not a tempting one to governments that do not want to be forcibly engaged in total mobilization...

...Some observers anticipated a dramatic change in Egypt after Nasser's gesture of resignation...

...The first and the third groups have something in common in that they challenge the existence of the state of Israel as it is...

...There is atradition of more than one religious outlook, and it is this familiarity with a multiplicity of gods, Muslim and Christian, that explains the traditional tension between Lebanon and its Arab-Muslim neighbors...

...2 The last prerequisite is the destruction of tradition, of habit...

...The "moderate" Palestinians are those, then, who are prepared to begin from today...

...on the contrary, exceptions are wellknown...

...And there is a passionate interest in the Palestinian dilemma—which is not a way of avoiding use of the word "Israel," but refers to the Palestinians who are recognized as a growing force in the Arab world...

...For the first group, a political solution to the conflict appears threatening, since it implies some form of mutual recognition...

...The Cenacle organizes lectures on political and literary matters, and for the past twenty years it has sought to maintain the "flame of learning and critical thought" alive in the heart of the Arab world...

...It does not encourage the "radical" thinking that flourishes in Beirut, let alone that found in Damascus or Cairo...

...His association with President Bourguiba of Tunisia has not endeared him to people who dislike Bourguiba's position on Israel, or his relations with France...

...And in a society deprived of meaning, the individual can only lead a life that is also deprived of meaning...

...The emphasis seems to be on opening doors which, except to the governmental elite, have remained forcibly shut for many years...

...Historical works dealing with the evolution of the Jewish question in 19th-century Europe are to be found along with Israeli periodicals and European journals dealing with Israel and the Middle East...

...The dangers of antiSemitism are recognized and discussed by a number of Lebanese intellectuals...

...Disillusioned with the promises of solidarity, which had become articles of religious faith for the past 20 years, the Palestinians, now dispersed throughout the Arab world, were forced by the defeat of June to reconsider their position...

...Balanced material is as accessible as that which is partisan and distorted...

...2 Ibid., p. 442...

...Like others given to revolutionary terminology, he explains that political change could only follow upon the transformation of Arab man...

...To talk of the Palestinians in Beirut is not a simple matter...

...IRENE GENDZIER Cecil Hourani, best known in this country for his important essay "The Moment of Truth," which was reprinted in the November 1967 issue of Encounter (after having appeared in the Beirut daily, an-Nahar), is in a category by himself...

...Without entering into that historic debate, but accepting the existence of Israel and the presence of Palestinians as accomplished facts, the prospects for peace in the Middle East would seem to dictate a conciliation of some kind between these two peoples...

...We live today in a world of masks...

...T T HE PUBLIC SUPPORT for Fatah is one of the more striking features of the Beirut political scene, and one that runs counter to the moderation that had thus far characterized Lebanon...

...This entails a concentrated dose of what made the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution possible in Western Europe, with attention paid to the differences in the societies involved—which in turn may make impossible or extremely difficult the adaptations he proposes...

...In one or two instances I have added a few remarks.—I...

...Within the country, no trouble is wanted, and the Palestinians who are in the several camps of Lebanon are watched so that they will not take action that might embarrass the government...

...Let him begin by rebuilding them...

...And there are individuals engaged mainly in political activity, although they are not professional politicians...

...Hourani is an exponent of realism, and he exposed what he considers the unrealistic exploitation of foreign ideologies, of the Marxist variety in particular, by the more vociferous Arab regimes...

...But let him know that all that surrounds him is an obstacle, and that he begins from nothing, and that his own life may be one of the sacrifices which his struggle will exact.' "Creation-action" refers to the process by which the transformation of Arab man will take place...

...For that, according to Adonis, there are three prerequisites: IMPRESSIONS FROM BEIRUT the advent of liberty, creation-action, the rape of habit...

...If inconsistent, the pattern is not difficult to understand...

...N "THE MOMENT OF TRUTH" Cecil Hou rani urged a reevaluation of the Arab nations' method of dealing with Israel and Zionism, suggesting what may be termed a gradualist approach...

...The intellectuals who would be happy to see a secular state established in Lebanon criticize Israel for its emphasis on an exclusively Jewish population...

...It involves his "participation in the movement of History": Today, more than ever, History calls us...

...In any case, those Israelis prepared to endorse such a creation are a minority, but not as insignificant as one might suppose in the United States...

...They do not speak of accommodation, in any form, with Israel...

...In Beirut there is the accustomed freedom of speech, one of that city's singular virtues...

...Constantin Zurayq, who published The Meaning of Disaster in 1948, has come out with a new account of the most recent disaster...

...In the ab ence of any official word of recognition , or potential interest from Israel, the Palestinians appear to be convinced that their role must be to disrupt the exchanges that take place between the Israeli and Arab governments...

...In less difficult times, there might have been a natural attraction between those Israelis and Lebanese who are concerned with the problems of secularism in nonsecular societies...

...G. whether by taste, class, or ambition...

...The events in the Middle East that have since occurred, while serious enough, do not, in my judgment, significantly change the impressions and conclusions noted here...

...How this is to take place, what the relationship of this future Palestinian entity will be to Jordan and to Israel, and what the form of this Palestinian community will be, are questions no one has fully answered...

...On the Israeli side, my conversations with officials and concerned individuals, including Israeli Arabs, made it quite clear that terrorism would not force the government to change its position, and it might, on the contrary, turn away those who are most prepared to think in terms of the creation of some kind of Palestinian entity...

...In our next issue we expect to print a letter from Jerusalem which will provide another analysis of events in the Middle East.—ED...

...THE JUNE WAR and the continuing Middle East tensions have not produced the same effect in Beirut as they have in Cairo or Amman...

...The first issue that must be confronted is not the support of Palestinian terrorism, which is an undeniable aspect of Fatah militancy, but rather why the Palestinians have suddenly begun to loom so large on the scene...

...But there are also independent writers who work for the many newspapers published in the capital...

...that is, as a Jewish state...

...They are convinced, I believe in a dangerous and erroneous way, that terrorism is the only thing that will convince Israelis to take the Palestinians seriously...

...The Lebanese intellectuals, who are sympathetic to this position, may disagree among themselves as to their stand on Israel, but IMPRESSIONS FROM BEIRUT they agree that the time has come to help the Palestinians form a political community of their own...

...Though politically oriented and increasingly active, they share not so much a common political outlook as a conviction that as responsible intellectuals they must be committed to the reform of their society...