Lebanon's Uneasy Peace

...Fairly convinced now that neither France nor the United States, their two main hopes, will support them against the Moslem Left, the Maronites and their Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox allies are busy rebuilding their resources along the coastal strip north of Beirut and in the mountains to the east...

...There may be other sideshows, too, as Palestinians attempt to reassert themselves in Jordan, as Syria and Iraq compete for prestige, as Egypt attempts to rationalize its rapprochement with Israel and the West...

...They pointedly enumerate the accomplishments of their people—the construction of the best road system in the Middle East, the maintenance of educational standards far above those set in other Arab countries, and the creation of a range of amenities that made Beirut an attractive center for living and working...

...In studying the depth and meaning of Christian resistance, one has to remember that Christianity, particularly Maronite Catholicism, represents the "soul" of whatever there is to Lebanese nationality...

...The result was an anarchical vacuum, and the PLO had no choice but to intervene—albeit on only a temporary basis...

...On another occasion I listened to a Christian women exclaim, as she stared at the burnt-out remains of a Moslem shantytown located in the midst of a predominantly Christian neighborhood, "We threw the foreigners into the sea...

...Today," said the PLO man, "Lebanon is for the Arabs, and everyone must recognize it...

...They do not deny looking upon Moslem soldiers as "animals," and they mock the Moslems for shouting "Allah Akbar," God all-powerful...

...To achieve this delicate balance, Syrian Foreign Minister Abdel Halim Khaddam has been shuttling back and forth between Beirut and Damascus...

...We do not want to rule Lebanon," he said almost ritualistically, paying lip service to the PLO's stated position, "but we are assisting because of the absence of any government...

...The Maronite leadership yielded to Syrian mediation two months ago promising to resume fighting if the "foreigners" do not go home...

...Christian nationalism, however, is hardly a broad-based concept...

...These new arrivals —some of them in desperate straits as a result of price rises following the energy crunch—disrupted the traditional commercial harmony between Christians and well-to-do Sunni Moslems, bringing long-dormant Christian-Moslem antagonisms to the surface...

...Besides, with Lebanon restabilized, Syria and the Palestinians will be able to turn their attention elsewhere, not only to Israel but to Jordan and Iraq as well...

...Syrian intervention, if it is successful, will insure the election this spring of a president more malleable than Suleiman Franjieh, a "village Christian" criticized for having adopted an impossibly hard-line attitude toward the Moslems and refusing to enact necessary changes...

...Had it not been for the Christians, this land would surely have been merged with Syria...

...For the past 20 years or so, he declared, Lebanon had been more or less an American protectorate, as exemplified by the landing of U.S...

...a regular NL contributor, is on assignment in the Middle Fast for the Chicago Tribune...

...The Chamounists, led by Camille's sons, Dore and Dany, and the Phalangists, influenced mainly by the Maronites, are still training their commandos in the mountains...

...But it is the real foreigners, with their own special interests, who will decide Lebanon's future...

...As far as Syrian and Palestinian leaders are concerned, the ultimate goal here is not to introduce a new social system but to expand their own regional power base...

...For the Left, financed and armed by Syria and other Arab nations, would guarantee the free use of Lebanese soil by Palestinian forces prosecuting their struggle against Israel...

...Even if some units of the Palestinian Army finally withdraw to their bases across the border in Syria, the combination of Syrians and Palestinians currently insuring the peace is not likely to relinquish the upper hand they have gained through fighting and talking...

...Another aspect of the expansion game involves the differences between Syria and the Palestinians, reflected in conflicts between the Syrian-financed Saiqa and Yasir Arafat's Fatah, the PLO's two largest factions...

...They prefer to be Europeans...

...Syria's President Hafez al-Assad wants a Beirut power structure dominated not by the old Christian order but by the Moslem Left...

...After they have been patrolling the roads with unquestioned final power for a few months, the Palestinian commanders might find they rather like the experience...

...Maronite leaders may profess their desire to rescue Lebanon from foreigners, to provide a home for Moslems as well as Christians, but they owe their allegiance fundamentally to their own kind...

...Lebanon's Uneasy Peace BY DONALD KIRK Beirut In this essentially bourgeois mercantile country, the overwhelming urge among leaders and members of all factions to keep making money may prove the most important element in the uneasy peace that seems to have concluded the bloody civil war which began last April...

...The strife in Lebanon, in short, may prove to have been only a sideshow...

...Members of Parliament, who do the electing, will presumably vote on the basis of creed, and reforms making up part of the overall settlement will give Moslems more seats than they have had in the past, when Christians were guaranteed a six-five proportional majority under the terms of the 1943 National Pact...

...Yet one wonders what the effect of exercising authority might be...

...The officer, in fact, was a member of one of the joint Syrian-Lebanese-Palestinian coordinating committees responsible for working out a settlement at the highest level...

...No Palestinian here, whether living in a squalid refugee camp or carrying a rifle for the Palestine Liberation Army or the fedayeen, will tell you he wants the PLO to run the government...

...Syria and Lebanon are one," said a Syrian officer to a wandering correspondent, before wisely refusing to discuss the matter any further...

...A striking illustration of this feeling—surprising to a newcomer like myself—is that refugees from Christian towns overrun, looted and burned by Lebanese Moslems disparagingly refer to their foes as "Arabs...

...Damascus has appealed to the Maronites on the basis of their immediate self-interests...

...The Christians act like foreigners," said a Moslem soldier during the fighting in downtown Beirut...

...It is not for nothing that the pretty little port city of Jounnieh, 15 miles north of here, is sometimes called "the Christian capital...

...No group feels the squeeze as sharply as the Maronite Catholics, the core of the Christian side and also the owners of possibly as much as 80 per cent of Lebanon's major business and light industrial interests...

...For the present, he went on, returning to the subject of Lebanon, "we want a strong regime that will cooperate with us—we do not like weak governments.' Donald kirk...

...Had the opec states not seized that opportunity to escalate the price of oil, the poor Moslems of Lebanon would not have suffered so much economically—and would not have been so inclined to form the armed gangs of the local Left...

...Embarked on a program of economic reform at home designed to undo the ill effects of the nationalization of industry and foreign trade in the 1960s, Damascus is ardently trying to construct a lasting peace in Lebanon—with one qualification: Peace must be on its terms...

...Israel is always the top priority...

...Marines here in 1958 at the request of then Christian President Camille Chamoun, who now serves as interior minister and head of one of the main Christian parties...

...Indeed, an important cause of the civil war was an influx of rural Shi'ite Moslems from the southern and eastern valleys and hills to the suburbs of Beirut in search of jobs...

...That understanding reflected the population percentages of the day, but the Moslems long since passed the Christians in numbers...

...France created Lebanon as a separate entity basically to provide a home for a Christian community dating back to the seventh century...

...On its face, the claim is true...

...None of this will necessarily produce a lasting peace, much less a "permanent solution," yet there is a feeling here that the arrangement virtually hammered out will work in the short run...

...Syria, the source of Russian and Eastern European arms for the Palestine Liberation Army, the fedayeen and the Lebanese Left, as well as the authorilv behind the present ceasefire, is no less tired of the war...

...They forget that public education rarely goes beyond the sixth grade, and that Beirut's comforts depend on poor Moslems working in the fields, the warehouses and the factories...

...The lines of Christian and Moslem/Leftist control, incidentally, are extremely well defined...

...The Christians, though, are not the only ones who desire a respite...

...His peregrinations resemble Henry Kissinger's—except that Khaddam is extending his good offices in a nation that his country has always regarded as part of itself...

...Lebanese Christians will even deny being Arab—despite their country's membership in the Arab League...

...The Christians are propagandizing against the Moslems and the Leftists in churches, schools and convents, too, just as their opponents propagandize against them...

...Viewing the situation in the perspective of history, a spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)—which has been involved in running the country since Palestine Army troops moved into Lebanon from Syria this January —noted that the French intervened in the Ottoman-ruled territory in 1861 (after religious conflicts led to massacres of the Maronites), and that the British freed the nation from French colonialism in 1943...

...I hope that Lebanon can become a part of Syria some day, and then we can make trouble for Iraq," a Saiqa official unhesitatingly told me...

...And," he added, "we will try to arrange our relations with Jordan in another style"—that is, one that reverses the defeat suffered by the Palestinians in their revolt against King Hussein in 1970...

...The Shi'ite Moslems, after all, are pawns being exploited politically by the Left just as they were exploited commercially by the bourgeoisie...

...Lebanese Moslems, on the other hand, constantly emphasize the theme of Pan-Arabism, and a couple of major groupings actually fought in the name of the late Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who is still venerated for his effort to unite the Arab world...

...Certainly contributors to the cause, whatever cause, must refill their coffers before giving with quite as much enthusiasm as they have displayed in the past...

...The next question is how long Lebanon's fiercely independent, highly educated Christian community will endure this sort of humiliation...

...In the Lebanese war, one sees yet another consequence of the October 1973 Arab-Israeli confrontation...

...The Moslems charged that Israel is helping them, and though no evidence has surfaced so far, Phalangist soldiers did tell me, they would gladly accept Israeli aid if necessary "to save our land...

...Beyond certain neutral zones linger riflemen from either side, ready to resume shooting at the slightest provocation...

...The ruling structure, he pointed out, failed entirely to perform essential operations or provide internal security for the past 10 months...

...Inevitably, Christian apologists overlook an economic system that has relegated most, though by no means all, Moslems to near poverty...