Under Siege: P.L.O. Decisionmaking During the 1982 War

During the 1970s, Beirut came to be a second home (if only a temporary one) for many Palestinians. Among them were P.L.O. combatants, cadres, and leaders who had been obliged to move to Lebanon after the P.L.O.’s expulsion from Jordan in 1970–71 and had established or begun their families there. In this cosmopolitan city they joined those of their countrymen who had first arrived in Lebanon in 1948–49 as refugees, as well as political exiles from all over the region who had made Beirut their home.

There were many other Palestinians in Beirut, who were there by choice. Over the years, members of the growing Palestinian bourgeoisie ¹ were drawn to the city’s free political and economic environment. Many managed to obtain Lebanese citizenship. The Lebanese capital also attracted thousands of young Palestinians from the occupied territories, Jordan, and the Gulf, who came to study at the American University, Beirut University College, the Lebanese University, or the Arab University of Beirut. Most went home after a few years, but many stayed after their education was completed or after leaving university.

While all these institutions had large numbers of Palestinian students, the Arab University had a mainly Palestinian student body. It was located near the Fakhani quarter where most P.L.O. offices were found, and adjoined the sprawling Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. For Palestinians in the years 1971–82 this roughly one-square-mile area in the center of Beirut was the closest thing they had had to a political, intellectual, financial, administrative, and spiritual capital since 1948.

This was true even of many Palestinians who had never seen Beirut. For those suffering the daily humiliation of the Israeli occupation, as well as for others subjected to varying levels of intolerance in the Arab host countries, the P.L.O.’s presence in Beirut meant a great deal.

On the one hand, it was a powerful symbol of Palestinian existence, autonomy, and peoplehood. On the other, in a concrete sense it was their court of last resort, their administrative center and the guarantor of their status. Instances of the P.L.O. in Beirut dealt with serious disputes between Palestinians, and with requests for economic aid, scholarships, and payment of medical expenses, as well as complaints about bad treatment by Arab governments.

The P.L.O. structure briefly discussed in chapter 2 was carrying out functions many of which had never before been performed on a national level. Neither at the height of their pre-1948 national movement nor in the two decades which followed the 1948 defeat had the Palestinians managed to develop modern integrated national institutions.² This the P.L.O. had done, and it was something of which Palestinians were justifiably proud. It was also realized by Israel’s leaders, who were deadly foes of anything which reinforced Palestinian nationalism.

Palestinians in Lebanon were acutely aware that their powerful Israeli enemies were bent on ending the P.L.O.’s presence in Lebanon. Nevertheless, the idea that it might be forced to leave Beirut would have seemed fantastic to most of them on the eve of the 1982 war. It also seemed highly unlikely to many Lebanese.

Many factors contributed to this sense of the permanence of the P.L.O. ministate in Lebanon, and to a disbelief that the objectives of their opponents could be realized. Among them were memories of a recent string of failed attempts to dislodge them; the seeming solidity of P.L.O. structures; the extent to which individual Palestinians had settled in Beirut; and the degree to which the P.L.O. had become integrated into the conflict-torn Lebanese political map.

However, all of these apparent certainties crumbled in mid-June, with the IDF at the gates of Beirut and the world’s greatest superpower insistently seconding the demands of Israel, President Sarkis, and the Lebanese right that the P.L.O. leave Beirut forthwith. As a result, the P.L.O. leadership faced one of the toughest, most painful decisions in its history.

We have already seen what an unenviable situation the P.L.O. was in as it faced these demands. By this point it had long since lost the support of the vast majority of Lebanese. Moreover, in the wake of its defeat in the south, the rapid advance of the Israelis through the Shouf, and the isolation of Beirut, the P.L.O.’s military position contained no glimmer of hope. Morale at every level reflected these harsh givens.

How did its leaders take the decision confronting them? What were the dynamics of the interaction between them? Who played the key roles, and when were the essential decisions taken? These questions may never be answered definitively. However, what follows offers responses based on the archival record of what was written and said at the time publicly and privately, and on the recollections of participants in these events.

The formal structures of the P.L.O. were rarely the forums for crisis decisions, and most P.L.O. decisions had to be made in times of crisis. However, in “normal” circumstances, the P.L.O. Executive Committee, Central Council, and National Council all played specified roles in taking decisions, in promulgating them, or in giving them legitimacy.³ This was particularly the case for the Palestinian National Council (PNC). This body, made up largely of elected representatives, served as the equivalent of a legislature, meeting annually (when possible), approving the budget, reviewing the actions of the Executive Committee, and passing on major changes of course, such as acceptance of a West Bank/Gaza Strip state as the P.L.O.’s provisional objective in 1974.

While the 60-member Central Council was little more than an advisory sounding board, the Executive Committee was supposed to be more than that. It was certainly not a cipher. The Executive Committee performed several important functions, including approving all major spending decisions, and defining the parameters of the P.L.O.’s policy toward the Arab regimes and the course of its international diplomacy.

The Executive Committee was nevertheless highly unsuited to crisis decisionmaking. With its composition determined at each session of the PNC by bargaining between different groups, and its members based in different Arab states and sometimes representing their interests inside the Palestinian polity, it reflected many of the least attractive aspects of the consensus politics which characterized the P.L.O. Far from being the seat of real executive power, in practice it resembled nothing more than an unwieldy and weak coalition government with little control over vital matters.

This foursome had provided the core leadership of Fateh for decades (together with others who had died along the way). In spite of differences which at times arose among them, they had a relationship with one another which was extremely durable, and were linked by strong bonds of mutual affection and respect going back to their common background in the Gaza Strip, Egypt, and Kuwait in the early 1950s.⁴

Other early leaders of Fateh beyond this core played significant roles. Among them were Abu Sa‘id (Khaled al-Hassan), based in Kuwait,⁵ and Abu Mazin (Mahmoud ‘Abbas) and Abu Maher (Muhammad Ghunaym), both based in Damascus. However, they were usually not in Beirut, which meant that their input into daily decisionmaking was less regular and less frequent than that of others

In addition to these older men, who had been active in Palestinian politics since the early 1950s, and who by 1982 were in their early and mid-fifties, there was a somewhat younger second generation of leaders, who were not among the founding fathers of Fateh. Three of them require special mention, either because of their wartime prominence, or their importance in terms of the internal political balance of the leadership.

Brigadier Abu al-Walid (Sa‘ad Sayel), the P.L.O. Chief of Military Operations, was to play a key role in 1982, both in directing the fighting and in the negotiations. Like the Deputy Chief of Operations, Colonel Abu Musa (Sa‘id Musa Maragha) and many other officers in the top Fateh military leadership, he had been a Jordanian regular army officer until 1970. His stature had grown since the mid-1970s, a fact recognized when he was elected to the Fateh Central Committee in 1980. It was to grow further during the siege of Beirut. His postwar assassination was a severe blow to Fateh.

Hani al-Hassan, like his older brother Khaled, was identified with the conservative, “pragmatic” wing of Fateh. He was one of the main P.L.O. negotiators during the siege, playing the same role of senior envoy he had previously perfomed in Iran after the revolution and elsewhere in the region. With the formal title of Political Advisor to ‘Arafat, he had a narrow organizational base inside Fateh, and was often chosen to carry out delicate missions and to stake out positions which could later be abandoned.

Nimr Saleh (Abu Saleh) was on the other side of the political spectrum. The outspoken, impulsive leading figure of Fateh’s “radical” faction, he tended to lean toward Syria and the Soviet Union. In ill health and severly hampered politically by the death in October 1981 of Majid Abu Sharar, his far shrewder, more intelligent, and more respected ally inside the Central Committee, Abu Saleh was often in a minority of one. In spite of being a member of the Central Committee group supposed to supervise the Fateh military forces, his role during the war was limited. After the war he became a leader of the insurrection against ‘Arafat.

Initially, the P.L.O.’s diplomatic activity focused on obtaining U.N. action to halt the Israeli advance.⁶ In retrospect this may seem like an exercise in futility, but it did not appear to be so at the time. Past experience taught that most of Israel’s wars had been ended within a matter of days by an international consensus operating through the United Nations. This was true of the 1956, 1967, and 1973 conflicts, which were halted in this fashion in five, six, and eighteen days respectively, as well as of Israel’s 1978 invasion of South Lebanon, and the 1981 cross-border fighting, both of which lasted for a matter of days (seven and nine respectively).

When confronted with a major Israeli escalation in the past, the P.L.O. almost routinely requested the Arab states, the Soviet Union, the European Community, and the nonaligned and Islamic blocs at the United Nations to put pressure on the United States, each in its own way. The “moderate” Arab states headed by Saudi Arabia would be asked to use their presumed influence in Washington to press for U.S. action to restrain Israel, while America’s European allies often made similar moves, simultaneously backing nonaligned and Arab initiatives at the U.N. to stop the fighting. The USSR could be counted on to support such a course, and to threaten unspecified consequences should U.N. action not suffice.

The expectation in June 1982 that something similar would eventually take place, and that the P.L.O. had only to hold out until then, ultimately proved incorrect, but it was not totally unfounded. It was reinforced by the passage of Security Council resolution 509 late on June 6, the first day of the invasion, with the U.S. voting in favor. This demanded that “Israel withdraw all its military forces forthwith and unconditionally withdraw to the internationally recognized boundaries of Lebanon,” and an immediate halt to hostilities.

The administration was clearly divided internally on what to do, and apparently suffered from mixed signals while the President and Secretary Haig were in Europe in early June.⁷ It finally decided to support Israel unreservedly, in the apparent hope of utilizing Israel’s invasion of Lebanon to achieve U.S. regional objectives vis-à-vis the P.L.O., Syria, and the USSR, and in the process to transform the Lebanese internal situation.

This position did not change during the war. In a sense, it remained unaltered until the withdrawal of U.S. Marines from Beirut in February 1984. Haig’s description of the war as providing “a historic opportunity to deal with the problem of Lebanon,” and creating “a fresh opportunity to complete the Camp David peace process” (or Kissinger’s, “it opens up extraordinary opportunities for a dynamic American diplomacy throughout the Middle East”)⁸ not only reflected their hard-line views, but summed up as well the basic attitude toward the situation emerging from Israel’s invasion of most leading members of the Reagan Administration, including the President and Haig’s successor, George Shultz.

The P.L.O. initially hoped that the new, tougher U.S. position which first emerged on June 8 could be reversed. This illusion was encouraged by telephone contacts with the Saudi leadership, and in meetings in New York and Paris between P.L.O. representatives and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Sa‘ud al-Faisal. Telexes on June 11 reported in almost identical terms what the Saudi minister told Abu Lutf in New York and P.L.O. Paris representative Ibrahim al-Souss about his contacts in Washington, Paris, and Bonn.⁹

The essential point which emerges from Sa‘ud al-Faisal’s account of his talks with American officials is that they tried to convince him of U.S. good faith, at a time when the United States was in fact preventing implementation of S.C 509 at the U.N., thereby enabling Israel to continue its advance. The President, for example, told the Saudi diplomat that the U.S. knew in advance of the Israeli operation, but not that it would be on this scale. Reagan assured him that the U.S. was embarrassed by the invasion, stressed that the cancellation of a planned visit by Haig to Israel was a sign of displeasure, and “promised to use leverage on Israel for complete withdrawal” from Lebanon.¹⁰

At this stage, on June 11, Israel did in fact announce a ceasefire with Syrian forces after the bulk of operations against them had been completed, but it pointedly excluded the P.L.O. from its provisions. This ceasefire was most likely related to U.S. intercession, influenced by Arab and U.N. moves and a Soviet démarche. Soon afterward, however, the Israelis again violated the ceasefire they had proclaimed. When they reached and surrounded Beirut on June 13, and proclaimed harsh conditions for their withdrawal—amounting to unconditional surrender by the P.L.O.—the U.S. now firmly aligned its position with Israel’s.

From this point on, the P.L.O. had to contend not only with the full weight of Israel, but also with that of the U.S. This was quickly perceived by the P.L.O.: telexes from Beirut spoke often of “the American-Israeli position.”¹¹ The Organization’s leaders quickly realized that they would have to drastically revise many of their assumptions about how long Israel would be allowed to carry out a major offensive military operation. This time, the U.S. was not going to step in to stop the IDF.¹²

The frustration of the P.L.O. leadership at the inability of the U.N. to obtain a binding ceasefire, or to station its truce observers on the spot (U.S. obstruction in the Security Council prevented this) reached a peak on June 13, the day the Israelis reached Ba’abda. Hours before that, ‘Arafat had ordered that a detailed breakdown of Israeli ceasefire violations, based on radio messages received by Central Operations, be sent to New York. His hope was that after one week of uninterrupted fighting between Israel and the P.L.O., this would aid in obtaining decisive U.N. action to halt the advance of the IDF.¹³

It failed to do so, and ‘Arafat’s angry reaction to the paralysis in New York emerges from a peremptory telex sent later the same day to Abu Lutf and Zuhdi Tarazi, the P.L.O.’s U.N. representative. It read: “There is a waste of time … the enemy succeeded this morning in the face of the absence of observers in occupying the Khaldeh triangle … We asked of you since yesterday [sic] to move truce supervisors, but it appears the delay is intentional so as to give Israel the opportunity to complete its task.” The message ended harshly: “There is no point to the exchange of telexes only. We demand action … we demand steps on the ground.¹⁴

No such action was forthcoming. Indeed, because of persistent obstruction of such action by the U.S. and Israel, U.N. observers were not deployed in Beirut until mid-August, after fighting ceased. In the absence of effective U.N. action to impose or supervise an effective ceasefire, the P.L.O. leadership encircled in Beirut with the bulk of its military forces, and with little hope of any external relief, had to decide under enormous pressure how to respond to the Israeli demand of June 13 for the P.L.O. to lay down its arms and withdraw from Beirut.

The desired results of this approach included some form of U.S. recognition of, and direct contact with, the P.L.O.—which of course was never achieved. Some argued that this approach was linked to the transformation of the P.L.O. into a purely political body, which would attempt to gain its ends diplomatically rather than forcibly.

Support for this position within the ranks of the P.L.O. went up and down in the feverish days of mid-June. By early July, its partisans had been discredited, and were scornfully described by their opponents as “The Withdrawal Now Movement,” a takeoff on the Israeli “Peace Now Movement.” But in the crucial days after June 13, some P.L.O. leaders saw no realistic alternative to acceptance of Israel’s demands. As an initial result of the intense internal debate within the leadership, the partisans of the first approach received a green light to explore what could be obtained, although this did not stop their opponents from criticizing this policy bitterly in private and in public.¹⁶

The semipublic way in which the P.L.O. internal debate was carried out at this stage caused great confusion, both within the movement and for foreign observers. This was true particularly when the propositions being discussed by Hani al-Hassan first became known. Opponents of this approach fought it in the P.L.O. media, in on- and off-the-record discussions with local and foreign journalists, as well as in internal P.L.O. councils. At the beginning they had an uphill fight because of the number and influence of those who supported the idea of negotiating a withdrawal.

The composition of this group was surprisingly disparate, including a number of individuals who were not normally political bedfellows, and some of whom had reached the point of “collapse” according to Abu Iyyad.¹⁷ Besides Hani al-Hassan, there was the PFLP spokesman, Bassam Abu Sharif, who spoke often to journalists at the Commodore Hotel about how desperate the P.L.O.’s situation was, affirming that immediate withdrawal was the only way out; Ahmed Jibril, the bombastic leader of the pro-Syrian PFLP General Command (PFLP-GC), whose normally hearty appetite for fighting the Israelis seemed to wane after Beirut was surrounded; the leaders of two minor radical factions, Dr. Samir Ghosheh of the Popular Struggle Front (PSF) and Abu al-‘Abbas of the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF); and a number of Fateh leaders, among them Abu al-Hol (Hayel ‘Abd al-Hamid), and Brigadier Abu al-Walid.

The position of Brigadier Abu al-Walid among this group requires elaboration. Having long argued that if the Israelis launched a major military operation their only alternative was to make Beirut their objective, he realized that this was happening as soon as he heard the first report of the Awwali landing on the first night of the invasion.¹⁸ He was thus not surprised by the IDF’s arrival at Ba’abda, unlike some other P.L.O. and LNM leaders. Throughout the war, he maintained his equanamity. Even while arguing that the logic of the military situation dictated P.L.O. acceptance of the demand for its withdrawal, he was constantly supervising day-to-day military operations, as well as the feverish building of fortifications and sowing of mines which were to make the defense of Beirut possible for the last eight weeks of the siege.

The attitude of the P.L.O.’s senior commander was probably rooted in his traditional military background. An engineering officer who had reached the rank of colonel in the Jordanian army, Brigadier Abu al-Walid had received advanced staff training in the United States (at the same time as Mordechai Gur, IDF Chief of Staff during the 1978 invasion). He argued in mid-June that Beirut was militarily indefensible (the term used in Arabic was “saqita ‘askariyan”). From the standpoint of classical military principles, this was a reasonable claim, especially in light of the hopeless odds, the complete isolation of the city, and the IDF’s position in the heights overlooking it. Brigadier al-Walid modified this view only in late June, after completion of P.L.O. defensive preparations and the appearance of a strong Israeli reluctance to storm the city. Until then, he sided with those who said withdrawal was inevitable.

The opposing group argued that the matter could not be looked at in classical military terms. It too was composed of disparate elements, many of them individuals who agreed on little else, including Fateh leaders Abu Iyyad, Abu Saleh, Sakhr Abu Nizar, the Secretary of the Fateh Revolutionary Council, and Colonel Abu Musa, as well as Dr. George Habash and Abu Maher al-Yamani of the PFLP, Nayef Hawatmeh of the DFLP, and Talal Naji of the PFLP-GC. They stressed that the situation was not hopeless, that the war was far from over, and that the Palestinian and Lebanese defenders of Beirut had a good chance to hold out for better terms.

The military men in this second group argued forcefully that Beirut, its southern suburbs, and the adjoining refugee camps were nearly ideal for the type of warfare the Joint Forces were best suited for, and atrociously inappropriate for what the Israelis were comfortable with. The intensity and length of the fighting in Sidon and ‘Ain al-Hilweh, as well as in Damour and Khaldeh (all far smaller and more easily assaulted than Beirut), were used to buttress their argument. Moreover, they claimed, a reluctance to enter the city had already been evinced by many quarters in the Israeli military and government, and it would be foolish for the P.L.O. to throw away an opportunity to take advantage of this.

But the majority of the second group (which ultimately became the core of a majority within the leadership as a whole), saw things differently. While sharing the slender hope that the P.L.O. might be able to drag out the siege, wear down the Israelis, and thereby ultimately avoid withdrawal altogether, they perceived that this was not likely. In their view, negotiations were an open-ended tactic. The objective was to obtain the best that could realistically be expected from the situation. While differing from the maximalists who refused any compromise, a gulf separated them from the minimalists, who were fully reconciled to accepting some version of the U.S.-Israeli terms, but hoped to obtain specific political compensation in return. This difference was summed up in the words of Abu Iyyad: “Negotiations were a tactic for some in the leadership, and a strategy for others.”¹⁹

In the immediate aftermath of the collapse of the Shouf followed by arrival of the Israelis at Ba’abda, the second point of view was almost inaudible inside the P.L.O. This was partly because of the drastic effect of these events on most Lebanese, who were unprepared for the Israeli invasion and stunned by it. During the first weeks of the war, “we were in a state of shock,” said Walid Jumblatt soon afterward.²⁰

Already seriously alienated from the P.L.O., many Lebanese took the seemingly unstoppable Israeli advance as the occasion for an outpouring of hostile feeling against the Palestinians. This naturally took different forms. In the south, many Shi‘a welcomed the Israelis, assuming that their arrival meant the end of the state of war which had lasted for a decade, during which time the southerners had paid the heaviest price. There was unrestrained jubilation in Maronite circles at the prospect that Israel would eliminate the Palestinians, and thereby clear the way for a new order in Lebanon, of which they would be the natural beneficiaries. Even among the Sunni urban population, closest in many ways to the Palestinians, there was some expectation of positive results from the new state of affairs.

Thus at a critical moment of decision in mid-June, P.L.O. leaders found themselves almost completely deprived of any Lebanese support. It was not surprising that confronted with the might of Israel and the insistent support for it of the United States, many Lebanese should feel that they had no alternative except to go along with what seemed like a fait accompli imposed by the U.S. and Israel. The deep involvement of the U.S. in the shaping of events was symbolized by the ubiquitous presence of Philip Habib, who spent most of his time during the weeks that followed either in meetings at the Presidental Palace in Ba‘abda or directing the negotiations from his headquarters at the U.S. Ambassador’s residence in nearby Yarzé.

The Council of National Salvation, whose formation was called for by President Sarkis on June 14, was generally understood to be intended as a vehicle for a unanimous Lebanese front in dealing with the P.L.O. on the basis of the Israeli demands of June 13 and the nearly identical position of the United States. The reservations regarding it of Walid Jumblatt and Nabih Berri did not conceal the fact that in practical terms the P.L.O. had no organized Lebanese backing. In the immediate aftermath of the occupation of Ba’abda, even the P.L.O.’s allies in the LNM advised them that they had no alternative but withdrawal.²¹ Some of its parties, Jumblatt acidly said at the time, had become “virtually Phalangist.”²²

It is important to reiterate that while some Lebanese public attitutes, such as Maronite hostility to the P.L.O. or the antagonism toward the commando presence of the bulk of the southern Shi‘a population, were stable, others fluctuated violently. Thus, less than two weeks after the occupation of Ba’abda led to the coalescence of what seemed to be a broad anti-P.L.O. front, the outlook of many Lebanese was reversed. This was the effect of new factors like Israeli-Phalangist cooperation in occupied areas, fears of what this might portend in the wake of a P.L.O. withdrawal, the renewal of IDF attacks on Syrian forces in the mountains, and a higher estimation of the ability of the P.L.O. to hold out in Beirut.

As we saw in the last chapter, the turning point in this shift in Lebanese attitudes came during the last week of June. Even before that, however, the balance within the Palestinian leadership had shifted. As a result, a unified position had finally emerged, embodying elements of the outlooks put forward by both sides in the internal P.L.O. debate. This became clear during negotiations via the mediation of France, which began in the second half of June. The final decision was formally embodied in a brief handwritten memo delivered by Yasser ‘Arafat to Premier Shafiq Wazzan on July 2, promising that the P.L.O. leadership would leave Beirut.

The text, never published—and reported in distorted terms in the press at the time—was deliberately vague, and referred only to the P.L.O.’s acceptance in principle of the movement of its headquarters from Beirut. Vague though it was, this was the first firm, formal, written commitment by the P.L.O. regarding withdrawal. Wazzan claimed at the time that he had no intention of delivering it to anyone, but that it was an assurance to the Lebanese about the P.L.O.’s intention to do everything possible to spare Beirut. This is consistent with the way the P.L.O. described the pledge, which, at a meeting at Saeb Salam’s home the same day, was delivered also to the traditional Sunni and Shi’a politicians of the Islamic Grouping and the Front for Preservation of the South.²³ It remains for us to go back and describe how such a commitment was agreed on unanimously by the P.L.O. leadership in the final two weeks of June.

The catalyst for the P.L.O.’s decision was the fierce internal debate that arose following the leaking to the press of the terms being discussed by Hani al-Hassan with intermediaries for Israel and the United States. They caused a stir not only in Beirut, but also among supporters of the P.L.O. abroad.²⁴ The furor was all the greater since many of the points being discussed were distorted or taken out of context in the local and foreign media. On top of this, as previously noted, a variety of hostile actors were simultaneously trying to create panic in West Beirut by exaggerating the P.L.O.’s concessions and describing its capitulation as imminent.

What seems to have caused the first reaction against the approach ascribed in the press to Hani al-Hassan was the sudden realization by many Palestinians of how harsh the Israeli terms were, and shock at the fact that acceptance of them meant leaving Beirut. They differed in their reaction from a few members of the P.L.O. leadership who advocated this approach and seemed to regard the prospect of leaving Beirut with relative equanimity. This was probably because these individuals aspired to shift the focus of P.L.O. activities elsewhere, had no personal political base in Lebanon, or were uninvolved in P.L.O. military affairs.

The reaction to this line, when it came, took the form of pressure on the leadership to deny press reports of the terms the P.L.O. was allegedly willing to accept. Specifically, there was intense pressure for a disavowal of statements attributed to Hani al-Hassan regarding transformation of the P.L.O. from a military into a political movement, calling for a dialogue with the United States, and accepting the inevitability of leaving Beirut. This pressure reached a peak on June 17, the day when four P.L.O. denials of press reports on this subject appeared, two specifically refuting propositions attributed to Hani al-Hassan.

On the same day, a confidential memo was sent to ‘Arafat by a senior P.L.O. official criticizing remarks made by Hani al-Hassan to Western journalists on several occasions. In some of the things he said, the memo stated, al-Hassan not only was contradicting the public P.L.O. line on the question of withdrawal, but also was severely undermining morale and public confidence in the P.L.O. leadership, and severely weakening the P.L.O.’s negotiating position, as exaggerated or distorted versions of his remarks were published in the foreign media and had wide circulation in Beirut.²⁵ Similar complaints were being voiced throughout the P.L.O., and made their way to the ears of ‘Arafat and his fellow leaders, sometimes in a forceful manner.

Particularly sensitive in this regard was the issue of the P.L.O.’s laying down its arms, a condition then being firmly demanded by Israel, and which al-Hassan had been reported by U.P.I. on June 16 as having accepted. It was imperative for the leadership to draw the line here, because of the devastating effect such a rumor, if believed, would have had on the forces in the front lines. Not surprisingly, this was the key point in three of these four denials issued over a period of 24 hours. One said the P.L.O. was not “prepared to negotiate regarding its arms” (this and other issues relating to Palestinian-Lebanese relations could be discussed only “after the withdrawal of the occupation forces,” it cited al-Hassan as having said to U.P.I.). Another denial quoted Abu Iyyad as having said that the Palestinians “will not throw down their arms,” and that al-Hassan’s words had been “distorted and falsified.” In a third, a military spokesman declared: “nobody can disarm the Joint Forces.”²⁶

Perhaps responding to this internal pressure, on the same evening, June 17, ‘Arafat took one of his toughest public stands since the beginning of the war, in a message “to the Arab, Lebanese and Palestinian masses … and to all the fighters in the field.” In it he savagely attacked Arab hesitation, cowardice, and timidity. The battle of Beirut, he stated, had not yet begun, and added: “We are ready for this battle, which will be the Karbala of this age … and the Stalingrad of the Arabs …”²⁷ It was probably not a coincidence that conciliatory public statements and off-the-record interviews with foreign journalists by Hani al-Hassan ceased for a time.

In fact, an important decision had been taken by the P.L.O. leadership. The initial exploratory negotiations they had authorized, and in which al-Hassan had taken a leading role, had revealed Israeli and American conditions which were unacceptably harsh. The strong negative reaction from the base and from middle-level cadres reinforced the position of those in the leadership who had been skeptical all along about the course initially followed. At the same time, the state of near-panic which had seized a few P.L.O. leaders subsided, as the battlefield situation stabilized in the somewhat calmer atmosphere after June 13.

In consequence of all these factors, during the third week of June the P.L.O. stand crystallized around making a commitment in principle to withdraw, while categorically refusing the original Israeli-U.S. terms. This was linked to acceptance of French good offices, offered formally by Francis Gutman, Secretary-General of the French Foreign Ministry. This took place during meetings on June 15, 16, and 17 in East Beirut at which Hani al-Hassan first put forward the proposals noted in the preceding section of this chapter. The objective in using this French channel in addition to existing Lebanese ones was to attempt to get better terms than were being offered, on the theory that sympathetic go-betweens in Paris were better than hostile ones in Ba’abda, with Habib and the Israelis at their elbow.

It was ‘Arafat who finally decided the issue. He had been under intense pressure since June 11, when disagreement arose within the P.L.O. leadership over acceptance of a ceasefire.²⁸ His initial inclination had been to play for time while hoping for new factors to arise and for the situation to improve. But given the weak stand during the first days of the war of their Lebanese Muslim and leftist allies—whose support was essential for any sort of resistance—he and most other P.L.O. leaders had initially seen no alternative but to make some sort of commitment to withdraw.²⁹

The French offer of meditation of June 15 constituted just the sort of new factor ‘Arafat had been awaiting. It made itself felt over the next two weeks as the P.L.O. was taking its decision to offer a vague commitment in principle to withdraw. This was ultimately done via the memo delivered to Wazzan on July 2 after approval by the entire P.L.O. leadership.³⁰

The extensive telex correspondence with the French government via the P.L.O. office in Paris which began at this point makes it possible to watch the evolution of the P.L.O. position, and of the role of ‘Arafat in particular. This is possible because, in the absence of his “Foreign Minister,” Abu Lutf, nearly all these telexes were drafted by ‘Arafat or contain extensive corrections in his hand on the Arabic originals.³¹

The P.L.O. leader was naturally gratified by France’s new role, and repeatedly expressed this to the French.³² There was good reason for his gratitude. Once Hani al-Hassan had made the P.L.O.’s June 15 proposal to Gutman to consider ending its armed presence in Beirut and preserve only a political presence there in exchange for a political quid pro quo, France considered that it had received a green light to explore alternatives to the harsh terms of Israel and the U.S.³³ It was to do this in a determined manner.

Four days later, after meeting French Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson at the United Nations, Abu Lutf met with French Premier Pierre Mauroy and again with Cheysson in Paris, the first official meetings on such a high level. The French position as outlined to Abu Lutf was clear: unequivocal condemnation of Israel’s invasion, an immediate ceasefire and unconditional Israeli withdrawal, noninterference in Lebanese domestic affairs and P.L.O.-Lebanese negotiations to regulate the former’s status in that country, a link between solving the Lebanese crisis and the Palestine problem, and self-determination of the Palestinian people with their own state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip.³⁴

The position conveyed to Abu Lutf by Mauroy and Cheysson was the basis of French policy for the next six weeks of the war. This policy only changed then because at the end of July the P.L.O. finally abandoned its efforts to get a better deal than Habib had been offering. In the meantime, the French showed perseverence in the face of often brusque attempts by Israel and the U.S. to discourage their initiative. They were deeply convinced that what both powers were trying to do was misguided in the long run. In the end, France agreed to join the American-inspired Multi-National Force (MNF) only because of a P.L.O. request, tied to a desire to preserve some of their traditional influence in Lebanon.

The first active move made by French diplomacy was the introduction of a draft resolution before the Security Council on June 25. This would have provided for an initial disengagement of forces (a key P.L.O. demand), with the IDF pulling back 10 km from Beirut and P.L.O. forces retiring to the refugee camps, with U.N. observers, the Lebanese armed forces, and possibly a U.N. military force being interposed between the two sides. The U.S., rightly perceiving this as part of what Secretary Haig would later call “attempts to relieve the P.L.O.’s dilemma,”³⁵ on June 26 vetoed the resolution, which was supported by the other fourteen Council members. By this time, however, the Secretary had resigned, an event resulting in part from the problems for U.S. policy resulting from the invasion, but one which also had an important impact on the course of the war.

Haig claims in his memoirs that the French, although “anxious to appear as friends of the P.L.O., were offering valuable support for our position on P.L.O. withdrawal.” He states specifically that on June 24 the French “agreed that the P.L.O. must disarm,” and “would convey this view to the P.L.O.”³⁶ However, his detailed account of events on June 25, the day his resignation was announced by the President, omits a peremptory message to the P.L.O. sent via the French which is highly revealing of the French position. In an urgent telex to ‘Arafat dated 25 June, Ibrahim Souss wrote:

I have just been notified by the French authorities that the American Secretary of State, Haig, has asked the French government to transmit to the P.L.O. leadership: “Specific American thoughts on what steps the P.L.O. in Beirut would have to take with the Lebanese government in order to assure a peaceful resolution of the problem in and around Beirut:

1. All Palestinian fighters in West Beirut and the camps to the south of the city will hand over all arms to the Lebanese armed forces and turn these areas over to the control of the Lebanese armed forces and the Government of Lebanon

2. The leadership of the P.L.O. and such others as may chose to join them will depart Lebanon under safe conduct guaranteed, monitored and assisted if requested by outside observers.

Immediately after the agreement to these points is given steps will be taken to ensure that Israeli forces will adjust their lines so that the foregoing steps will not be seen to be carried out under threat of Israeli guns”

Aside from the urgency which must have motivated Haig, what is most remarkable in this communication is the extraordinary presumptuousness of its author. It is reminiscent of nothing so much as the Foreign Minister of a great power at the height of the age of imperialism dictating terms to a much weaker state. Haig’s request that these terms be conveyed “in the most severe manner” recalls the kind of diplomacy symbolized by the instructions of British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey to his Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in 1910 that a 10-page dispatch making onerous demands on its recipients be read in full to both the Ottoman Foreign Minister and Grand Vizier.³⁸ Sir Edward, however, did not specify the tone to be used by his envoy.

The impression that Haig was in a hurry and cared little for the feelings of those he dealt with is confirmed by other sources. In the words of a French official closely involved in the negotiations, Haig had telephone conversations with Cheysson on this issue which were “out of this world” (the word used was sidérant). All that was necessary for a resolution of the crisis, Haig had said, was to crush the P.L.O. He refused to listen to what his French interlocutors were saying in response—that this would only put the P.L.O. under Arab control, make the Palestinians into desperate terrorists, and remove the only spokesman for the Palestinian cause.³⁹ This same inattention, combined with a tendency to hear only what is desired, is apparent from even a casual comparison between the account of events in Haig’s memoirs and French communications with the P.L.O., as can be seen in the dispatch cited above.

Whatever reaction the outgoing American Secretary of State may have expected from the P.L.O. to his ultimatum (and his memoirs makes it appear that again and again he had the impression that he nearly single-handedly had ‘Arafat on the point of surrender), it was ruined by the impact of his resignation, announced at about the same time the French message of June 25 was received. Not surprisingly, there was jubilation in Beirut at the news, and a sense that the P.L.O. had surmounted a major crisis. One official in the Chairman’s office privy to the negotiations recalled later: “I felt as if we had won the war that night.”⁴⁰

The pronounced shifting of Lebanese sympathies, at least those of its traditional allies, in the P.L.O.’s favor at around this time had a further bracing impact on the morale of those besieged. This was reinforced by the analysis of the situation by senior French officials in a meeting with Souss in Paris the next morning, after the effect of Haig’s resignation had sunk in. Pointing to divisions in Israel and within the American administration (of which the P.L.O. had its own abundant evidence from independent sources⁴¹), the French saw that the situation had shifted somewhat, that an Israeli assault on West Beirut, “while still possible,” was less likely, and that there was now some pressure on Israel to withdraw.

Their central point was to reassure the P.L.O. that “The American request for disarming the Palestinian forces has met with total French rejection. Any such step, according to France, should necessarily be linked to a global approach to the Palestinian and Lebanese problems,” which meant movement toward Palestinian self-determination. Moreover, the French added, the U.S. proposal provided no guarantees for the Palestinians.⁴²

All this relatively good news did not induce euphoria in ‘Arafat and his colleagues. The Palestinian leader responded cautiously to the American ultimatum of the 25th, essentially agreeing with the negative reaction of the French, and leaving it to them to convey his response to Washington, saying “We accept what you agree on with the U.S. administration.” He added, “We thank the French government for this stand and this attention. Our people will never forget it.”⁴³

In response to a French request for a more detailed P.L.O. answer to the U.S. message, ‘Arafat on June 27 specified terms which, formulated later into an 11-point position paper, were to be the core of the P.L.O. stand for over a month. These called for a neutralization of Beirut and a disengagement of forces, with a joint Lebanese-U.N. force under international supervision interposed between the combatants. A first stage was to include a P.L.O. withdrawal to the camps and an Israeli withdrawal of five miles from its positions around Beirut. Finally, they called for “agreement on some formula for Palestinian presence in Lebanon which would include … the kind of weaponry, and its size, all in accord with Lebanese sovereignty.” ‘Arafat concluded that with regard to a P.L.O. political presence and that of Palestinians resident in Lebanon “there is no disagreement with the Lebanese government.”⁴⁴

Not surprisingly, the American response to these P.L.O. terms was negative. It was conveyed to Abu Lutf during a meeting on June 28 in Tunis with a senior French emissary. The U.S. Under Secretary of State, Lawrence Eagleburger, had told the French Ambassador in Washington that the U.S. considered this proposal “under the circumstances to be unrealistic, essentially because according to the U.S.A. the P.L.O. does not provide firm commitments, and therefore [it] cannot be considered the basis for serious negotiation.”

The French stated that they had responded that the P.L.O. proposals were “serious, realistic and acceptable.” They pledged to continue their talks with the U.S., but for the first time raised an issue which was to become a refrain during the remainder of the negotiations. This was Eagleburger’s claim that in negotiations with Habib in Beirut via Lebanese intermediaries, the P.L.O. had put forward significantly different terms from those transmitted by Paris. He made specific reference to its reported willingness, expressed to Sa’eb Salam, to hand over weapons to the Lebanese army and leave either by road or sea.

The French shrewdly added that they “estimate there has been some distortion of information as relayed to them through American channels.”⁴⁵ In fact, there was probably also a delay in the transmission of information to the State Department via the tortuous Lebanese channels described in the first chapter. Thus the terms Eagleburger mentioned were very likely those mooted by Hani al-Hassan as much as ten days earlier, but since superseded by the position embodied in the negotiations via the French.

‘Arafat responded immediately to the U.S. claims, denying that anything had been said about handing over weapons, and stressing the demand for a P.L.O. military presence in Lebanon along the lines of that in other Arab countries. He added that a disengagement of forces was imperative to create a proper atmosphere for negotiation. Regarding the issue of the P.L.O. leadership remaining in Beirut, he said that the P.L.O. had expressed a “readiness to understand the Lebanese point of view.” (This meant in effect accepting the demand for its departure, which he, Abu Jihad, and al-Hassan had by this point already done verbally in repeated meetings with Lebanese interlocutors.) ‘Arafat finally reminded Souss: “You must understand that the American position stems from annoyance at the French move because they want to be the only ones dealing with this crisis.”⁴⁶

American annoyance showed itself over the next few days of feverish negotiation. The next day, June 29, the French informed the P.L.O. that they had been told by Washington that negotiations via the Lebanese and Saudis had brought the P.L.O. to the point of accepting a departure from Beirut without its weapons. Souss went on:

Remarkably, the same day the State Department twice used the French channel to transmit its counterproposals to the earlier conditions set forth by the P.L.O., while stressing that Habib had been asked to transmit the same terms via Lebanese intermediaries. These contained little that was new. What was interesting about them is that they were sent via the French just after the latter had been told “not to interfere,” and that the French bluntly described them to Souss as “not serious,” adding “they cannot see how the P.L.O. could accept them.” Souss added: “The French appear to be very perplexed by the confusing propositions coming out of the American administration.”⁴⁸

‘Arafat responded immediately to these messages, and to the American insinuations about P.L.O. bad faith, referring to “the psychological war and the various fabricated lies being circulated,” and adding, “These are all part of the on-going battle.” He sarcastically added that “The U.S. State Department seems to be unaware even of Israeli statements,” noting that Begin the day previously had offered to allow the P.L.O. to leave with its personal weapons, a concession not included in Eagleburger’s first set of terms. He affirmed further: “We have informed Philip Habib that we will not repeat not hand over our weapons to anyone.”

In this and a later message the same day to the French, ‘Arafat stressed an issue he was to come back to again and again: “The important point is what are the guarantees against a massacre of Palestinians, both civilians and military, in view of what happened in Tyre and Sidon, and what the Phalangisists did yesterday to Lebanese patriots in the mountains?”⁴⁹ This was a question which until the end never received a satisfactory answer.

The welter of confusing proposals and counterproposals just surveyed has perhaps obscured several important things that happened in the last two weeks of June. The P.L.O. contemplated and then drew back from accepting in their entirety the terms of its enemies. The French offered their mediation directly to the P.L.O., and then were brought into the negotiations by the Americans. The U.S. thereupon tried to undermine French confidence in P.L.O. good faith, but this maneuver failed. The P.L.O. put forward, via the French, proposals which were to form the core of their negotiating position until the end of July. And in saying that they were ready “to understand the Lebanese point of view” on the issue of the leadership’s departure from Beirut, the P.L.O. made an important concession, which was later to be formalized in the signed note delivered to Wazzan by ‘Arafat on July 2.

This was a major decision. It meant that the leadership of the P.L.O. had accepted in principle the idea of evacuation from Beirut. As the following six weeks of siege were to show, this by no means meant that a final agreement had been reached. Indeed, many in the P.L.O. had made this decision with the greatest reluctance, and still harbored the hope that it would somehow be possible to avoid meeting the American-Israeli terms in full. But ‘Arafat had made a formal written commitment to Wazzan which was the fruit of intense internal deliberations, and the result of an extremely unfavorable military situation. Nearly everyone in the leadership recognized that this meant that in one way or another the P.L.O., or most of it, would have to leave Beirut.

However, to the P.L.O. these were far from minor matters or insignificant details. Issues like P.L.O. retention of its weapons, an IDF withdrawal a few miles from Beirut and a disengagement of forces before any P.L.O. withdrawal, the arrival beforehand of U.N. forces, and clear, binding international guarantees not only of the evacuation, but also for the civilians remaining behind, were vital matters. They were particularly important in view of the well-known propensity of the IDF for violating ceasefire agreements, and the intensity of the Begin government’s commitment to annihilating the P.L.O. ‘Arafat summed up this concern as follows: “To us, international guarantees are basic to any agreement between us and others, especially in view of the tragedies in the occupied areas [of Lebanon].”⁵⁰

Although many of the grave consequences ‘Arafat and others feared were to ensue because Israel and the United States ultimately refused to entertain most P.L.O. demands—both those just mentioned relating to the situation on the ground and the broader political ones relating to a regional settlement—it is remarkable that the P.L.O. was in a position to put forward any conditions at all at the end of June.