Introduction
I A War Without Victors
It is now apparent that the 1982 war has taken its place with those of 1948, 1967 and 1973 as a watershed in modern Middle Eastern history. This is clear from its drastic effects on all the parties to the conflict, and from the extensive literature devoted to it.
Israel, the war’s initiator, was bogged down in Lebanon for three years, spending about $1 million per day on the costs of occupation. Since June 6, 1982, over 650 Israeli soldiers have been killed and almost 4000 wounded.2 In spite of this high cost, the invasion of Lebanon has not measurably helped Israel to achieve its primary goals vis-à-vis the Palestinians, Lebanon, or Syria, or to advance its security.
For over two months in the summer of 1982, the Israeli army, which on the eve of the invasion was widely and rightfully feared throughout the Arab world, appeared impotent before the gates of Beirut. This impression has been powerfully reinforced by its inability to quell resistance activity in South Lebanon since then.
As a result of this novel demonstration of Israeli military incapacity, and of the questioning inside of Israel of the war’s justifiability, there is now doubt whether Israel can sustain its former role of preeminent regional superpower. Israelis would undoubtedly come to the defense of their country if it were threatened, but they are unlikely to allow themselves once again to be dragged into the kind of adventure launched by former Prime Minister Menachem Begin and former Defense Minister Ariel Sharon in 1982.
As for the Palestinians, they too have been major losers. In spite of their resistance to the Israeli attack, which was more prolonged than anyone could have predicted, the war had few positive results for them. The Palestine Liberation Organization (P.L.O.) was driven out of South Lebanon, and then forced to leave Beirut in August 1982. It did so without obtaining either binding guarantees for the Palestinian civilians left behind, or the political quid pro quo it sought for the evacuation. The result was a bloody massacre at Sabra and Shatila, and a marked decline in the Organization’s visibility and effectiveness.
In the three years which followed, the P.L.O. has suffered dispersion, profound internal dissension, and a bitter dispute with Syria, which led to its forced evacuation from Tripoli. Although the loyalty to it of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip has not wavered, they remain under intense pressure from the Israeli authorities, while the situation of Palestinians in Lebanon since 1982 has been precarious.3 In all of this, the Palestinians’ national cause has not been measurably advanced.
Lebanon was the arena and a major victim of the 1982 war. Its situation, bad to begin with, is considerably worse than when the invasion began. Aside from massive losses to life and property in much of the country during and since the invasion, a resolution of the long-lasting Lebanese crisis seems no closer than it was before June 1982. Instead, the precarious internal balance which had prevailed since 1976 has been shattered, as new conflicts have erupted and old ones have reappeared.
Most depressing to the Lebanese people, the war and its bitter aftermath have shown that many of their pre-war hopes for the future—whether for a purely Lebanese solution, or for external intervention—were in vain. The resulting state of despair is reflected in an economic crisis without precedent since fighting began in 1975, massive emigration, and a state of near total public insecurity.4
Most external powers intervening in Lebanon have fared nearly as badly. Following Israel’s invasion, the United States fell into the trap in its turn, with the Marines eventually becoming little more than another militia on the Lebanese chessboard, while providing easy targets for shadowy enemies. American prestige in the Middle East has suffered measurably as a result of this involvement.
The reasons why are easy to discern. America is held responsible in the region for not having restrained Israel during the war, for not living up to its solemn commitments by preventing the Sabra and Shatila massacres, and for not immediately getting Israel out of Lebanon. Thereafter, U.S. power was committed on the Western rim of Asia for nearly 18 months in support of a narrowly based and weak regime. It confronted a fiercely committed and battle-hardened local majority enjoying strong external backing. This situation was strangely reminiscent of the United States position for so many years on the southeastern rim of the same continent.
Originally, it was Israel’s failure to achieve its 1982 war aims which forced Washington to choose between the two unwelcome options of continuing costly U.S. military involvement, while increasing aid to a weaker Israel in the context of a closer alliance, or allowing Syria to gain a predominant position in Lebanon, and the region, with resulting benefits for the USSR.5 Events finally imposed the latter on the Reagan administration, with the withdrawal of the Marines from Lebanon in February 1984, but even then the chapter of U.S. involvement in Lebanon was not ended.
As for the Soviets, in the wake of the crushing defeat of their Syrian ally during the war, they reluctantly had to commit several thousand of their own combat personnel and advanced new weapons systems to a highly independent Syria. The USSR was thereby faced with the possibility of a direct confrontation with the U.S. in a situation over which it had little control, and where clients of clients often seemed to be be calling the tune.
Their new and more exposed posture in the region was all the more dangerous for the Soviets, since an enraged U.S. tended to blame its predicament in Lebanon partly on them. In fact, the Soviet Union had done little more than benefit from gross errors made by the U.S. and Israel, while extending the support demanded by Syria, its sole remaining regional client of importance.
Among other negative outcomes of the war for the USSR was the fate of the P.L.O., whose defeat in Lebanon, followed by its quarrel with Syria and the resulting internal dissension, paralyzed an important Soviet regional client. On balance, however, and notwithstanding the problems inherent in their position, the Soviets have probably benefited overall from the results of Israel’s invasion.6
The numerous Arab rivals of Syria have all been discomfited by the preeminence in Arab affairs which it has managed to achieve through its perseverence in Lebanon. Whereas one of the initial results of the war seemed to be a diminution of Syrian power and prestige, that is clearly no longer the case. Syria successfully stood up to both the U.S. and Israel, while backing the winning side in the internal Lebanese conflict.
Syria would seem so far to have escaped the unenviable fate of all other external actors involved in Lebanon for the past decade.7 However, it is now in the potentially dangerous position of appearing to be on top in Lebanon, with a host of determined and powerful enemies nursing their resentment against it. It will moreover be held largely responsible for events in that country, although it cannot control them. Syria’s experience from 1976–1982, when it was ostensibly the dominant power in Lebanon, show that that is not always a desirable position to be in.
The summer of 1982 thus marked the end of an era in the Middle East, where the United States has long managed to maintain its dominance, while only rarely having to flex its own muscles. This anomaly was largely due to its special relationship with a powerful Israel. Following the joint Israeli-U.S. debacle in Lebanon of 1982–83, it will be considerably harder for both to maintain their former regional predominance without a level of willingness higher than ever before to intervene directly—with all the perils that entails.
For all the powers involved, the 1982 war was a turning point, with the predicament of each since then firmly grounded in the events of that summer. Although this central reality has been largely ignored in the prevalent ahistorical blindness in the United States regarding the Middle East, that makes it no less true.
II Perspective and Rationale
Little written so far about the 1982 war has used documents or interviews to illuminate the actions of the parties involved. The reasons are easy to find. In Israel, the war has been a matter for bitter, partisan dispute since it began, coloring the large amount of material which has been published so far. Lebanon is still torn by war, while the Palestinian movement has been riven by dissension. As a result, few Lebanese or Palestinians have had the chance to record their view of events in 1982.8
As for other actors such as the U.S., the USSR, and Syria, none is in the habit of releasing sensitive documents on still vital issues very quickly (if ever). At the same time, relatively little has been said for publication by those individuals who were in positions of responsibility in 1982. At the time of this writing most of them were still at their posts, and still engaged in dealing with the direct consequences of their decisions during that summer.9
More has probably been written from the American and Israeli perspectives than from that of the victims of the invasion, the Palestinians and Lebanese. Most of this material has been devoted to discerning Israel’s precise objectives in invading Lebanon, the degree of American acquiescence in its decision, the course of relations between the United States and Israel during the war, and the domestic impact of the invasion and its bitter aftermath on both countries.
Harder to answer, and less fully dealt with, have been questions about why the P.L.O. and its allies were defeated so relatively swiftly in South Lebanon while the siege of Beirut was thereafter so prolonged, exactly when and why the P.L.O. decided to leave Beirut, what was the exact nature of the contacts between the U.S. and the P.L.O. to this end, and what were their results.
Full access to the P.L.O. archives10 has made it possible to shed light on these subjects, and provide answers to many of these questions. This was in large measure the raison d’être for this study: to clarify, from the point of view of those under siege—and using as much of the contemporary diplomatic correspondence as possible—what the P.L.O. did, and why, in the summer of 1982. A better understanding of this conflict, and of its sad aftermath, may well do something to avert similar future ones.
During this war, many Israelis began to realize for the first time that the Palestinians and Lebanese they had been fighting for so long were ordinary human beings. Therefore, one of the main objectives of this book has been to give these men and women a little more substance by describing their actions during the summer of 1982 through the imperfect medium of diplomatic telex messages and recollections recorded over a year after the event.
III The Problem of Sources
Three main categories of primary sources were used in this study: (A) documents from the P.L.O. archives; (B) material published in Beirut during the siege; (C) interviews with individuals involved.
A. The first category includes two groups of unpublished confidential sources:
1. Situation reports sent by the P.L.O. Central Operations Room to units in the field and offices abroad on a regular daily basis starting June 29, two weeks after the siege of Beirut had begun. Drafted by the top leadership of the P.L.O. (usually by Commander-in-Chief and Executive Committee Chairman Yasser ‘Arafat), these reports reflect their mood and their view of the state of the conflict.
2. Diplomatic dispatches sent via telex by the P.L.O. leadership to its envoys abroad, or received from them. These include more confidential and revealing information than the situation reports, and are the main source for the analysis of the negotiations for the P.L.O.’s withdrawal from Beirut.
B. The second category comprises publications issued in Beirut during the siege, including the daily al-Safir, the only newspaper to continue publishing without interruption from the beginning of the war on June 4 until the lifting of the siege in late August; the leading Lebanese daily al-Nahar; the daily news bulletin issued by WAFA, the P.L.O.’s news agency; and selected issues of Filastin al-Thawra (the P.L.O.’s daily newspaper), and of other short-lived news-sheets which emerged during the siege such as al-Ma‘raka and al-Mitras.
C. Finally, those interviewed include most members of the top Fateh leadership in Beirut during the siege, and several who played important roles outside. Also interviewed were a number of middle-level P.L.O. cadres and officers in key positions, P.L.O. envoys abroad, and a number of Western diplomats and officials involved in dealing with the crisis.
Clearly, the material in all three categories suffers from a variety of potentially serious drawbacks. The first is the most obvious: most of it reflects exclusively the perspective of one party to the conflict, a party which was besieged and cut off from normal contact with the outside world, and which was under the most extreme military, political, and psychological pressure throughout the war.
While this feature of most of the sources must be borne in mind throughout, in no way does it detract from the value of this material or from the validity of the perspective it represents: that of a main participant in the conflict. Where possible, it has been checked against other sources, and against recollections of non-Palestinian participants in the events, which diminishes this problem somewhat.
Another more specific drawback resides in the nature of the P.L.O. situation reports. These were intended to inform, but also served to exhort combatants and cadres to remain steadfast. They thus often contained rhetoric, verses from the Qur’an, and other material meant to raise morale (although the translations sent by telex and used in this study were considerably less inflated than the originals transmitted in Arabic by the P.L.O. military radio network).
These reports were also at times imprecise, and lacked detail when compared with the diplomatic telex traffic, or even with published WAFA communiques. This is notably true regarding details of the withdrawal negotiations. However, since they were meant for units in the field, there was always a high measure of accuracy in their description of the military situation. It would have been foolish to tell the combatants in the front lines anything but the truth about events occurring before their eyes on a circumscribed battlefield.
As for the diplomatic dispatches sent by telex, their use is associated with all the normal pitfalls facing the diplomatic historian: the bias of those sending them, the possibility that the envoy abroad is not being told the whole story by his superiors (or vice versa), and the chance that truly vital communications are going via another channel.
The latter consideration presents a problem, since telex traffic represented only a portion of the P.L.O.’s wartime diplomatic communications. These also included indirect negotiations which took place in Beirut; radio messages (to those P.L.O. missions with full diplomatic status, and entitled to employ wireless communications); and telephone conversations with foreign leaders and P.L.O. officials abroad, which were frequent at decisive stages of the war.
Little from the latter categories was used in this study. This was unavoidable as regards both telephone and verbal communications. The P.L.O., which usually made transcripts of these, could no do so under conditions of siege (although procès-verbales of certain key meetings were drawn up.) The memory of some of those involved had to serve as an imperfect substitute in these cases.
In the case of the radio traffic, transcripts of the material are neither as easily accessible nor as well organized and indexed as the telex traffic. Careful checking determined that most of it duplicated the telex material. Where it did not, little light would have been shed on the key issues in question, as they were generally not treated in these radio communications with P.L.O. offices in Arab, East bloc, and third world states. Certain things mitigate the importance of the gaps resulting from the absence of this material. In the first place, it emerges from a study of the telex traffic that after an early date during the war, virtually all significant messages, whether sent originally by radio, telephone, or telex, were routinely repeated in serial form via telex to important offices abroad.
In addition, key communications with P.L.O. offices in a number of centers (particularly Paris and New York) took place largely by telex. This was due to the need for a written record of what was communicated and for a high degree of textual accuracy regarding documents which were the focus of negotiations, such as Security Council draft resolutions, and the agreement on P.L.O. withdrawal from Beirut. At least one P.L.O. envoy involved stated later that he consciously avoided use of the telephone for these reasons.11
Also diminishing the extent of this problem is material gathered during interviews with several of the principals involved. This has provided information on some of what passed verbally during face-to-face negotiations in Beirut and elsewhere, and in diplomatic discussions on the telephone (which was the chosen medium in dealings with some parties).
One further problem with the telex traffic is that it went out en clair in English on international telecommunications networks, and was thus definitely subject to interception by the United States and Israel.12 Those sending and receiving them were aware that their confidential communications were probably being read by the very people they were negotiating with. There is thus at times a certain reticence, or careful circumlocution, about important points in these telexes. On the other hand, this knowledge on the part of the senders often meant that they were drafting their messages as much for their effect on those doing the evesdropping as on the intended recipients.13
In spite of these drawbacks, the resulting picture of the negotiations is complete in several respects, although gaps remain. It reveals that the complex quadrilateral diplomacy between the P.L.O., the Lebanese government, the United States, and Israel to end the conflict took place on many levels. While U.S. Presidental envoy Philip Habib was its main focus throughout, there were several complicating factors.
The most serious complication was the multiplicity of channels used in the negotiations, due to the self-imposed prohibition on direct P.L.O.-U.S. contacts, and Habib’s frequent relaying of Israeli positions or acting on behalf of Israel, which also refused to recognize the P.L.O. Thus Habib had to negotiate via several intermediaries, generally Lebanese government officials located in West Beirut and in contact with the P.L.O. leadership, or Lebanese military officers. Former Lebanese Premier Sa’eb Salam was also an important conduit for Habib’s diplomacy. On the Palestinian side, there were a number of different negotiators at different phases. However, after the initial contacts, all of them belonged to a committee authorized to carry out this task, and all were acting on instructions from the combined P.L.O. leadership, which regularly met to review the talks and issue instructions to its emissaries.14
Another complication which was revealed in the course of this research was the existence of a second line of communications between the U.S. and the P.L.O., supplementing the “Habib channel.” Starting on June 25 (as far as can be ascertained), the U.S. State Department sent certain important messages for the P.L.O. via the French government. Occasionally other powers and private individuals were used as intermediaries in relaying messages to and from the P.L.O.
Frequently the French alternate channel seems to have been used only for the repetition of messages Habib was delivering in Beirut. But at times it carried either original messages not sent via any other route; or messages which arrived in West Beirut faster than similar ones relayed by Habib via his Lebanese interlocutors; or messages whose content differed slightly from what was being sent via Habib. This was perhaps due to the latter being transmitted through (and presumably distorted by) several sets of mediators.
It is easier to understand why the messages Washington sent Habib, or which he originated or brought with him from Israel, might have been distorted by the time they reached the P.L.O. leadership if the route they took is described. The U.S., or Israeli, or U.S./Israeli, position was generally first transmitted by Habib to officials of the Lebanese government either at the U.S. Ambassador’s residence in Yarzé, or at the nearby Presidential Palace in Ba‘abda. It was then passed, often by telephone (which was subject to constant breakdowns) to other ministers or to former Premier Salam in West Beirut. This roundabout means of transmission between Lebanese was necessitated by the fact that neither Habib, nor President Elias Sarkis, nor his Foreign Minister Fuad Butros went to West Beirut during the war. At the same time, Premier Shafiq al-Wazzan, Minister Marwan Hamadeh, other Muslim ministers, as well as Sa’eb Salam, often could not or would not go up to Ba’abda after its occupation by the Israelis for reasons of principle, or because heavy fighting blocked roads.
However a message reached Lebanese intermediaries in West Beirut, it was then passed to the P.L.O. official delegated to receive it, who would then take it back to the entire leadership for consideration. During major escalations of the fighting when it was impossible for messengers to go up and down to Ba’abda, or when time was short, the telephone was used for the negotiation of ceasefires and other crucial accords. If the phones were not working and the roads were impassable as a result of the intensity of the combat, as was the case at least three times in August, negotiations ground to a halt.
The potential for distortion in such an extended and tenuous chain of transmission was great, particularly given the extreme strain on those involved in the process. Moreover, most of the Lebanese intermediaries had a major stake in the results of these contacts,15 while the members of the P.L.O. negotiating team had conflicting views on what should be done and differing understandings of the propositions they had received. This inevitably colored the transmission process, particularly when messages were passed verbally.
In addition to all the above sources of unconscious or unintentional deformation of the original messages, there was also always the possibility of conscious deception, concealed duplicity, and intentional procrastination by any link in the complicated chain of transmission. Possibilities of distortion on the Washington-Paris-West Beirut channel, while clearly less great, also existed. On the one hand, it is perfectly possible that changes of emphasis were added when messages came through Paris, just as they certainly were added, consciously or unconsciously, by the various interested Lebanese parties who served as intermediaries in Beirut. France—a regional power with major interests in Lebanon, and which was deeply engaged in its own dialogue with the P.L.O. leadership throughout the war—was able at the very least to express its opinion on what it was transmitting. It frequently availed itself of this opportunity, often in the strongest terms.
On the other hand, while it was the Americans who initially chose to use the French channel, in time resentment seems to have developed on their part at the special position France had thereby acquired. This resentment was undoubtedly fueled by the overt conflict which developed soon after the war began between the U.S. and French positions on most of the key questions at issue during the conflict. American diplomats thus at times strove to demonstrate that the French were unreliable or were distorting communications. Their apparent intention was to discourage too great P.L.O. reliance on, or confidence in, France. They thus utilized the Paris channel as an emergency backup to Habib’s efforts, but did not want it to take precedence over them. This reflected the fear that negotiations would move even slightly out of American hands, where Washington was determined to keep them centered.
As the siege went on, however, the Americans had to reconcile themselves to the fact that at times it was essential, if only for reasons of speed and reliability, that messages sent via Paris play a key role. They had to accept this even if it tended to diminish the importance of Habib, enhance the French role, and bring the P.L.O. ever so slightly closer to its objective of direct contacts with the U.S.
IV Structure and Organization
The P.L.O.’s evacuation from Beirut was not solely a function of defeats on the battlefield, or a result of the unfavorable regional and international balance of forces. Its decision to leave was also strongly influenced by the lack of support from the Lebanese, particularly those in West Beirut, at the outset of the war. Their attitude can be understood only by tracing its roots to the poor state of Lebanese-Palestinian relations in the years immediately preceding the war. This is the subject of chapter 1.
The military situation was a key factor in the decisions taken by the P.L.O., but it is wrong to assume that because the odds against them were so one-sided, and Israel’s defeat of their forces in South Lebanon so relatively swift, that the course of the siege of Beirut had little impact on these decisions, and that the P.L.O. was summarily forced to leave, with the only question ever at issue being when and how.16 This assumptions ignores both the length of time it took to reach a supposedly inevitable conclusion (70 days of fighting, from June 4 until August 12) and the effect on negotiations, time and again, of decisive events on the battlefield. This topic is dealt with in chapters 2 and 3.
Chapters 4 and 5 approach the major issues facing the Palestinian leadership in Beirut chronologically and thematically. These involved demands in mid-June for the P.L.O.’s departure from Beirut, as stipulated in the plan offered by Philip Habib; whether some quid pro quo could be obtained in exchange for acceptance of Habib’s proposals, or whether better terms could be negotiated, as was hoped until late July; and after that, whether relatively minor modifications could be made in the plan to meet basic P.L.O. requirements.
Chapter 4 deals with the P.L.O.’s late-June decision to accept the principle of leaving Beirut, and the factors shaping it. These included the poor state of P.L.O.-Lebanese relations, the grave situation on the battlefield during the war’s first week, and the absence of external aid for the P.L.O. The chapter then explores the controversy among the besieged sparked by the growing perception in late June that the war was not yet lost, and that better terms could perhaps be obtained. This was closely linked to the efforts of France to achieve a settlement more favorable to the P.L.O.
Chapter 5 examines the decline of P.L.O. hopes, culminating in the decision late in July to accept the Habib terms. It explores the crucial influence on this decision of the actions of Syria and Saudi Arabia, and the role of other factors in leading the P.L.O. to accept an outcome it had resisted for so long. This chapter also focuses on contacts with the U.S. after the P.L.O.’s decision to leave had been taken in principle, and what remained was a question of the terms under which the evacuation would take place. The effect of Israeli actions on the battlefield on the negotiations is also examined.
In conclusion, chapter 6 discusses the aftermath of the war, focusing on the extent of U.S. responsibility for the Sabra/ Shatila massacres, on the basis of its commitments to the P.L.O. These included both provisions contained in the published evacuation agreement, and others worked out in the course of the secret contacts. In all the attention devoted to the responsibility of Israel, the Phalangists, and the Lebanese state for the massacres, this U.S. role was largely ignored. The telex correspondence on this matter, together with other documents, show that this tragedy could have been prevented, had repeated explicit P.L.O. warnings been heeded by the United States.
This chapter concludes an account of events which transformed the politics of Lebanon, the Palestinians, and Israel. In Lebanon, the war seemed to give Bashir Gemayel a chance at supreme power. But after his death, hopes of a Maronite ascendancy based on reliance on Israel and the U.S. were shattered, as the country was wracked by continued war and foreign intervention. Yasser ‘Arafat and Fateh confronted the first serious challenge to their leadership after the P.L.O. lost its Lebanese base, while facing the daunting problems of the over four million Palestinians it represents. In Israel, major governmental changes were only one effect of the war. Others include a grave economic crisis and a new skepticism among many Israelis regarding an adventurous foreign policy. The chapter is a somber prelude to any study of the consequences of all these changes for U.S. policy and for the region, as well as of possible future implications of this most recent Arab-Israeli war, the first between Israelis and Palestinians.