World: A Lesson in Lebanon

Any settlement in the Middle East depends as much on the Palestinian fedayeen commandos as on the Arab countries and Israel. Operating virtually as a separate state within the Arab lands, the fedayeen are powerful and popular enough to threaten any Arab leader inclined toward peace with Israel with the specter of popular revolt. Last week the point was driven home to Arabs everywhere by a violent show of Palestinian power that brought about the fall of the government of tiny Lebanon.

Anxious to avoid Israel’s wrath, Lebanon had long tried to keep the fedayeen from staging raids across its mountainous southeastern border. The 15,000-man Lebanese army proved incapable of the task. It settled for insisting that the guerrillas not carry arms in Lebanon—which often meant the army carried their weapons for them. Two weeks ago, even that slight restraint was brushed aside when an eight-man Lebanese patrol stopped a group of Al-Fatah commandos a mile from the Israeli border. One guerrilla opened fire, wounding all eight Lebanese.

Orders for the Masses. For breaking the commandos’ strict rule against shooting fellow Arabs, the offender was held for trial in a guerrilla court. But the 160,000 Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon felt differently. Near Sidon, 11,000 of them stormed out of their camp, demanding full freedom of action for the fedayeen. They overran police barricades and stoned security forces. The troops fired on the demonstrators, killing three.

The riots rapidly spread to Beirut and every sizable city in Lebanon, growing in numbers and fury with the support of student sympathizers and opposition political parties. Premier Rashid Karami vainly pleaded by telephone with Fatah Commander Yasser Arafat in Amman, asking him to appeal to the demonstrators to stop. Arafat refused, on the grounds that they were not under his orders. Meanwhile, the Cairo-based Voice of Al-Fatah was broadcasting instructions that urged “the Arab masses” to prevent Lebanese “counterrevolutionary forces” from “stabbing the revolution in the back.”

Karami decreed a state of emergency, and the army slapped a curfew on seven Lebanese cities where disturbances had occurred. The casualty toll rose to 17 dead and 150 wounded as demonstrations broke out anew, and both pro-and anti-fedayeen forces pressed the Premier to take a stand. “The government can not take any side without splitting the country,” said Karami, abruptly submitting his resignation. That presented President Charles Helou with the task of finding someone to form a government of “national unity” to end the unrest. But the only way to accomplish that would be for the new government to endorse freedom of action for the fedayeen, at least in principle, drawing Lebanon inexorably into the conflict with Israel.

Enemy Within. The lesson of Lebanon could not be lost on other Arab leaders, who increasingly have reason to view the fedayeen as an enemy within. When Jordan’s King Hussein outlined a six-point peace plan during his visit to Washington three weeks ago, and suggested that it would also be acceptable to the Palestinians, five fedayeen groups issued a joint statement in Beirut repudiating every point.

The commandos are probably too strong for Hussein to bring them under control. But neighboring Iraq has restricted their actions within its borders, and both Iraq and Egypt have formed their own commando groups to take the play for popular support away from the Palestinians. Egypt’s Nasser has also gone so far as to deport some commandos to Jordan.

Increasingly Important. The crackdown is partially a result of Soviet pressure. Concerned about the possibility of the commandos’ touching off another war, Russia has in recent weeks passed word to its Arab client states that no more Soviet weapons earmarked for their armies are to be passed along to the fedayeen. When the Palestine Liberation Organization publicly complained that “the Soviet Union persists in ignoring the rights of the Palestinians,” Moscow’s Sovietskaya Rossiya hauled out one of its strongest epithets, labeling them Trotskyites. For good measure, it added that their aim of “the liquidation of Israel is not realistic.”

Whatever long-run effect the Soviet pressure may have on Arab governments, it has dented neither the belligerence nor the armory of the fedayeen. One reason is that they have another source of guns, mines and ammunition from an increasingly important friend: China. Peking is taking full advantage of the opportunity to make trouble simultaneously for both the U.S. and Russia in the Middle East.