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Publication Information: Book Title: Embattled Neighbors: Syria, Israel, and Lebanon. Contributors: Robert G. Rabil - author. Publisher: Lynne Rienner. Place of Publication: Boulder, CO. Publication Year: 2003. Page Number: *

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The Struggle
for Lebanon

Exactly one year after the May 1974 disengagement agreement brought peace and quiet to the Israeli-Syrian front on the Golan Heights, the Lebanese civil war erupted, providing a new arena for the continuation of the struggle between the two embattled neighbors, but by other, indirect means this time. However, it should be made clear from the very outset that the reasons why Syria and Israel vied so fiercely to gain predominance in Lebanon stemmed not only from the nature of the overall Arab-Israeli conflict and its shifting dynamics, but also in equal measure from Lebanon's own highly fragile sociopolitical and religious structures, alignments, and configurations.

As is well known, Lebanon was founded on a delicate balance of religious confessional power in the absence of genuine national integration. This balance came under significant stress when the PLO substituted Lebanon for Jordan as an organizational and operational base for its activities. By and by, the Muslim communities became disgruntled with the old power-sharing arrangements, seeking to enhance their position in the confessional system. The PLO emerged, in their eyes, as an effective instrument for achieving their goal.

As a reaction, the Christians mobilized in defense of the prevailing status quo. More specifically, the Maronites initiated a process of cooperation with Israel that evolved into an alliance. This alliance drew its strength from the rise of the young Christian Maronite leader Bashir Jumayil and from the desire of Israel's Begin government first to reinforce its hold over the West Bank against the backdrop of its withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula following the peace treaty with Egypt; and second to deny to the PLO and Syria domination over Lebanon. Meanwhile, Syria, feeling isolated and weak, was attempting to prevent Israel from establishing a foothold in Lebanon while seeking to build its regional power especially vis-à-vis Israel.

Naturally, all sides in this deadly contest tried to enlist in their favor the maximum support and involvement of traditional, local, international, and

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big-power allies such as the United States, the USSR, and the UNO (United Nations Organization). It is this highly complex and intricate situation that I will try to clarify and explain in this chapter.

The Regional Setting

President Nixon planned on making a Middle Eastern trip after Syria had signed the disengagement agreement with Israel in May 1974. His visit to Middle Eastern capitals was the first ever by a U. S. President, except for Cairo. The purposes of the trip were manifold. It symbolized the U. S. commitment to the peace process as well as the indispensable role of the United States in the region. It also served as a great public relations stunt for a domestically wounded president who was exuberantly welcomed by the Middle Eastern public. While celebrating Nixon's visit to Damascus on June 15, President Asad had important things on his mind. He wanted to know the depth of the U. S. commitment to the peace process initiated by Kissinger's step-by-step diplomacy. President Asad put President Nixon through the wringer of penetrating questions, revolving around the future negotiating strategy of the United States and its vision of Israel's future and final borders. 1 He also sought a U. S. pledge to help Syria regain all of the Golan Heights. President Nixon hated this cross-examination and equivocated. But before the meeting was over, Nixon gave Asad the impression that the United States was close to the Syrian position on the final borders with Israel. 2 This Asad interpreted as a U. S. endorsement of Syria's position regarding the Israeli-Syrian frontiers, meaning an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights. Encouraged by the U. S. position, Asad improved his relationship with the United States.

Before the visit, President Asad had set the stage well for a factual encounter with President Nixon. In an interview he had given to Arnaud de Borchgrave of Newsweek on June 1, 1974, Asad signaled his desire for peace in the Middle East within the context of Resolutions 242 and 338 and seemed to give the United States a central role in achieving it in the region. 3 A few months later, in February 1975, Asad gave another interview to Newsweek 's de Borchgrave in which he said: “If the Israelis return to the 1967 frontier— and the West Bank and Gaza become a Palestinian state—the last obstacle to a final settlement will have been removed. ” 4 But in the course of the interview Asad revealed that he was really interested in a nonbelligerency agreement. Though falling short of a call for a peace treaty, Asad's statements were conciliatory and promising considering that they coincided with Kissinger's renewed efforts to conclude a second Israeli-Egyptian disengagement agreement. Apparently, President Asad was linking the Israeli-Egyptian agreement with an Israeli-Syrian one, providing for a substantial Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights.

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By mid-1975, however, President Asad had become disillusioned with U. S. policy in the region. Kissinger had been concentrating all his efforts on an Israeli-Egyptian agreement, leaving Syria out. Asad's fears of a separate accord between Egypt and Israel were confirmed when the two countries signed the second disengagement agreement, known as Sinai II, in September 1975. According to Patrick Seale, President Asad felt “thoroughly betrayed and was angry with himself for having given even a brief credence to Kissinger's assurance that disengagement would proceed in step on both the Egyptian and Syrian fronts and that the United States did not mean to divide the Arabs. ” 5 The terms of Sinai II were anathema to Asad. Israel and Egypt undertook to resolve their conflict by peaceful means in the interest of a final and just peace settlement. The United States compensated Israel's withdrawal from parts of the Sinai Peninsula with significant economic and military aid, pledging that it would neither negotiate with nor recognize the PLO unless the organization recognized Israel's right to exist and accepted Resolutions 242 and 338. Asad realized that Egypt could no longer exert any military pressure on Israel, and that Syria had lost its strategic military partner. Being the most powerful state in the region, Israel was now in a position to dictate its own peace terms on the Arab states. The Arabs' other option was either to accept or to resign themselves to the continued occupation of their territories. Asad strongly disapproved of such a scenario and sought to reinforce his regional standing vis-à-vis Israel in the region.

On a deeper level, Israel remained for Asad an expansionist state seeking to dominate the region. He was convinced that Zionism's strategic goal was to create a “Greater Israel” extending from the Nile to the Euphrates, a goal to which all plans were subordinated. 6 He perceived the Arab-Zionist struggle as an existential one, and when he took the long view he seemed to think that Israel was just another temporary foreign conquest that would pass like all those conquests that came to and vanished from the region. 7 In sum, the elimination of Israel and the return of all Arab territories figured prominently in Asad's deep-seated ideology. However, he was also a pragmatist. He recognized Syria's weakness. He sought Arab unity and cooperation in the interest of confronting Israel (after all, that had been his plan of action since he seized power), but without enduring success. Egypt had bolted the Arab military camp. Only Lebanon, Jordan, and the Palestinians loomed as potential Syrian allies. Iraq, which helped Syria in the 1973 war, was ruled out at the time due to the deep suspicions and rivalries between the two Ba'thi regimes.

Lebanon, Jordan, and the Palestinians could not be the best of allies, as they were weak on their own and constituted easy political and military targets for Israel. Lebanon was brewing with internal strife exacerbated by the PLO's presence in the country. Jordan rotated within the U. S. political orbit. The Palestinians were striving to break free from Arab tutelage, and to build their autonomous political and military organizations in Lebanon. To many, it

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seemed that Asad's efforts to build such an alliance were an attempt at reviving the concept of “Greater Syria”—that is, the union of Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and present-day Syria. But Asad's main concern was the balance of power in the region, which he wanted to adjust, if not tip, in Syria's favor. What mattered to him was bringing about some Arab unity under Syrian leadership to confront Israel. As he set about to achieve this goal, he faced a grave and immediate challenge from Lebanon.

The Lebanese Morass

Lebanon comprises a patchwork of religious communities. Its hallmark is the absence of national integration. In 1920, the French, with the approval of their political allies, the Christian Maronite community of Mount Lebanon, proclaimed Greater Lebanon. The map of the new country included the Muslimdominated coastal cities extending from Tripoli in the north to Tyre in the south and the Muslim-dominated Beka Valley. The Maronites assumed political hegemony but had barely a plurality. In 1943 the religious communities, under the leadership of the Maronites and the Muslim Sunnis, worked out a national pact that distributed political power among themselves. The pact assigned a ratio of representation in the parliament favoring the Christians, and stipulated that the president of the republic be a Christian Maronite, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim, and the speaker of the house of representatives a Shia Muslim. Because of its numerical weakness, the Muslim Druze community obtained no privileged office. This is Lebanon's famous confessional system.

The Maronites, who dominated the system, believed in a Lebanon that belonged to neither an Arab nor a Western world, though their ideological commitments were pro-Western. In their view, Lebanon has been and should continue to be a crossroads between East and West. One predominant orientation within the Maronite community came to be represented by the Phalange Party (Kata'ib), founded by Pierre Jumayil in 1936. Its program rested on safeguarding the political autonomy and authority of the Maronites in Lebanon against Arab Muslim pretensions. The Phalange Party defined Lebanon as a historical political community with Maronitism, which Jumayil equated with patriotism, as its basis. 8 This Maronite nationalist outlook ran counter to that of Lebanon's Muslims, whose pan-Arab sentiment had been rising since Lebanon's independence in 1946. Though at various times interests overlapped among the confessional groups, communal solidarity and feudal leadership further weakened the fabric of Lebanese society. Loyalty, in the absence of a national sentiment, went to sect and leader.

A weak state enjoying a quasidemocratic system, Lebanon became a playground for competing movements in the Arab world, revolving around grievances against imperialism and Zionism. The first challenge to confront

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the state occurred in 1958, when civil war broke out. Muslim (Sunni and Druze) pro-Nasser Arab forces confronted Christian pro-Western forces. At the time, President Camille Chamoun, who supported the Eisenhower Doctrine, called on the United States for help. The response took the form of landing U. S. Marines in Beirut and slowly putting a negotiated end to the fighting. Stability was restored but rested again on a delicate balance of power among the confessional groups. This balance was disrupted when the Palestinians residing in Lebanon became an additional actor in the country, grafting their “Palestine problem” onto Lebanon's domestic politics.

Some 100,000 Palestinian refugees came to Lebanon during the 1948 war. Their numbers increased dramatically to approximately 300,000 following their defeat at the hands of the Hashimite regime in Jordan's civil war in 1970. The bulk of the PLO moved out of Jordan to Lebanon via Syria. The geographic contiguity of Lebanon with Israel, the appeal of pan-Arabism and Palestine to Lebanon's Muslim population, and the weakness of the Lebanese state made Lebanon a highly congenial place for PLO activities. The Palestinians immediately reinforced their presence in southern Lebanon, particularly in the Arqub and Kharoub region, which had been largely neglected by the government. From there they staged guerrilla attacks against Israel. In 1969 the armed presence of the PLO in Lebanon was enhanced following the Cairo Agreement, which provided extraterritorial rights for the PLO, particularly in the refugee camps. Southern Lebanon was becoming a Palestinian stronghold, deserving of the name “Fatahland. ”

Already before 1970, Palestinian attacks were leading to severe Israeli retaliations. In December 1968, Israel raided Beirut's international airport and blew up thirteen Lebanese airplanes, precipitating the fall of the government. Following the influx of the PLO into Lebanon and its increased border infiltration into Israel, Israeli counterattacks made parts of southern Lebanon uninhabitable. This had two immediate bearings on Lebanon's politics. First, the accelerated flight of the indigent Shia inhabitants of southern Lebanon to the slums around a predominantly Sunni West Beirut led to the destabilizing of the homogeneous religious societal composition of that part of the capital, and set in motion an irreversible radicalization of the Muslim community. Second, the Muslim and Christian communities became polarized, because the leadership of the first supported the PLO and criticized the weakness and neutrality of the army in the face of Israeli aggression, while the leadership of the second opposed the very presence of the PLO on Lebanese soil.

Compounded by serious internal issues about power sharing (and economic disadvantage), this started the creation of two diametrically opposed camps in Lebanon's politics. The Muslim camp sought to alter the status quo and to gain political advantage, moving Lebanon unequivocally in the direction of pan-Arabism. The Christian camp sought to maintain the status quo and keep Lebanon out of the Arab-Israeli conflict, thereby preserving their political predominance. The PLO naturally sided with the Muslims, who not only

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gave it support but also allowed it to gain a political say in the affairs of the country due to its military strength. Thus, although the Palestinians were not at the root of Lebanon's weak system, they were the catalyst of the system's downfall. Civil war broke out in April 1975 when, avenging the killing of Pierre Jumayil's bodyguard, Phalangists opened fire on an armed Palestinian bus passing through the Maronite suburb of Beirut, Ayn al-Rumane.

The civil war initiated the process of dividing Lebanon along heavily armed sectarian lines, with many Christian and Muslim villages and towns sacked and cleansed along confessional lines. The Christian camp comprised a coalition of three main groups, the Phalangist Party and its armed militia; the National Liberal Party (founded by Camille Chamoun) and its armed militia, known as the Tigers; and the followers of Suleiman Franjieh (then president of Lebanon) and their armed militia, known interchangeably as the Zugharta Liberation Army and the Mara'da. The Muslim camp consisted of a coalition of groups. Its mainstay was the National Movement, founded in 1973, which rallied most Arabist, leftist, and radical groupings and parties in Lebanon (including communists, pro-Iraq Ba'thists, Nasserists, and a faction of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party) and then fronted for the PLO. Its outspoken leader was Kamal Jumblat, an enigmatic, cynical, quasifeudal, and controversial figure.

The founder of the Progressive Socialist Party, Jumblat was a genuine man of the left, who had won the Lenin Peace Prize. He was also a sectarian Druze leader who sought to overthrow Maronite hegemony over the Lebanese system. He abhorred Maronite privileges in Lebanon; he was most probably the person who coined the term “isolationists” to describe the Maronites. He perceived them as central players in a U. S. and Zionist conspiracy against Lebanon and the Arabs in general. According to him, the Maronites strove to cut Lebanon off from its Arab surroundings in the hope of creating a “Christian Zion” called Lebanon, serving to undermine Arab unity. Thus, according to Jumblat, the “battle of the National Movement was to save Lebanon and its Arabism and to reaffirm Lebanon's commitment to the Palestinian cause, foiling the Phalangist conspiracy. ” 9 In fact, Jumblat, in the name of Arabism, was recruiting the PLO to fight his war against the Christians. This posture was grist for the mill of the PLO, which eventually became a decisive player in Lebanon's civil war. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Popular Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PDFLP) (both radical factions of the PLO) played a major role in the fight against the Christians as well.

As the civil war intensified and the partition of the country along sectarian lines was becoming a daily reality, Lebanon posed a security problem for Syria as partition of Lebanon could well become de jure. Driven by Muslim and Palestinian pressure, the Maronites could well be provoked to declare their own independent state, opting for close cooperation with Israel. Growing Palestinian activity and power in Lebanon could well draw the Israelis in to

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destroy Palestinian military bases. Syria faced a dilemma. On the one hand, it wanted to control Lebanon and the Palestinians, but on the other hand, it could not do so without provoking an Israeli intervention. The memory of Syria's involvement in Jordan's civil war was still too fresh. Lebanon bristled with dangers for Syria. President Asad felt that unless the fighting was stopped, his chances for building Syria's regional power were doomed. 10

The Red Line Agreement

Early on in his rule, President Asad was interested in building good relations with Lebanon, a country, unlike Syria, with an open political and economic system. In December 1970 a Syrian delegation, under Foreign Minister Abd al-Halim Khaddam, traveled to Lebanon and signed an agreement to establish a joint commission, known as the Permanent Authority, “whose main job [would] be to strengthen and improve relations between the two countries and solve problems that may arise. ” 11 Holding its first meeting in January 1971, the Permanent Authority agreed on a wide variety of issues ranging from economic affairs to security matters. A provision of the Permanent Authority called for the establishment of offices in each capital to carry out coordination and administrative work. But Syria continued to oppose diplomatic relations of any kind. Syria had never opened an embassy in Lebanon. Equally significant, Damascus had always tried to play a significant role in Lebanese politics through the office of the president, which Syria eagerly sought to fill with a loyal candidate. In addition, President Asad forged relations outside the traditional Lebanese establishment. He developed an interest in the Shia community, which had become the single largest confession in Lebanon. He cultivated his relationship with the powerful Shia leader Imam Musa al-Sadr, who issued a fatwa (a juridical-religious opinion) declaring the Alawis a part of (Twelver) Shia Islam. This helped Asad's Alawi regime to put on the defensive those Sunni critics who questioned the authenticity of the Alawi confession as a part of Islam, as well as to draw on Shia support in Lebanon. 12

By early 1976 the last vestiges of communal coexistence in Lebanon had disappeared. The Christians overran and cleared out the Palestinian Dba'ye camp, which lay astride the main road linking Christian East Beirut to the north with Mount Lebanon, and then destroyed the Shia slum of Karantina, situated between East Beirut and the port area. The Muslims and Palestinians razed the Christian towns of Damour, Ji'ya, and Sa'adiyat, lying astride the roads linking Muslim West Beirut to southern Lebanon. As the fighting intensified and the antagonists clearly prepared themselves for the possibility of partition, President Asad decided to intervene to prevent the total collapse of the Lebanese system and state. He dispatched units of Al-Saiqa and the Syrian Palestine Liberation Army (consisting of Palestinians under the control of the Syrian army) into Lebanon in January. At first these units fought alongside the

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Muslims and Palestinians, but shortly thereafter they began to separate the combatants as President Asad pressed for a cease-fire.

In February, Asad managed to work out a compromise with President Franjieh, known as the Constitutional Document, in which the Maronites gave up some of their constitutional privileges. This did not prevent the further deterioration of the Lebanese situation. In March, the Lebanese army faced a religious mutiny, with Christian officers breaking ranks to join the Phalangists and Tigers while Muslim officers joined the National Movement. Propped by a phalanx of mutineers, the Muslims and Palestinians went on the offensive and closed down on the Christians, whose military situation turned shaky. The forces of Jumblat's National Movement and the PLO's radicals scented victory.

President Asad was alarmed at the shift in the military balance. He feared that a victory of the left and the PLO would bring in Israel's intervention on behalf of the Maronites. Asad called on Jumblat and Arafat to stop the offensive. In March, he had a long stormy meeting with Jumblat during which the latter refused to obey a Syrian request for an immediate cease-fire. Jumblat recalled the meeting in his posthumously published memoirs:

The Syrian president misunderstood our intentions. He would not accept the refusal regarding the cease fire…. The struggle which had turned from defensive to offensive was very important to [the National Movement], we could not let the opportunity of turning the confessional organizations into secular and democratic ones pass away. We say this because we could not let this historic opportunity evade us. And the revolution does not forgive you: You have to seize it the moment destiny appears propitious and victory within hand's reach. 13

According to Jumblat, President Asad frankly told him the following:

Listen to me. It is an historic opportunity for me to orient the Maronites in the direction of Syria, to gain their confidence, and to convince them that their protector is neither France nor the West. We ought to assist them not to request aid from the Westerner. Hence, I can not accept your victory over the Christian military camp in Lebanon. 14

President Asad realized that he had to immediately intervene in order to prevent the military downfall of the Christian side. Israel would not stand idly by and witness the creation of a radical country, swarming with Palestinian militants, along its border. It would undoubtedly help the Maronites create their own state, thus establishing a permanent foothold in Lebanon. Israel could easily then use Lebanon to militarily outflank Syria's defenses. At this point, it becomes clear that the idea of Syrian intervention in Lebanon was born out of Asad's strategic security needs rather than his ideological convictions about Greater Syria.

At the same time, Syria's military intervention in Lebanon would provoke an Israeli counterintervention. Through the United States, Israel made it

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clear to the Syrians that it considered the intervention of foreign armed forces in Lebanon a grave threat to its security, something that Israel would not allow to happen. 15 Meanwhile, however, the situation in Lebanon had alarmed the United States, which at first had paid little attention to Lebanon, concentrating its diplomatic efforts on Egypt and Israel. Now the United States could no longer ignore Lebanon, particularly when victory of the left and the Palestinians seemed likely. The Soviet Union had been supporting the winning side, and it would inevitably gain valuable ground in case its clients won. Moreover, as both Syria and Israel perceived Lebanon as crucial to their security, they might clash and lead the region to another war. Therefore the idea of Syrian intervention in Lebanon to rein in the radicals and adjust the military balance appealed to the United States. The irony of the situation was that Syria, the advocate of Arab nationalism and the Palestinian cause, was embarking on a course so contradictory to its traditions. Patrick Seale commented that “the benefits for the United States and Israel could be great indeed: the Palestinians would be humbled, the left reined in, Moscow thwarted, and Asad himself tarnished by a deed heinous in Arab eyes. ” 16

The U. S. task was, on the one hand, to convince Israel to consent to the Syrian military intervention in Lebanon, and on the other hand, to persuade the Christians (through the Lebanese Christian president) to invite the Syrians so that Syrian military intervention would appear legitimate. After a difficult internal debate, Israel consented to the Syrian intervention. Chief of Staff Mordechai Gur and Chief of Military Intelligence Shlomo Gazit argued that “it was better for Israel to have the Syrian army deployed on two fronts—the Golan Heights and Lebanon—and thus stretched thin. ” 17 Not only would the Syrian army weaken, but also the Golan Heights would become a lower priority. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin supported this logic.

However, Israel made its consent conditional on certain demands, which it conveyed to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. The United States, functioning as an emissary between Jerusalem and Damascus, endorsed Israel's demands and passed them on to the Syrians. Apparently, the Syrians agreed to Israel's conditions, and Washington gave its “green light” for the Syrian army to enter Lebanon. This unsigned, oral U. S.-Israeli-Syrian understanding regarding Lebanon came to be known as the “Red Line” Agreement. According to Ze'ev Schiff, the agreement contained three key elements: “(1) The Syrian army would not enter southern Lebanon and would not cross a line starting south of Sidon, on the coast, and running east to Aysiya and from there towards the Syrian border; (2) the Syrian army in Lebanon would not be equipped with surface-to-air missile batteries; (3) and the Syrian army would not use its air force against the Christians in Lebanon. ” 18 On the night of May 31, 1976, Syrian armored columns crossed the border into Lebanon.

Acting on the advice of Secretary of State Kissinger, President Gerald Ford chose the veteran official, Dean Brown, as the presidential envoy to handle the Lebanese end of the Red Line Agreement. While the Syrians were

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entering Lebanon, Brown met with Jumblat in his Druze stronghold of Mukhtara. He conveyed to Jumblat the U. S. concern with Lebanon's independence and the unity of its lands. Jumblat expressed to Brown his fears about the surprising Syrian infiltration into Lebanon at a time when the isolationists (Phalangists) were being defeated on most fronts. Brown replied that the Syrians “would not cross Deir Zanoun, ” meaning the Syrians would not get involved in the fighting. 19 But as it soon became evident, the Syrians speedily pressed forward in strength and broke the Muslim, leftist, and Palestinian siege on the Christian areas. Jumblat accused the United States of deception. He wrote in his memoirs: “The green light had been given to the Syrians to infiltrate Lebanon, and Kissinger, the German Semite, has applied his sorcery. ” 20

The Christian decision to invite the Syrians into Lebanon was one of stoic resignation. The Christians had always been wary of Syrian ambitions in Lebanon, particularly of the notion of Greater Syria. However, their decision was a consequence of two factors. The Christian military camp was threatened by defeat. Jumblat's and Arafat's forces were gaining the upper hand on several fronts in Beirut, Mount Lebanon, including the gates of Kisrwan, and Zahle in the Beka Valley. 21 Dean Brown had continuously refused Christian persistent requests for U. S. intervention, such as in 1958. As a result, the Christians resigned themselves to calling in Syrian help and found consolation in their immediate rescue. It was at this juncture that some Maronites began to entertain close cooperation with Israel as a hedge against the Syrian intervention. 22

New Developments, New Realities

By late June 1976, and after sharp engagements, Syrian forces put the forces of the National Movement on the defensive and turned the tide of the civil war. Rescued from near defeat, the Christian forces moved to strengthen their military situation by removing hostile enclaves in their territory, notably the Palestinian camps of Jisr al-Basha and Tal Za'tar. Located in Beirut's eastern suburbs, these fortified camps hampered Christian military movements and threatened the unity of East Beirut. Palestinian guerrillas in the camps could engage and occupy Christian forces, while at the same time, leftist, Palestinian, and Muslim militias could attack East Beirut from Al-Shiah in West Beirut. Consequently, important Christian suburbs such as Hazmieh, lying astride the Damascus-Beirut highway and bordering the camps, could fall. With the support and planning of Lebanese Christian army officers, the Tigers led the attack on the camps. After fierce fighting and hand-to-hand combat that lasted for almost two months, the adjacent camps fell in August. These two camps, especially Tal Za'tar, were built not only to withstand Israeli air attacks, but also as a rampart with many subterranean tunnels and

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caches for ammunition. 23 No wonder Arafat wanted to continue the fighting— he had enough men, ammunition, and military bases to wear down his enemies. The death toll on both sides was high. But after the defeat of the camps, members of the Christian forces, avenging their fallen brethren and Palestinian ingratitude as guests in Lebanon, committed atrocities against Palestinians, including civilians.

A few days before the fall of Tal Za'tar, the military chief of the Phalangists, William Hawi, died mysteriously far from the actual fighting, and was replaced by Bashir Jumayil, the younger son of Pierre Jumayil. While the battle for Tal Za'tar was raging, Syrian troops engaged leftist and Palestinian forces on several fronts to keep them from relieving Christian pressure on the camps. Obviously, Syria indirectly helped the Christians in removing the Palestinians from the Christians' heartland. But when in late September and early October the Phalangists and Tigers tried to take advantage of the Syrian offensive to expand their territory, Syria checked their moves. 24 Syria's objective was to stop the fighting and to make sure that no party in Lebanon gained the upper hand. This approach was at the heart of Syria's divide and conquer strategy in Lebanon. No party was allowed to become strong enough to rally sufficient resistance against the Syrians, and most parties needed Syria when their fortunes were at a low ebb. During the long course of the civil war, Syria deftly played one party against the others.

The intervention of Syria in Lebanon to protect the Christians heaped opprobrium on President Asad coming from the Arab leaders, as well as from the Soviet Union, whose position in Lebanon was undermined as a result of the near rout of its protégés, the National Movement forces. However, in midOctober Saudi Arabia, with the tacit approval of the National Movement, invited Syria to a peacemaking summit in Riyadh. A plan was worked out to send an all-Arab “deterrent force” to Lebanon to keep the peace. Syrian troops constituted the major contingent of...