Efforts by Lebanese military leaders to reach some sort of an accommodation with Palestinian commandos collapsed today according to reports reaching here from Beirut. Talks have been going on for five days to reach an agreement on guerrilla activities based on Lebanese soil. A session held today was described as the “final attempt” to break the deadlock. But it was not attended by Yassir Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization and leader of El Fatah, the most powerful of the commando groups. He had reportedly already left for Amman, Jordan.
The guerrillas are demanding a free hand for incursions against Israel. Lebanese officials are trying to convince them that stepped up commando activity against Israel would bring severe reprisals and possible Israeli annexation of southern Lebanon and its fertile coastal plain. According to reports from Beirut, leaders of the PLO said no agreement had been reached between the two sides. But Shafik el-Hout, chief of the Beirut office of the PLO, said “we all see each other’s point of view more clearly than ever.”
The Lebanese dispute with the Palestinian guerrillas belonging to El Fatah and the Syrian-sponsored al-Saiqa movement led to clashes between Lebanese troops and commandos and rioting in Beirut and other cities which brought about the fall of the Government of Premier Rashid Karami. No new Lebanese Government has been formed. President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt sent a special envoy to Beirut, Dr. Hassan Sabry al-Kholy, to mediate the dispute. He returned to Cairo yesterday after guerrilla leaders rejected his proposal that the entire question of the role of commandos in the Arab states be brought before a meeting of the Arab League foreign ministers.
Up until today Yassir Arafat took part in the talks with Lebanese Army officers. He insisted that Lebanon grant El Fatah the same privileges and facilities that it enjoys in Jordan, Syria and Egypt. El Fatah has free time on Cairo radio for nightly broadcasts. But it does not operate from Egyptian soil against Israel nor is it permitted by Syrian authorities to launch attacks from Syrian soil. With El Fatah incursions from Jordan a failure owing to the nature of the terrain and the efficiency of Israeli security measures, Lebanon remains its only possible effective base.
(Israeli security forces rounded up II suspected El Fatah members in the West Bank town of Hebron today. A Defense Ministry source said Hebron has been a center of Arab resistance to Israeli occupation.)
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
