A leading Israeli Druze denounced Lebanese President Amin Gemayel for reneging on the May 17 Lebanese-Israeli agreement and questioned the dependability of the Phalangists as allies of Israel.
Zeidan Atashi, chariman of the Israel Druze National Council’s Task Force on the Lebanese, told a press conference at the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York this week that he would like to see Israel and the United States support a different Lebanese President acceptable to all the warring factions in Lebanon.
He claimed that Gemayel is unacceptable to the Druze community as well as to most Lebanese. Gemayel, Atashi pointed out, even now is not President of Lebanon. “Syria controls 40 percent of the Lebanese territory, Israel about 30 percent, Gemayel doesn’t even control western Beirut,” Atashi contended. All Gemayel controls is a stronghold of Maronite eastern Beirut, and this is “only through the American security provided him,” he said.
RESPONSIBILITY FOR INVITING THE PLO INTO LEBANON
Atashi explained that the Lebanese Parliament, which is “overwhelmed by Maronites and Phalangists,” was the Lebanese authority to accept and admit the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1970. “It was not the Druze community,” he said.
Then, in 1975, when the PLO “contested the authority and property of those Phalangists,” the Phalange extended “very cordial invitations to the Syrians,” so that the Syrians might rescue the Lebanese from the same PLO presence. With the “chaos resulting” from the occupation of both forces, “the same group invited the Israelis to rescue them from both sides,” Atashi said.
Atashi, a former member of Knesset and a former Israel Consul in New York, is on tour of the U.S. to clarify the status of the Israeli Druze community, their history and their contributions. He emphasized that he is not seeking to intervene in American affairs but is looking for ways to make America more credible in the Middle East.
He said that he “loves and admires” the U.S. and “it hurts me to see the Americans killed for no future benefits,” a reference to the servicemen who have been killed in Beirut during their stint as part of the multinational force. Atashi said he foresees a bloodbath involving local Lebanese factions the minute the marines are withdrawn. But following the bloodbath, Lebanon “will decide what to do via its own people,” he said.
SYRIAN AMBITIONS IN LEBANON
Discussing Syrian ambitions in Lebanon, Atashi said they are aimed at recovering “Greater Syria” by challenging the weak party in the area, namely, Lebanon. The Syrian Nationalist Party has existed inside Lebanon for the last 30 years, he said, and maintains paid agitators there.
He predicted that “We will not have an easy task regarding Syrian withdrawal.” One reason for this, he opined, is that the Syrians, who were invited to Lebanon by a central government, do not now feel that Gemayel represents a united, centralized authority.
As for the Israeli occupation of Lebanon, Atashi said he favors a pullback from all populated areas even if pockets of terrorists remain there. He said Israelis, who are “sensitive people,” cannot themselves continue to eradicate terrorists. That should be the task of the local population.
He explained that “diplomacy allows for a lot of exits” and suggested that, given the situation “as it is,” it might be in Israel’s interest to offer military help to the Lebanese Druze community just as the Syrians are offering theirs.
GOALS OF THE TASK FORCE
Discussing the Israeli Druze task force on the Lebanese, which was formed in October, 1982, Atashi said its goals are to “save, support, sympathize (with) and rescue our Druze brethren from any imminent danger to their existence” in Lebanon, and to rescue Israel’s image in the eyes of the Lebanese Druze.
“Because of the lack of responsibility or black-mail by the Phalange, toward the Israeli government,” preventing any Israeli contact with the non-Phalangist non-Maronite movements in Lebanon, the initial Israeli policy toward the Lebanese Druze was “very unkind,” Atashi claimed. The task force has sought to “offset the embarrassment” the Israeli Druze felt.
The task force works by putting intensive pressure on the Israeli government through press conferences, demonstrations, and other lobbying activities, Atashi pointed out. The demonstrations, he said, are “not for reasons of inequality or negligence toward the Druze community of Israel,” but for the “future of our brethren.”
Drawing a parallel between Jewish efforts on behalf of Soviet and Syrian Jewry, and underlining Israeli Druze support for such rescue activities, Atashi asked: “Why can’t I do the same thing — to rescue my brethren — in this great democracy, Israel?” He defended the Israeli Druze as “very authentic Israelis, neither extremist nor leftist.”
Atashi claimed that as a result of the task force’s activities, there is currently a dialogue going on between the Israelis and the Druze in Lebanon, and that its activities have “softened the situation and bridged the gap, in many cases, between our brothers and the State of Israel.”
He pointed out that one of the sore points between the Israeli Druze and the Israeli government had been the continued refusal on the part of Israel to act on the repeated requests by the Israeli Druze that Israel eject the three Phalangist battalions from the Druze areas of the Shouf mountains which are killing the Druze there.
Atashi said the Israelis were unable to do this because “it would destroy the bridges between them and the Lebanese authorities.” The Lebanese Druze then went ahead and fought the Phalangists on their own, he said, but at a very high price to themselves.
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