Despite the casualty figures (over 100 terrorist dead), last week’s strife in Beirut between the Palestinian terrorists and the Christian Phalangist Party militia is seen by seasoned observers here as a success for the terrorists rather than a defeat as would at first appear.
In four days of fighting, the Palestinians showed once more that they can take up arms brazenly and publicly in the heart of the capital without the Lebanese army daring to challenge them, They showed, too, that without employing by any means all the forces available to them, they can launch swift and accurate attacks on selected targets–such as the pharmacy store of Phalangist leader Pierre Jumeil or the homes of his lieutenants.
Moreover, last week’s violence showed that the Palestinian organizations can look to broad sections of the Moslem leadership in Lebanon for sympathy and support, while the Phalangists plainly found it hard to drum up enthusiasm among other Christian parties. The Baathists, the Communists and the Partie Populaire Syrienne were all among these groups which publicly backed the Palestinians, (The latter grouping, a powerful ex-fascist movement, aided the Phalangists back in the 1958 civil war in Lebanon.)
OPPOSITION TO PALESTINIANS
The best known Christian leader in Lebanon, Raymond Edde, head of the National Bloc, carefully dissociated himself from the Phalangist cause during the fighting. At the same time, though, the outbreak of fighting–triggered by terrorist affront at a roadblock set up by the Phalangists during a church service–showed that there still are forces inside Lebanon which oppose the ongoing encroachment of the Palestinians upon Lebanese sovereignty. There was a long-standing history of tension and hatred between the Phalangists and the Palestinians which preceded last week’s events, the observers here recalled.
This is not to say, however, that the Phalangists oppose the Palestinian terrorists’ basic aims against Israel: merely that they oppose their activities within Lebanon. The events showed that at present the forces inside Lebanon seeking to curb the terrorists are not powerful enough to inflict any really sustained damage upon them.
The Phalangists’ shooting up buses or mortaring refugee camps are not likely to bring about a shift in the power balance or oust or even deter the terrorists, Much more widespread opposition to them inside Lebanon would be needed, it seems, before this could come about.
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