Dr. Charles H. Malik, the Lebanese philosopher who has held top positions in the United Nations for many years, today urged the installation in Lebanon of a force “from outside” until the Syrian army there withdraws and the Lebanese national army is “on a sound basis.”
“I doubt that the United Nations can supply” the outside “balancing force” to the Syrian dominated “Arab peace keeping force” and “therefore other avenues must be explored,” he testified in a hearing on the Lebanese situation before the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on the Near East. Under questioning of its chairman, Sen. Richard Stone (D. Fla.), he declined to specify from where the “outside force” should come.
Malik, a former president of the UN General Assembly, and of the UN Security Council, said that “it is not fair, neither is it conducive to real peace and stability, for any fundamental political change to be introduced in Lebanon while there are non-Lebanese armed forces on Lebanese soil.”
Speaking “purely in my individual personal capacity,” Malik “rejected” partition and also opposed “a slavish, unimaginative return to the old” Lebanon which, he said, has “in many respects demonstrated its bankruptcy.” In this connection, he said, “America can make it abundantly clear that it supports not just the political independence and territorial integrity of Lebanon without regard to the character of Lebanon society,” but that “America respects, encourages and believes” in a “free, open and pluralist” society.
CHARGES ALL-OUT WAR BY SYRIA
Robert A. Basil, president of the American Lebanese League, said that what is now happening in Lebanon is “an all-out war” by Syria against “the Christian freedom fighters.” Syria’s desire, he said, is to make Lebanon “a confrontation state with Israel, rather than a democratic buffer state at peace with neighbors and the result of this in regional terms is clearly destabilizing and not in the U.S. national interest.”
“We Lebanese Americans, as do Lebanese citizens, do not have as an intellectual point of departure an enmity towards Jews or the State of Israel, or the Arab states, and Lebanon cannot be forced into this mold,” Basil said.
Like Malik and Basil, Morris Draper, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Middle East, also rejected partition but he defended Syria’s presence in Lebanon. The Syrian-dominated Arab defense force in Lebanon, Draper said, “for more than a year” has “played an absolutely indispensable role in assuring security although it was not possible for it to move into southern Lebanon.”
In southern Lebanon, Draper said, where “the UN peacekeeping force has been a great success,” the process of the Lebanese army units to establish authority “will inevitably” be long and “patience is required” to ease the concerns of all involved.
Jean R. Abinader, executive director of the National Association of Arab Americans, also upheld the Syrian force saying, “The Syrians have committed their army and their prestige to restoring a viable central government in Lebanon,” and “are outraged by the open alliance” between “some” of the Christian militia and Israel–“the Arab world’s principal opponents in the region.”
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