Taken from the New Statesman archive, 11 June 1982.
Sometimes it seems that only the names change. For PLO read Hezbollah; for President Sarkis read the hapless Lebanese leadership of today. Edward Mortimer, too, has moved on: today he is director of communications for the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan.
Selected by Brian Cathcart
What will be the effect on Lebanon of the new Israeli invasion? The immediate answer is easy: yet more death, destruction and misery. Beyond that, the Israelis have said they do not intend to withdraw until a political settlement satisfactory to them has been reached, meaning one ensuring that south Lebanon can no longer be used as a base for 'terrorism' a term used by Israel to cover any Palestinian military activity. In practice, the aim of the invasion is to destroy the Palestine Liberation Organisation as a military, and if possible also a political force. The political arrangement Israel will seek is, therefore, one that can prevent that force from being recreated.
It has been suggested that the solution could be the introduction of a much larger United Nations force occupying a much thicker band of territory and capable of enforcing its demilitarisation. That suggestion will bring a grim smile to the lips of those who have served with the existing UN force (UNIFIL), most of whom quickly became convinced that the activities of Israel itself and its protegιs the militia of Major Saad Haddad were the main obstacle to their carrying out their mandate effectively. Haddad's forces in fact prevented UNIFIL from even occupying a large amount of the territory assigned to it. Its headquarters at An-Naqura was surrounded by the militia and its troops subjected to constant harassment.
The Israelis make no secret of their dislike and distrust of the UN which they regard as being composed mainly from nations hostile to them. (In fact it is striking that even soldiers from countries which are a priori very pro-Israeli, such as Holland and Norway, often acquire a pronounced anti-Israeli bias during their service with UN forces in the Middle East: they find Israeli officers both smug and dishonest, while the latter regard them as a set of marijuana-smoking layabouts.) The suggestion of an expanded UNIFIL can hardly be more than a diplomatic ploy, since Israel would set conditions for handing over territory to it which the UN could not accept, since they would amount, in a well-worn phrase, to 'rewarding the aggressor'.
Israel's next suggestion, therefore, is for a non-UN 'multinational force' on the Sinai model. In Sinai, this solution was adopted formally as second-best after it became clear that a Soviet veto would prevent the constitution of the UN force stipulated in the Egypt-Israel peace treaty. But from the Israeli point of view such a force, with its strong American flavour, is actually far preferable to a UN one.
However, the Americans would be likely to have even grater difficulty persuading their allies to give token participation than they did in the Sinai case. In that instance, European anxiety not to offend other Arab states was eventually overcome by the argument that Egypt, the Arab state whose territory they were being asked to police, was positively and insistently urging them to do so. Similarly, the decisive factor in the Lebanese case would almost certainly be the attitude of the Lebanese government.
What Lebanese government, you may ask, and there indeed lies the rub. Implausible as it may seem, there is at present an internationally-recognised Lebanese government, headed by President Elia Sarkis. At the time of his election, at the very climax of the 1975-6 Lebanese war, he was generally regarded as a Syrian stooge. But since the brutal Syrian shelling of the Christian sector of Beirut in 1978 which effectively destroyed Syria's pretensions to be a 'peacekeeping' or 'deterrent' force in Lebanon Sarkis has been trying, gradually and timidly, to reassert Lebanon's independence.
His stock has risen with the Lebanese Force the mainly Maronite coalition headed by Shaikh Bashir Gemayel, which controls East Beirut and the coastal enclave to the north of it without being too adversely affected among the Muslims and Arab nationalists, many of whom have themselves become thoroughly disenchanted with the Syrian occupation. The chances were gradually improving that he would get Syria's Arab paymasters to force Syria out of Lebanon, in return for a clear breach between the Lebanese Forces and Israel and their agreement to co-operate in restoring a genuine Lebanese state. It was that process which Mr Philip Habib was supposed to encourage, according to the plan announced by Mr Haig ten days before the Israeli invasion.
Nevertheless, it was a process of extraordinary delicacy, so intensely suspicious of each other are the various Lebanese parties and so dependent on various external forces. The Israeli invasion has probably shattered it beyond hope.
Sarkis's six-year mandate is in any case about to expire, and the Israeli invasion has to be seen partly in the context of the battle for the succession. Syria has its own candidate in the shape of ex-President Sulaiman Franjieh, a colourful old thug. His family, whose fief is in the northern mountains around Zghorta, have a bitter and long-standing blood-feud with the Gemayels, an upstart and more urban dynasty which now rules the Maronite enclave with ruthless efficiency, inspiring many Muslims who still live in the anarchy of PLO-dominated West Beirut. Bashir Gemayel, the militia commander and dominant Maronite figure, is said to be ready to declare officially as a candidate in next month's presidential election. It could be that Bashir actually hopes to ride to the presidency on Israeli tanks and thus be in a position to negotiate peace with Israel on behalf of official Lebanon.
This would certainly be the ideal solution from Israel's point of view. But the Arab states, and the Arab nationalist forces in Lebanon could not possibly accept as valid a presidential election held under such obvious and direct Israeli pressure. Probably a rival election would be held elsewhere, under Syrian 'protection', and the partition of Lebanon would thus be formally consecrated.
It may be that this is the Israeli's real aim. Mr Begin's remark to Saad Haddad on Monday 'now the Beaufort is yours' suggests the trend of his thought. From the Israeli point of view, 'Haddad-land' has worked well. Only it is not big enough. Now it will be expanded to include much of Southern Lebanon, and perhaps formally linked up to Bashir Gemayel's enclave further north. (There are informal links already.) The Syrians would be left in possession of the rest. The Gemayel-Haddad axis will act as a buffer between Israel and Syria, and will see to it that the PLO does not revive in military form. Lebanon as such would cease to exist, replaced by two rival puppet Lebanons.
It can be done, but no one should think it will be received in the Arab world as anything but yet another humiliation and amputation of Arab land. And no one should doubt who will be held responsible: the power which supplies Israel with money and weapons, and which sends its diplomats out to tidy up after each new Israeli eruption. The climate will not improve for those Arab rulers who are seen as friends of the United States.
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