Living on the Roller Coaster

The battle-weary people of Lebanon have been riding a psychological roller coaster for the past six months. Their hopes for peace have soared when it seemed that the factional, sectarian fighting between left-wing Moslems and right-wing Christians might halt; they have plunged when violence again erupted. Last week was typical. As yet another attempt at a truce seemed to be taking hold at the start of the week, some of the sand and cement barricades in Beirut were pulled down. Militiamen from both sides poured out of their strongholds; some embraced and even kissed one another. Banks reopened, shopkeepers unshuttered their windows, and traffic soon clogged streets as the capital's residents dashed out to replenish their stocks of food and other supplies.

The mood of good will was quickly shattered. Full-scale fighting broke out between the Phalange-dominated neighborhood of Dekwaneh in the eastern sector of Beirut and a Palestinian refugee camp at Tel Zaatar, controlled by the radical-leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (P.F.L.P.). The two sides hurled rockets and mortars at each other; the well-armed fedayeen even fired antiaircraft guns at the Phalange areas. As the fighting spread to other neighborhoods (see map), banks again closed, and merchants took goods from their stores to the relative safety of their homes. The toll of last week's clashes: 72 dead, raising the total killed since the start of the fighting last April to more than 2,800.

Protesting Egypt. Growing concern about the bloodletting in Lebanon, combined with fear that Israel might try to exploit the situation, brought 18 Arab diplomats together last week for an emergency meeting of the Arab League at its Cairo headquarters. Syria and the Palestine Liberation Organization, however, boycotted the session, primarily as a protest against Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's signing of the new Sinai accord with Israel. Even with the Syrians and the P.L.O., there was little the league could do to help Lebanon; in any case, after two days of inconclusive talks, the participants merely made a vague promise of financial aid to compensate Lebanon for damages caused by the fighting.

Relative calm returned to Lebanon at week's end, but violence remains just below the surface. The extreme left feels that the Phalange has not been "punished" enough. Many right-wing Christians are opposed to any reforms granting the Moslem majority of Lebanon political or economic equality until security has been re-established and the Palestinian refugee camps in the country (estimated pop. 101,000) are brought under government control. That is an all but impossible dream because the camps are totally run by the fedayeen.

The best hope for a solution lies with the 20-member "National Dialogue Committee" hastily put together by Premier Rashid Karami (TIME, Oct. 20). Yet because the committee is composed of representatives of most of Lebanon's rival religious and political factions, it is possible that—as the Phalangist daily al-Amal put it last week—"the Dialogue Committee's discussions may turn into 'a dialogue of the deaf.' "