Lebanon's Challenging Legacy

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Perils and opportunity in the wake of the Israeli invasion

As U.S. Negotiator Philip Habib continued his peace efforts last week after Israel's furious bombardments of West Beirut, the precise nature of a settlement still remained uncertain. But one thing was clear: Israel's ten-week-old invasion of Lebanon had wrought momentous changes in the complex Middle East equation, and their repercussions would be felt for years to come. Every major actor in the drama has been deeply affected. For the U.S., the crisis provoked by its headstrong Israeli ally has presented grave risks but also a challenging opportunity to play a key role in forging a comprehensive Middle East peace.

To a large degree, the chances for such a peace depend on the future of the P.L.O. The Israeli strategy, as directed by Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, called for crushing all P.L.O. military and political influence. Indeed many Israeli observers were ready last week to declare the P.L.O. dead and buried even before the guerrillas evacuated Beirut.

The Palestinians refused to acknowledge such a crushing defeat. As Issam Sartawi, an adviser to P.L.O. Chief Yasser Arafat, puts it: "We have learned the hard way how to transfer our military battle into a political victory. Regardless of what happens in Beirut, we shall get out of it stronger than we were." There was doubtless a strong measure of wishful thinking in that assessment, but many observers felt that the P.L.O. might realize political and diplomatic gains that the Israelis had hardly intended to promote when they stormed across the Lebanese border on June 6. Said Harvard University Professor Stanley Hoffmann: "The P.L.O. is politically better off than ever before."

The outgunned Palestinians could boast that they had made a credible showing by resisting the Israelis inch by inch once the battle took to the streets of Beirut. By contrast, the combined armies of Syria, Jordan and Egypt crumbled before the Israelis after only six days in 1967. The siege has therefore boosted the popular stock of the P.L.O. in the Arab world. Although most of the Arab governments probably wanted to see the troublesome P.L.O. cut down to size militarily in the early phases of the invasion, none desired an outright defeat. In the past month, there has been a grudging resurgence of Arab support, if for no other reason than self-interest: the Palestinian issue has long been a litmus test of Arab nationalism, and no regime that wishes to stay in power can afford to ignore it.

Some experts on the Middle East see the possibility of serious Palestinian reprisals against the Arab nations for their failure to aid the P.L.O. earlier. Warns the P.L.O.'s Sartawi: "The Palestinians will not easily forget the extent to which they were deserted on this occasion." It was partly to assuage such bitterness that the Syrians last week reversed themselves and agreed to accept some of the P.L.O. guerrillas from Lebanon. (Other countries willing to take in the P.L.O.: Jordan, Iraq, Tunisia, Algeria, North Yemen, South Yemen and the Sudan.)