Middle East: Of Bombs and Strikes

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Lebanese violence and Israeli inflation take their toll

The suicidal attacks may capture the most attention, but it is the unremitting bursts of daily violence that make Lebanon the terrifying place it is: the car bombing here, the firefight there. Sometimes what is most surprising is that the savagery does not claim even more victims. When six explosions ripped through a cluster of stores in West Beirut last week, one person was killed and three were wounded; had the bombs not gone off shortly after the 8 p.m. curfew, when the streets were deserted, the toll could have been much higher. The terrorists, as usual, were unknown. Shi'ite fundamentalists were the prime suspects, since most of the shops were owned by Christians, but the bombers might also have been Christian extremists or even thugs trying to shake down the merchants.

The bombings were almost anticlimactic. Earlier in the week, Lebanese Army units had battled Shi'ite militiamen for control of positions near the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps, on the southern rim of Beirut. Though Nabih Berri, leader of Amal, the main Shi'ite militia group, agreed to let government troops take over the sites, the Lebanese soldiers moved in with guns blazing. By the time an uneasy truce had settled over the area, officials estimated, the death toll was 50; unofficially the total was put as high as 200.

Meanwhile, two Israeli soldiers died in guerrilla ambushes in southern Lebanon. Israeli Chief of Staff Lieut. General Moshe Levy blamed Palestinian fighters for the attacks. But the gunmen might also have been local Shi'ites, whose poor relations with the Israeli occupiers have steadily worsened since September, when Jerusalem redeployed its troops 17 miles south of Beirut. Since then, 39 Israelis have fallen victim to violence in southern Lebanon. Several weeks ago, the Israelis talked about pulling back ten to 15 more miles, to the Zahrani River, but U.S. officials persuaded them to delay the move at Lebanese President Amin Gemayel's request. Nonetheless, over the weekend the Israelis did go so far as to close down three crossing points linking northern and southern Lebanon.

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir was also preoccupied with his country's deteriorating economy. Squeezed be tween a record 1983 inflation rate of 200% and a sluggish pace in cost of living pay raises, Israelis are staging impromptu strikes. The country's 4,500 postal workers stayed away from their jobs for three days last week, while 800 Interior Ministry employees walked out on Thursday.

Shamir's problems grew worse when word leaked out that Finance Minister Yigal Cohen-Orgad's new austerity program included a freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank. The government spends an estimated $700 million a year, not counting defense costs, on the occupied region. Cohen-Orgad's proposal immediately brought protests from right-wingers, who regard the settlement program as insurance that the West Bank will remain in Israeli hands. Indeed, the Techiya Party, whose support is necessary if Shamir's coalition is to retain its slim four-seat majority, threatened to bolt if the settlement budget was cut.