Beirut: A Fortress Under Heavy Fire

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For most of the week, Prime Minister Wazzan remained in West Beirut and refused to travel to the presidential palace at Baabda because he was not prepared to cross Israeli lines. The President and his Foreign Minister, Fuad Butros, did not cross Israeli lines either. Like jet pilots dazzled by the beauty of their air strikes but insulated from the effects of their actions, the two remained in the hills above and beyond the fray. At one point, when Wazzan telephoned the President from West Beirut, he wryly asked Sarkis if he was suffering from the shortage of water and power. The palace, of course, had not been affected.

As the week passed, the Palestinians and the Lebanese Muslims suddenly realized how vulnerable they will be once the P.L.O. forces have been withdrawn from Beirut. Sarkis and the other Christian Lebanese leaders do not particularly care whether the multinational peace-keeping force arrives before or after the P.L.O. withdrawal. But Wazzan, the leading Muslim in the Lebanese government, agreed with the Palestinians that the multinational force must come first. Otherwise, he feared, the Palestinian civilian population of about 100,000 in West Beirut would be left to the mercy of their enemies the Phalangists and the Christian-dominated Lebanese Army. Finally on Friday, as the Israelis withdrew from their checkpoint to let him pass, Wazzan crossed into East Beirut and proceeded to the hills to press his point with, his Christian colleagues and the American negotiators.

After so many years of living uneasily together, the Palestinians and the Lebanese have discovered that their fates have become deeply intertwined. However expertly the evacuation of the P.L.O. fighting force is handled, its removal from the scene will pose dangers to at least one of the Lebanese communities, the Muslims, as well as to the Palestinians who are left behind. Untying this knot, without undue risk to the parties concerned, is perhaps the trickiest part of the task that still confronts the negotiators on the hill above Beirut. —By William E. Smith. Reported by Johanna McGeary/Washington and William Stewart/Beirut