Preventing Palestine by Seth Anziska

Author:Seth Anziska
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780691183985
Publisher: Princeton University Press

An Ephemeral Peace

Even after the violence of September was revealed, American and Israeli officials continued efforts to claim victory in Lebanon. Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger’s critics blamed him for enabling the violence by withdrawing the Marines, and Ambassador Habib would later admit that the United States had failed to keep its word in not protecting Palestinians left behind following the PLO’s evacuation.132 The situation had turned into the quagmire Reagan’s advisors initially feared. In the aftermath of the massacre, an acute sense of moral obligation spurred an immediate shift in the president’s view, and he was newly willing to intervene with a more substantive MNF force.133 Sabra and Shatila had compelled the American government to redeploy U.S. Marines to Beirut, leaving them exposed without a clear mission in the midst of the civil war.

Notwithstanding the deteriorating events on the ground, the Israeli security establishment maintained its belief that a peace agreement with the Maronites was possible. Before his resignation, Sharon spoke often of normalization with the Lebanese and of free Israeli civilian entry into Beirut. Ambassador Habib protested these suggestions as unseemly given the context of the war. “I know you want to go to the Hotel Commodore and have a cup of coffee,” he told the minister of defense, referring to the buzzing journalist mainstay in West Beirut. “It’s a lousy hotel, but you want to go there and have a cup of coffee, and I say wait a little while, please. This is not a time for tourism.”134 Sharon’s efforts at normalization built on a longer history of secret Israeli-Maronite negotiations, which continued throughout Israel’s military invasion of Lebanon.

David Kimche, an Israeli diplomat and Mossad recruitment officer, traveled to the Gemayel family compound in the Bikfaya hills in January 1983 to meet with Sheikh Pierre Gemayel. Pierre was the father of both the slain Bashir and his brother Amin, the new Lebanese president. Pierre had founded the Phalangist party after his participation in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, where he was heavily influenced by German and Spanish fascism, serving as a strange counterpart to his Mossad visitor. But the elder Gemayel was optimistic that a new Lebanon could still be built with their help. He told Kimche to “tell Mr. Begin and Mr. Sharon that the relations between you and us are like marriage bonds. This is a deep bond for a lifetime, like a Maronite wedding.” Gemayel explained the analogy: “You have physical power and we have political power. We can open doors on your behalf in the Middle East.”135

In spite of the setbacks of the war, and the assassination of his elder son, Gemayel maintained confidence in his cause: “Once we thought we would not be able to build Lebanon like we dreamed of. But today that looks possible. The Muslims are beginning to understand us and we are a bit optimistic. We have the possibility to now build a new Lebanon and begin to live together like we want and hope. Give us time.”136

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