sing for disengagement from the Lebanese quagmire."
The report expressed particular concern about the deteriorating relations between the Israeli army and the Shiite population in southern Lebanon. In the
Imperialists, Zionists trapped by their own game past, in particular, manipulating the Shiites against the Palestinians and the left was an important part of the Zionist game. Now a former base of support has become an even more dangerous minefield.
The report came out for a withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon.
The Israelis' favorite gang leader in southern Lebanon, Saad Haddad,
His exit gave a personalized, theatrical flourish to the foundering of ing behind a "defensive system."
Zionist and imperialist policy in Lebanon.
He had been the leader of a rightist militia, mainly Chris-
January 14.
tians, armed by the Israelis and used against the Palestinians and the
Gerry FOLEY
Under Israeli overlordship, ruled with a mailed fist over a section of southern Lebanon that grew with every
Zionists occupied all of southern Lebanon in the
1982, Haddad's forces served mainly as police auxiliaries for the occupation authorities. They were distinguished by their clumsy, pointless, politically counterproductive brutality.
A few days before his death, on his
Haddad asked his superior, General Yanosh Ben Gal:
"Yanosh, tell me, has everything we have done in southern Lebanon over all these last years really been worth it?"
Since Ben Gal divulged these dying words to the press, they have become part of the debate in Israel on the failure
Haddad died of cancer on
The balance sheet of this was drawn in a secret report by the Department of Planning of the Israeli General Staff. The tenor was revealed to the Israeli parliament a few days before Haddad's death by Labor opposition member Sulamith
The document said, "It is nearly impossible to force Syria to leave Lebanon by political means. And it is not recom mended that Israel try to achieve this by military ones." It also acknowledged that the May 17 peace treaty between the Gemayel government and Israel had become dead letter, that there was no way the phantomatic Lebanese state could army, especially the northern command, pushed actively for the 'Peace in Galilee' operation [that is, the invasion of Leb-
But at the same time, it called for leav-
The problem is that the report's own observations make it doubtful that the Israelis now can build up useful local
The new minister of defense, Moshe Arens, has revealed the outlines of a plan
It calls for setting up a Shiite milita and keeping Israeli units at strateg-
The first aspect is decisive. If Israeli forces remain in Lebanon without effective local allies, they will continue to be the targets of resistance attacks, which have already exacted a heavy toll.
However, since the 1982 invasion the Zionists and the imperialists have one disaster after another in their counterproductive even in long communZionists and the imperialists to intervene through proxies, they have been dragging them deeper and deeper into the quicksand of a civil war, in which every step they take increases the array of
Canon in the summer of 1982]. Now, a forces opposing them and their stooges. of Zionist policy in Lebanon.
Haddad's loss was in itself a blow to Israeli policy in southern Lebanon. The to the head of the General Staff, is pres- for the imperialists and their allies. Jerusalem correspondent for the Paris daily Liberation, Michel Sniatyn, noted Games for imperialists, destruction for Lebanese people (DR) the lamentations of the top Zionist circles.
"General Ben Eliezer, coordinator of Israeli activities on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip, said: *Southern Lebanon will never be the same. Israel has lost the cornerstone of its policy? and opposition leaders agreed for once in paying homage to a Lebanese patriot and friend of Israel.'
"There is no reason to doubt the sincerity of these regrets....He will be hard
"In southern Lebanon, Haddad was one of the few with enough prestige to weld together Christians of various factions and give a minimum of discipline to a conglomerate of Christian and Shiite militiamen."
The Israeli paper Maariu commented: "There was a unity in the area under Haddad's control not achieved in the rest of the country."
As unfortunate as it was for the Israelis, the loss of one important collaborator was only an incidental misfortune that pointed up the general wreck of a long-term policy in which Haddad had International Viewpoint 30 January 1984 year and a half later, the entire military apparatus, from the ordinary reservists
The situation in Lebanon is rapidly coming to a very dangerous turning point
----- pull-quotes on this page -----
LEBANON
based himself above all on the Christian enclaves, such as Maryayoun.
To the dismay of the UN, there was a certain fraternization between the UNIFIL soldiers and the left Lebanese and Palestinians, especially when Israel and Haddad were waging a campaign of