Word: beirutization
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...P.L.O. as a terrorist gang bent on Israel's extermination; it will take more than words to change that opinion. Indeed, his government launched the invasion of Lebanon largely to destroy the P.L.O. as a force in Middle East politics. Seeing the organization emerge from the wreckage of Beirut with new respectability would thus, in Jerusalem's view, amount to letting a brilliant military victory turn into a galling political defeat. There is a worldwide suspicion, too, that Begin's government has no intention of ever negotiating Palestinian self-determination (a code word for eventual statehood) with...
Some U.S. officials fear that even unofficial talk of a U.S.-sponsored deal with the P.L.O. may provoke Israel into a final assault on Beirut, to smash the organization once and for all. These officials insist that the U.S. is concentrating its efforts on mediating a P.L.O. evacuation of Beirut, leaving the guerrilla group's long-range status to be negotiated later. The two issues, however, are not easy to separate...
...their visit to Washington, Saud and Khaddam endorsed a new plan for getting the P.L.O. out of Beirut: the guerrillas would first withdraw to other parts of Lebanon. At week's end Philip Habib, the U.S. special envoy in the Middle East, was reportedly hammering out a detailed version: the P.L.O. would go to Tripoli in northern Lebanon, while the Israelis would withdraw to Damur, twelve miles south of Beirut. This would be the first stage in a phased withdrawal of all P.L.O., Syrian and Israeli forces from Lebanon...
There is no time to lose. Begin last week pledged to American Jewish leaders visiting Jerusalem that, one way or another, the P.L.O. guerrillas would shortly be cleared out of Beirut, and indeed out of Lebanon. Late in the week, Israeli bombs and shells fell again on Syrian positions in the Bekaa Valley and P.L.O. strongholds around West Beirut. That new fighting seemed to be a pointed warning that Israel would not tolerate endless stalling over a P.L.O. evacuation of Beirut...
Saud, in turn, warned members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Arab nations "would hold the U.S. responsible" for a bloody Israeli assault on West Beirut, and hinted at retaliation. Committee Chairman Charles Percy of Illinois wondered whether this might take the form of a cutback in the oil production vital to Western economies and a massive withdrawal of Arab money from American banks. So the moment of opportunity for American policymakers in the Middle East is also a moment of peril...