Word: habib
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...summit bought time until U.S. Special Envoy Philip Habib could return from consultations in Washington and this week resume his shuttle diplomacy between Middle East capitals...
...positions up and down the coast of Lebanon. The intensive raids had started the week before, and prompted two visits to Begin's office over the weekend by U.S. Ambassador Samuel Lewis. The Ambassador passed along complaints from the State Department that Israel's actions were endangering Habib's mediation efforts. In a CBS interview, Begin responded that he had explained to Habib "an unaccountable number of times" that Israel intended to continue its "preventive operations against the P.L.O. terrorists...
...time for us to have a talk, and then maybe he'll be back." So saying, President Reagan last week recalled to Washington his special Middle East envoy, Philip Habib, for consultations about the continuing crisis between Israel and Syria. Habib himself said he was convinced, after three weeks of shuttling between various capitals in the region, that neither side wanted to go to war. The President praised Habib's peace mission as "a tremendously successful, almost miraculous thing" that had succeeded in staving off a military conflict even if no acceptable formula for a resolution...
...Administration continued to keep a tight lid on the substance of Habib's negotiations. They are believed to involve a complex set of trade-offs to persuade Syria to remove the three batteries of Soviet-made SA-6 missiles it deployed in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley after Israel shot down two of its helicopters. Moreover, Habib was believed to be trying to devise a broader peace plan to eliminate the bloodletting that periodically tears at Lebanon's own internal politics. One reason he may have decided to interrupt his shuttle was to give Saudi Arabia time...
Still, even though Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin repeated his pledge that Israel was putting no time limit on Habib's diplomatic efforts, there were fears that Israel might take advantage of his absence to attack the contro versial missiles. Instead, just 24 hours after Habib left, Israeli warplanes launched bombing forays against Palestinian positions, followed up with a naval raid that shelled the coast near Damur, south of Beirut, and landed commandos who ambushed guerrilla vehicles. The air strikes, the first in a month, hit Palestinian strongholds and refugee camps in and around the towns of Damur...