Word: habib
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...Washington, Administration officials were mildly optimistic that an agreement would soon be reached to remove all foreign armies from Lebanon: some 5,000 to 6,000 P.L.O. guerrillas and 30,000 Syrian and 70,000 Israeli troops. Special Envoy Philip Habib and others were working on a detailed plan for phased withdrawals that will be presented to Israeli Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir this week in Washington. But many obstacles must be overcome. Last week Syrian President Hafez Assad informed Habib and his deputy in the Middle East, U.S. Ambassador Morris Draper, that Israeli forces would have to withdraw first...
Also seeking to foster unity, U.S. Special Envoy Philip Habib arrived in the capital late last week for talks with the new Lebanese President. Habib was returning from meetings in Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, where he had sought support for the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Lebanon and for Reagan's Middle East peace proposals. In Jerusalem, meanwhile, a massive outpouring of public criticism forced Prime Minister Begin to agree to a full-scale judicial investigation of Israel's role in the refugee-camp massacre, a process that might ultimately lead to the fall...
...aimed only at clearing Palestine Liberation Organization guerrillas out of a 40-kilometer-deep zone along Israel's borders; as it turned out, the army pushed deep into Lebanon and laid siege to Beirut. Next Israel pledged not to occupy West Beirut if U.S. Special Envoy Philip Habib could arrange an evacuation of the P.L.O. fighters holed up there; after the assassination of Lebanese President-elect Bashir Gemayel, the Israelis went into West Beirut on the pretext of preventing disorder. Finally, Americans charged that Ambassador to Washington Moshe Arens assured them on Begin's behalf that the Israelis...
...Palestinians' safety was certainly a decision that came back to haunt Washington last week. The exact form in which the guarantee was extended is a matter of considerable dispute. P.L.O. Representative Jamal Sourani told TIME Correspondent Wilton Wynn that the P.L.O. had received the assurance "in writing from Habib." In an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde, P.L.O. Chairman Yasser Arafat asserted, "I have in hand a document" containing the guarantee; he said he had received it as a condition for agreeing to pull the P.L.O. fighters out of Beirut. In a speech in Jidda, Saudi Arabia, Arafat...
...officials insist that there was no such document. But they concede that Habib did give the P.L.O. oral promises through Lebanese intermediaries that the Palestinians would be safe. The reason, according to one senior White House aide: "We had guarantees from the Israelis, which we believed were adequate." When P.L.O. officials charge that the U.S. must share some responsibility for not preventing the massacre, another official admits: "Quite candidly, they have a case...