Word: lebanon
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Anxious to avoid Israel's wrath, Lebanon had long tried to keep the fedayeen from staging raids across its mountainous southeastern border. The 15,000-man Lebanese army proved incapable of the task. It settled for insisting that the guerrillas not carry arms in Lebanon-which often meant the army carried their weapons for them. Two weeks ago, even that slight restraint was brushed aside when an eight-man Lebanese patrol stopped a group of Al-Fatah commandos a mile from the Israeli border. One guerrilla opened fire, wounding all eight Lebanese...
Orders for the Masses. For breaking the commandos' strict rule against shooting fellow Arabs, the offender was held for trial in a guerrilla court. But the 160,000 Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon felt differently. Near Sidon, 11,000 of them stormed out of their camp, demanding full freedom of action for the fedayeen. They overran police barricades and stoned security forces. The troops fired on the demonstrators, killing three...
...riots rapidly spread to Beirut and every sizable city in Lebanon, growing in numbers and fury with the support of student sympathizers and opposition political parties. Premier Rashid Karami vainly pleaded by telephone with Fatah Commander Yasser Arafat in Amman, asking him to appeal to the demonstrators to stop. Arafat refused, on the grounds that they were not under his orders. Meanwhile, the Cairo-based Voice of Al-Fatah was broadcasting instructions that urged "the Arab masses" to prevent Lebanese "counterrevolutionary forces" from "stabbing the revolution in the back...
...resignation. That presented President Charles Helou with the task of finding someone to form a government of "national unity" to end the unrest. But the only way to accomplish that would be for the new government to endorse freedom of action for the fedayeen, at least in principle, drawing Lebanon inexorably into the conflict with Israel...
Enemy Within. The lesson of Lebanon could not be lost on other Arab leaders, who increasingly have reason to view the fedayeen as an enemy within. When Jordan's King Hussein outlined a six-point peace plan during his visit to Washington three weeks ago, and suggested that it would also be acceptable to the Palestinians, five fedayeen groups issued a joint statement in Beirut repudiating every point...