Word: syrians
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...world at large, China's Hua Kuo-feng, a moderate, aborted a prospective coup by radicals and succeeded Chairman Mao Tse-tung, whose death at 82 posed the classic problem of power transfer in a totalitarian nation. In the Middle East, Syrian President Hafez Assad gained new stature by forcibly bringing to a halt the civil war in Lebanon involving rightist Christians, left-wing Moslems, and their Palestinian allies. Seriously set back, and at least temporarily under control of Arab moderates, the Palestine Liberation Organization seemed more amenable to making compromises at a new Geneva conference...
...fire continued in the south between the Moslem town of Bint Jebail and the Christian settlement of Ain Ebel. Palestinian Leader Yasser Arafat, meanwhile, insisted that his forces were free to regroup in that area (see following story). Israel so opposes this, as well as the idea of having Syrian soldiers on a second Israeli border-even as Arab peace keepers-that the Jerusalem government convened its "war cabinet," deployed armor on the boundary, and threatened to invade Syria by sending tank forces rolling off the Golan Heights to Damascus if the Syrians either moved troops into southern Lebanon...
Such maneuvers and threats are partly genuine concern molded by experience, but they are also partly brinkmanship. The Syrians are now in no position to force a confrontation with Israel; they are too involved in Lebanon. Syrian units have moved no nearer the border than Zahrani, 30 miles to the north, near Sidon, to protect the oil refinery there, which has now resumed operation. Last week, Damascus quietly renewed the Golan Heights peace agreement with Israel for another six months...
...moment, any possibility of confrontation has been foreclosed by Lebanese President Elias Sarkis, who has reportedly proposed to keep peace in the south with non-Syrian contingents of the Arab peace-keeping force-Saudi Arabia, the Sudan and the United Arab Emirates-along with Lebanese Christian and Shiite volunteers. That solution seems to have mollified all concerned-except the Palestinians...
...what has happened and is still happening in south Lebanon, where at least seven villages are occupied by isolation forces supported by Israel. This is a threat to our forces, who must be situated in the south under the Cairo agreement. It is also a threat to the Syrian peace-keeping forces, which are being told not to cross a "red line" that seems to be movable...