Under Siege

By Rashid Khalidi. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986. 241 pp. $25.00.

Reviewed by Robert G. Hazo

When the Palestinian fighters left Beirut in the summer of 1982, PLO Chairman Arafat proclaimed a victory. In response, then Israeli Prime Minister Begin observed: "May he always enjoy such victories." Both leaders, in effect, claimed success. Which one was correct? Who won and who lost?

Under Siege: PLO Decision Making During the 1982 War provides serious answers to this and other basic questions about the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Its author, Rashid Khalidi, renders a highly informative, reliable and detailed account of the events of the summer of 1982 and, more important, the first close look at the principal Palestinian players and the factors that influenced their decisions. It is no exaggeration to describe his book as indispensable in advancing our understanding of what actually occurred. It is especially illuminating when read in conjunction with Ze'ev Schiff and E. Yaari's Israel's War in Lebanon, which details the Israeli decision-making process during the war, and George Ball's Error and Betrayal in Lebanon, which puts the war into global perspective.

Under Siege consists of two thematic parts. The first, about 100 pages in length, examines the situation in South Lebanon from the period just prior to the invasion up to the Israeli encirclement of Beirut. The military overview and fluid interaction of so many variables during such a brief span of time are summarized with masterful economy. One finishes with the feeling of having gotten an authentic, almost comprehensive view of the whole process. The second part, though less dynamic, is no less informative, dealing with the siege and the maze of diplomatic maneuvers leading up to the PLO exodus from Beirut. Khalidi demonstrates that the SabraShatila massacre was clearly premeditated by the Israelis, presumably to spark a general Palestinian exodus, and was made possible by the U.S. failure to live up to the security guarantees it has agreed to provide for the Palestinian civilians. Under Siege makes it clear that there is no Simple way to declare the winners and losers in Israel's Lebanon war. Khalidi himself opts for measuring success in terms of each side's expectations. Even that more precise standard, however, is only adequate up to a point, since few on either side (for very different reasons) foresaw that the battle would be carried all the way to Beirut or that the fighting and subsequent occupation would last as long as they did. The conclusion Khalidi draws is that both sides lost, with the Israeli loss immeasurably greater than that of the Palestinians.

To appreciate the kind of defeat the Israelis suffered one must begin with the fact that the war was a military mismatch of incredible proportions. A rag tag band of about 15,000 Palestinian fighters with no air or sea arm, and only an insignificant amount of armor and artillery (mainly rockets and small arms), faced an Israeli force ten times its size enjoying absolute air and sea supremacy and operating with the most advanced military technology in the world. Against such odds, in Khalidi's appraisal, there was accomplishment even in defeat for the Palestinians: "In an unequal contest, they had fought longer than had all the Arab armies put together in all their wars with Israel, doing better than anyone would have expected."

Though the Palestinians lost their independent land base, took many casualties and experienced a vicious internecine struggle as a result of the war, they avoided the mortal blow Israel had aimed at the Palestinian national movement. Though under Syrian control, thousands of Palestinian fighters remain as close to Israel's borders as they have ever been. The PLO, though its focus has become hazy, remains a world political force. Palestinian morale, particularly on the West Bank and in Gaza, remains unbroken. And, above all, the Palestinian movement still cannot be ignored as a major factor in the Middle East equation or in any attempt at a peace settlement.

By contrast, the fruits of military victory for Israel appear unremittingly bitter. The invasion certainly tarnished Israel's international reputation; some would even claim that the Lebanon invasion indelibly transformed it in the eyes of the world into a regional imperial power. It awoke a formidable enemy in Lebanon and energized elsewhere in the Arab world a fundamentalist movement that may ultimately pose the gravest threat ever to Israel's security. It resulted in 5,000 Israeli casualties, one eighth of which were mortal. In it young Israelis, for the first time, refused to fight, with some even abandoning the army in the field and a small but unprecedented number committing suicide. And, in its aftermath, election results showed it to have deeply divided the country politically and a fiscal crisis demonstrated the extent to which it had brought an already fragile and endangered economy to the point of collapse.

As Under Siege makes crystal clear, what started out as an apparent effort to secure northern Israel (which is now, or will shortly become, as insecure as it has ever been) shows every sign of having become a major turning point in the protracted Arab Israeli conflict, comparable to the Arab defeat in the 1967 war. The irony is that, this time, it is against the victors that the tide has turned.

Robert G. Hazo is Chairman of the Middle East Policy Association and Senior Public Policy consultant of the American Arab Anti Discrimination Committee.