Second Arab capital falls to the Israelis after fierce resistance

The summer of 1982 marked the fall of the second Arab capital, Beirut, on the hands of Zionists assisted by their Lebanese allies.

Twelve-years after the relocation of the Palestinian resistance from Jordan in the aftermath of Black September of 1970 to Lebanon, Israel decided to launch a major operation in order to force the Palestinian fidaeen's operations across the Lebanese southern borders to stop.

Israel had earlier launched, in 1978, Operation Litani to secure its northern border against the attacks of the Palestinian resistance. In 1978, Israel set up the so-called Security Zone and established the South Lebanon Army (SLA) led by Major Saad Haddad, a defector officer from the Lebanese Army who took it on himself to act as the border's policemen. Operation Litani was a failure because its main objective namely to stop Palestinian attacks on northern Israeli areas, was not achieved.

But the issue of the security of the Israeli northern border was not the only reason behind the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

The Israeli government, then headed by Menahim Begin who succeeded in neutralizing the Egyptians through the 1978 Camp David Peace Accord, saw the invasion of Lebanon as an opportunity to terminate, once and for all, the Arab Israeli conflict.

Begin's belief was coupled with some war hungry generals who thought that military action was the only way to end the Palestinian dream of reclaiming Palestine.

The infamous Ariel Sharon, today's Israeli Prime Minister who was then Defense Minister, was one of those Israeli Generals who warned of the constant danger of the Palestinians and the Syrians who were free to use Lebanon as a launch pad against Israel. Israel's allies in Lebanon, namely rightist factions, believed that the 1982 invasion would give them advantages over their leftist rivals with whom they had been clashing since 1975.

At the time, the Palestinian leadership played a decisive role in its support of the Lebanese National Movement, which from a rightist point of view was believed to have threatened the mere existence of the Christians in the country.

Therefore, the leader of the rightist Lebanese Forces militia, Bashir Gemayel, made it clear that he would be willing to support any such military Israeli adventure into Lebanon. The Israelis proved that they were not willing to disappoint him.

The apparent reason which allegedly pushed the Israelis to invade Lebanon was the attempted assassination of the Israeli ambassador to Britain, Shlomo Arkov. Later findings showed that Arkov's assassination attempt was sponsored by the Baghdad-based Palestinian faction of Abou Nidal.

Sharon promised the Israeli Knesset a swift military operation that would end as soon as the Israeli invading forces reached the Litani River in South Lebanon.

But Sharon had different plans in his mind as he pushed his forces al the way up to Beirut which fell to the invaders after months of Israeli siege and heavy bombardment.

The Palestinian and Lebanese resistance forces crumbled in the face of the superior Israeli military.

Israelis were only met with stiff resistance when they reached the outskirts of Beirut. Khaldeh, to the south of Beirut, witnessed very fierce fighting between the invaders and resistance forces.

The joint forces, which included forces from the different Palestinian and leftist Lebanese militias, dealt the Israelis a blow which was not enough, however, to stop their progress toward the capital.

A participant fighter from the joint forces told Alternative, that they were ordered to dig personal trenches. "Each of us had an RPG(a grenade launcher) and the battle with the invading Israelis was a do or die situation," he said adding that "there was no turning back."

Elias Atallah, then leader of the Lebanese Resistance Front, noted that in one round of the many engagements at the museum area, he saw the asphalt burn due to the heavy bombardment of the area.

But the determined resistance finally crumbled and Beirut fell in September of 1982 after a three-months siege.

Diplomatic talks, then sponsored by the United States, reached at negotiating a plan for disengagement. The plan outlined a cease-fire in return for the deportation of Palestinian fighters to other Arab countries.

Palestinian armed guerrillas from different factions, headed by the Palestinian Liberation Organization's leader Yasser Arafat, left Beirut to their new residence in Tunis, much to the distress of several Lebanese leftist leaders.

A Palestinian fighter who was among the scores of departing Palestinians told Thomas Friedman, then correspondent of the New York Times in Lebanon, that by leaving Lebanon the fighter felt that he was exiled from an exile.

By Sep. 1982, Israel and its Lebanese allies seemed triumphant as they succeeded in dismantling the Palestinian resistance and sending it into exile.

The Lebanese Right also seemed to have won an edge over its leftist rivals as their militia forces were dealt a heavy blow after months of fierce fighting with one of the army's mightiest military powers.

This short-lived victory made Sharon and Gemayel go further. Transported by Israeli armored carriers, Lebanese MPs were taken to the Lebanese parliament that was guarded by Israeli tanks.

MPs were asked to elect Gemayel as President to replace his predecessor Elias Sarkis whose term ended in 1982. The famous parliament session for Bashir Gemayel's election was open for 13 hours until the number of MPs attending reached that required for a quorum.

But what seemed as the end of the Lebanese civil war was far from becoming true. Gemayel was assassinated shortly after his elections and plans for alienating Lebanon from the Arab-Israeli conflict were changed once and for all.