PLO IN LEBANON

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What did the PLO do in Lebanon?

In 1969, in Cairo, the prime minister of Lebanon reached an agreement with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) that effectively endorsed PLO freedom of action in Lebanon to recruit, arm, train, and employ fighters against Israel. This was the beginning of a disaster for the people of Lebanon.

Fatah and other Palestinian Liberation Organization factions had long been active among the 400,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanese camps. Through the 1960s the center for armed Palestinian activities had been in Jordan. Then, in 1970, after the PLO tried to destabilize Jordan and take over, King Hussein of Jordan decided to evict the bulk of the armed Palestinians in three weeks of bloody fighting in what the Palestinians call "Black September." One of the major results was the forced migration of a large number of PLO fighters from Jordan to Lebanon. There they based their military and economic activities in the fertile environment of the refugee camps. Soon the Palestinians were well on their way to creating what the Lebanese called "a State within the State."

Under the guise of preparing armed resistance to Israel, the PLO insisted on political, police, and economic control of the refugee camps, as well as access to large areas of South Lebanon and the Beqaa Valley that were used for training. This generated increasing friction with the Lebanese population. Clashes over who was in charge between the Palestinians and Lebanese security and military led to armed incidents flaring up all over Lebanon, as the Palestinians were operating from refugee camps in the South, in and around Beirut, and in the North.

For Arab residents of south Lebanon, PLO rule was a nightmare. Countless Lebanese, interviewed by western journalists, told harrowing tales of rape, mutilation and murders committed by PLO forces. Palestinians and Lebanese leftists sacked Damour, a Christian village near Beirut, and massacred hundreds of its inhabitants before turning the town into a military base.

Father Mansour Labaky of the Church of St. Elias in Damour gave this description:

• The PLO came and bombed the church without entering it. They kicked open the door and threw in the grenades.
  
  
• An entire family had been killed, the Can´an family, four children all dead, and the mother, the father, and the grandfather. The mother was still hugging one of the children. And she was pregnant.
  
  
• The eyes of the children were gone and their limbs were cut off. No legs and no arms. It was awful.

After brutally killing 582 people in the town and terrorizing the rest of the 25,000 residents into fleeing, the PLO forces took over Damour and began using it as a base for their terrorist activities. Father Labaky's church, the one that was gutted by PLO grenades, was turned into a combination garage and gun range. Targets were painted on the eastern wall of the nave.

Throughout the 1970s, PLO terrorists mounted intermittent cross-border attacks against civilian and military targets in Israel. There were also interational terrorist spectaculars, e.g., the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, perpetrated by groups based in Lebanon. In turn, the Israelis struck back at targets and groups across the border in Lebanon.

By 1975, relations between assorted Lebanese groups and the Palestinians had degenerated into open warfare. Lebanese militia groups armed themselves for self-protection from the PLO terrorists. Soon various Lebanese groups were fighting one another as old feuds revived and new atrocities demanded revenge. This fighting would continue in one form or another until 1990.

In 1976, the Lebanese Christian leadership invited the Syrian Army in for assistance in fighting the PLO. An Arab peace-keeping force (usually called the "Arab Deterrent Forces") was subsequently deployed by the Arab League, incorporating into its ranks the Syrian forces. Intermittent cease-fires were followed by new rounds of fighting. The civilian population of all faiths suffered greatly.

By 1978, Israel had had enough of the constant attacks by terrorists based in Lebanon and launched a counterattack in the form of a limited invasion of Lebanon, the Litani River Operation.

In early June of 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon with a massive force, called Operation Peace for the Galilee, driving all the way to Beirut and putting the PLO and residents, as well as the Lebanese civilian population of that city, under siege. Israel justified its action by citing the attempted assassination of the Israeli ambassador in London and a build-up of PLO armaments in South Lebanon in addition to the constant attacks on Galilee settlements across the border.

In August 1982, US Ambassador Philip Habib negotiated the withdrawal of Yaser Arafat and his PLO forces from Lebanon. They relocated their headquarters in Tunis, Tunisia.

Sources and additional reading on this topic:

• Lebanon
• Sanctuary and Survival: The PLO in Lebanon
• Lebanon
• Arafat Always Goes Too Far
• Desecration