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From: Zaki Marzouk
Date: 10 May 1999
Time: 10:24:03
Remote Name: 209.75.196.104
Remote User:
“Speech of General Hafez el-Assad, President of the Syrian Arab Republic, to the Provincial Councils. Damascus, 20 July 1976.
(…) Lebanon preoccupies us and with us it preoccupies the region and the whole world. The events in Lebanon concern us and concern the Arab world at least as much as they concern Lebanon. On purpose, the conspirators are blurring the game and rendering it insidious and complex (…) When the Lebanese crisis broke out (in 1975), we knew what were the objectives: to disguise the Sinai agreement (Egypt/Israel), to liquidate the Palestinian resistance, to divide Lebanon and embarrass Syria. The conspiracy was aimed at the whole region, but more particularly at Syria. Could we avoid the issue when we were directly implicated? Syria and Lebanon have been made up of one people and one country throughout their history. We have as many cousins on this side of the border as on the other…. Do we need a proof of this community of interest? Half a million Syrians lived in Lebanon before the events: doctors, businessmen,workers. Since the crisis, they came back, and along with them came half a million Lebanese and 150,000 Palestinians. (…) Beyond our frontiers, they keep screaming at us. They’re trying to pick a quarrel with us, pretending to forget that dividing Lebanon is precisely one of the Zionists’ historic objectives, not as much because of a strategic or military interest, as it is because of ideological and political ones. The enemy needs small witness states in the region so that any proposal for a democratic and secular State of Palestine can be definitely dropped. Let us remember what a great favour we did Israel by trumpeting everywhere that we wanted to throw the Jews to the sea! Any democratic state would be an embarrassment to Israel. A partitioned Lebanon would greatly favour Israel’s arguments against the secular state! The partitioning of Lebanon would bring to naught the accusations of racism that Israel has deserved with its amalgam of citizens whose self-recognition is based solely on their common religion. Lebanon divided into small denominational states would justify Israel’s arguments and pretensions. The blow would be fatal to Islam and the Arabic identity. Our job is to see precisely that the conspirators are prevented from dragging Islam and the Arabs into such a mess. The conspiracy against Lebanon targeted the Christians and Muslims engaged in the same fight against the same enemy. (…) We did all we could politically and militarily to bring the fire under control. There was a moment when the Resistance Front (Palestinian) and parties (Lebanese) which called themselves “national” declared they were about to crumble. The Front went as far as to send distress signals. Towards mid-January (1976) the Aramoun (near Beirut) summit was held. Our foreign affairs minister (Abdel Halim Khaddam) was insistently asked to call out to President Soliman Frangie for a cease-fire. Half an hour later, another call. I refused to answer while pointing out that they had to resist and had everything they needed to do so. I was intrigued by their calls: I knew that the resistance (Palestinian) had more arms than the Lebanese army itself did; besides, the latter was having no part in the battle. The political effort, as much as the arms supply turned out to be ineffective, the only thing left for us was to intervene directly. We debated the issue at the (high) command; we were facing a dilemma: If we did not intervene, the resistance would crumble; if we did intervene, we would save it, but we would be risking a war with Israel. Nevertheless, acting under the cover of the Palestinian Liberation Army circumvented the difficulty. Those who take pride today of speaking in the name of Palestine had not been briefed of this secret. Besides, little did it matter to them to know how there were saved. After the Aramoun summit (Moslem - sic), the heads of the national parties had nothing better to do than take the road to Damascus looking for help. Kamal Joumblatt, notably, came to Damascus: He was visibly demoralised. I reassured them all: “We will support you, I told them. We are already on your side. The PLA and other forces have already entered Lebanon.”
In their presence, and immediately, I had a phone conversation with president Frangie. May that loyal man forgive me for what I’m about to reveal: - “Syrian forces have entered Lebanon” , the president told me without reproach. I answered him: - “You know what is our position in principle towards the Palestinians. There is a red line that should not be crossed.” (…) Which left the (Palestinian) Resistance: What is it they really wanted? Its leaders had come to Damascus, Yasser Arafat the first, to draw with their own hands their desiderata. Informed by us, the Lebanese authority agreed to all their demands. President Assad then reads the conditions put to Lebanon and obtained through him by the Palestinian leaders. “The rough work was written by them” he specifies.
1. The Palestinian Liberation Army alone represents the Palestinian people. 2. It is responsible for the camps. 3. It is responsible for its own security. 4. It is forbidden to attempt against the Palestinian presence or the resistance’s security.
Were all these conditions indispensable to the resistance’s security? We are entitled to have doubts. And nevertheless, president Frangie agreed to them! What more does the Palestinian resistance need? This resistance, which at the time we speak, in Lebanon as on the international scene, is fighting for objectives that are not its own, but quite obviously for someone else’s benefit, at the expense of the Palestinian people!! To come back to Lebanon, the constitutional document had granted the national parties dominated by Muslims 95% of their claims. We had to intervene to add a clause that the national parties had neglected: The clause confirming Lebanon’s Arab belonging!!! Here too, the Lebanese authority showed its willingness to co-operate: It subscribed to all the points. The fighting started again more violently in the spring of 76. There were calls for the immediate departure of president Frangie. Yasser Arafat intervened to ask me do give audience to Kamal Joumblatt, whom we received, though he persisted in increasing the intensity of the fights. “We have supported you politically and militarily, we told him, but you were not able to resist. We had to enter Lebanon and risk a war with Israel. “ Joumblatt quibbled, he spoke of a secular state. I pointed out to him that the Kataeb were pleading with even more ardour for the dossier of the secularisation of the state, but that the Mufti Khaled and the Imam Sader were protesting against this attack against the very essence of Islam. “The Muslim leaders, Joumblatt answered me, represent nothing at all!”. It is not a question of representation, I told him, but an attack against the very bases of Islam. Then, speaking of something else, he told me : Let us teach the Christians a lesson. They’ve been ruling us for 140 years and we want to get rid of them.” Joumblatt had dropped the mask. It was not a question of left and right, of Christianity or Islam, but a desire for revenge that dated back 140 years. (…) Joumblatt left angry, resolved to fight. We could not come to terms with him anymore. We were forced in May-June of 1976 to push our forces in Beirut’s direction. On the Algerians and Libyans’ insistence, we stopped them in their way. The leaders of the resistance were sending new alarm cries. The forces we sent to Lebanon were made up only of infantrymen. We did not have tanks, our planes had not bombarded Lebanon anywhere (…). This generosity was detrimental to our soldiers. Never anyone had caused so much damage to our troops than the Palestinians. Our soldiers, who had been around for 3 years in the Palestinian camps of Beirut and Tripoli to help those camps repel any potential raids of the enemy, were partly massacred and partly arrested. At Tell-Zaater we even had soldiers captured and killed. In Sidon, the Palestinian resistance massacred our soldiers who were protecting them against the enemy! A company, sent by us, had entered Sidon under the population’s acclaim. Women and children covered our soldiers with flowers… When all of a sudden shots were fired by the Palestinian organisation’s snipers, which mowed down, along with our soldiers, the women and children. This image gives an accurate idea of their style.”