To the Brink in Lebanon

THE sights and sounds in Lebanon last week suggested a string of grenades exploding among boxes of dynamite stacked against the wall of an arsenal. In the second week of deadly clashes between the military and Palestinian guerrillas, some Lebanese politicians and civilians actively sided with the Palestinians, raising the specter of a civil war. Beyond Lebanon's borders, other Arab nations and Israel stirred, triggering fears of intervention and a major Middle East confrontation.

The fighting between Lebanese forces and the fedayeen was serious enough in itself. Scores were killed and hundreds were wounded on both sides as fierce battles scarred various parts of the sunny Mediterranean state. The army acknowledged that 43 soldiers had died and 167 had been wounded. Hundreds of civilians also died or were injured in the crossfire. One Beirut hospital reported that 45 wounded civilians had been operated on during one day.

Lebanese President Suleiman Franjieh was clearly involved in a showdown with the fedayeen. It was in fact the most significant confrontation between an Arab government and the fedayeen since Jordan crushed the guerrillas in 1970. Though they number only about 16,000 among the 300,000 Palestinians living in Lebanon, the fedayeen control the refugee camps. In violation of a 1969 agreement with the government, they have used the camps as weapon depots and training bases for the liberation movement against Israel. As a result, Israeli commandos have struck Lebanon several times, most recently last month when they assassinated three Palestinian leaders in the heart of Beirut.

Bad feeling between the Palestinians and Franjieh's regime festered in the wake of the raids. The guerrillas complained that they were not receiving adequate protection from the Lebanese army. They had the sympathy of many Lebanese left-wing politicians and Moslems. (Lebanon's population of nearly 3,000,000 is roughly split between Moslems and Christians.) Franjieh, a conservative Christian, and his supporters became increasingly fed up as they saw their country being turned into a fedayeen-Israeli battleground. Two weeks ago, the hostility erupted into two days of fighting between the guerrillas and Lebanese forces. A shaky cease-fire agreement lasted until the start of last week. Then the battles resumed, more widespread and uglier than ever.

Emergency. The guerrillas pounded Beirut International Airport and nearby army installations with Soviet-made rockets and Chinese-made mortars. The army replied with heavy cannon fire from U.S.-made tanks. Terrorists raced through Beirut streets in cars, firing machine guns and hurling bombs at military and pro-Christian political quarters. One bomb, aimed at the Lebanese Officers' Club, bounced off a wall and exploded in front of the fashionable Phoenicia Hotel. Some rockets plunged into the gardens surrounding the presidential palace.

As the fighting increased, Premier Amin Hafez gave in to Franjieh's demands and declared a state of emergency, effectively giving the mostly Christian army control over the country. The next day, as Lebanese jet fighter-bombers joined the fray for the second week in a row, Hafez resigned. A Moslem, he had been in office only 13 days and had replaced Saeb Salam, another Moslem, who resigned after last month's Israeli attacks.

Hafez's resignation had little impact. Tough, short-fused Franjieh had clearly been in full control from the start. One of his major worries was the pro-fedayeen activity of Lebanon's Opposition Leader Kamal Jumblatt and other left-wing or Moslem politicians. Jumblatt called a secret meeting to organize political agitation in support of the guerrillas. Later, a member of Parliament from Jumblatt's Progressive Socialist Party was caught trying to smuggle arms into Beirut from the Syrian border. His car contained 35 submachine guns, five bundles of dynamite and seven bazookas. There were other signs of a potential civil war. Fedayeen cars toured Moslem districts to pick up volunteer reinforcements. Armed militia units of the right-wing Phalangist Party were deployed around Beirut's Maronite Christian section.

Meanwhile, the fighting spread far beyond Beirut. Major battles rocked the port of Tyre, 45 miles to the south, and broke out in stretches inside the northern and eastern borders, where at least 2,000 Palestinian troops crossed into Lebanon from bases in Syria. The Syrian government insisted that it would not send its army into Lebanon, but its sympathies, like those of Libya, were clearly with the fedayeen. Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi urged the guerrillas to seize the Beirut airport so that he could send them Libyan fighter planes. Syria closed its border to Lebanon; with the Beirut airport also shut down and 40 ships unable to unload cargo, Lebanon was virtually isolated.

Warning. From across Lebanon's southeastern border, Israel watched developments carefully. Defense Minister Moshe Dayan said that Israel would not intervene as long as the fighting was confined to the Lebanese and the guerrillas. But he warned that Israel would be forced to act if the Syrian army moved into battle. Late in the week, one of Israel's crack units, the Golani Brigade, began maneuvers in the occupied Golan Heights of Syria. A military spokesman said that the maneuvers had been planned for some time. But in Washington, which had been counseling Israel to show restraint, some Administration officials feared that Israel's militant presence near the border might heighten tensions and increase the danger of a bigger Middle East explosion.

At week's end another uneasy truce was in effect in most of the battle areas. A hopeful sign was that it was being supervised by joint patrols of the army and the fedayeen. But the gut issue remained unresolved. The fedayeen seemed prepared to return to the status quo, under which they would continue to control the refugee camps. Franjieh was determined that the control should be shared with Lebanese authorities so that the guerrillas would never again have the freedom that they enjoyed before. Ahead lay the possibility of more battles until the fedayeen give in--or, perhaps, until they are forced out of Lebanon as they were out of Jordan.

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