Israel's Secret War

Just before Cyrus Vance arrived in Jerusalem last week, Israel's Premier Menachem Begin caused a stir with a public admission: Israeli artillery regularly fires into south Lebanon to shoo away Palestinian guerrillas from Lebanese Christian enclaves in the border area. In fact, during a recent seven-day period, Israeli batteries--sometimes directed by observers in spotter planes--fired 16 times at Palestinian forces near the seven Christian villages in the border area; during the same week, the Israelis manned two observation posts in Lebanese territory and sent in seven patrols--one of which got into a firefight with Palestinian commandos.

TIME has learned that Israel's involvement in the long struggle in Lebanon was far more extensive than was previously known. In fact, former Israeli officials now disclose that Israel's assistance to Lebanon's embattled Christians during the long civil war amounted to $30 million to $35 million in direct aid, and perhaps as much as $100 million all told, including the cost of a naval blockade and air patrols along the Lebanese coast.

The longstanding equilibrium in Lebanon had been upset by the war, which pitted the left-wing Muslim groups and the well-armed Palestinians against Lebanese Christians and moderate Muslims. The Israelis were alarmed at the prospect of a leftist victory; so were the Syrians, who were apprehensive over the idea of a war pitting Arab against Arab on their border.

In the meantime, reports TIME Jerusalem Correspondent David Halevy, the secret Israeli operation began in May 1976 when three Israeli missile boats sailed from Haifa to Jounieh Bay, near the Christian "capital" north of Beirut. Aboard one boat was Yitzhak Rabin, then the Israeli Premier, and his Defense Minister, Shimon Peres. Soon the Israelis were joined by two boats from the mainland, one carrying Camille Chamoun, then a Lebanese Cabinet minister, the other carrying Lebanese Christian Phalangist Party Leader Pierre Gemayel--both boats guided and guarded by Israeli frogmen. Though the two Lebanese Christians, leaders of competing factions, refused to meet with each other, they both appealed to Rabin for direct Israeli intervention in the civil war then raging in Lebanon.

The Israelis refused to become directly involved, fearing that it could lead to another all-out Middle East war. But they began to aid the Christians as well as various conservative Muslim groups that were fighting the left-wing parties and the Palestinians. Publicly, Jerusalem made a big show of the food and medical aid--and even jobs--it began offering Christians from south Lebanon. "This became the 'shop window' of our aid to the Christians," a former Israeli Cabinet minister told Halevy. "But our main interest was the Beirut-Jounieh area and the mountains of Lebanon--the Christian fortress."

The Israelis provided 12,000 rifles, 5,000 machine guns, 110 tanks, plus other items, from APCs to uniforms. Israeli officers moved into Christian communities, and some 1,500 of the Lebanese volunteers were trained at army bases in Israel. Top Israeli and Lebanese officials held several additional meetings. With Israeli help, the former minister told Halevy, "the Christians managed to stop the Palestinian offensive, and even started an offensive of their own. They became full partners to any deal the Syrians imposed on Lebanon."

When Syrian peacemaking troops finally penetrated to the region north of Beirut last December, the Israelis suspended their operations in the Jounieh area, but they have continued to aid the Christians in the south. The Israelis are convinced that their efforts had a decisive effect on the outcome of the war. Says the former minister: "Our aid prevented a Christian genocide and forced the left-wingers and the Palestinians to sign the cease-fire agreement." It also showed, he adds, that "the Christians can always turn to Israel to back them up." It goes without saying, of course, that the intervention--which Israelis describe as just an effort to aid another embattled minority like themselves--also helped to weaken their enemies, the Palestinians.

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