Jitters in Lebanon

Near the Lebanese border last week, Defense Minister Dayan paid a series of condolence calls in the wake of the Arab ambush of an Israeli school bus. Nine small children, three teachers and the bus driver died in the bazooka attack near Baram, and Dayan made it plain that Israel held Beirut responsible for the guerrillas' action. "If the Lebanese government declares it is not obliged to serve as a policeman to stop the terrorists," said Dayan, "then we will do the job."

To back up his threat, Israeli troops and tanks moved into Lebanon in a new tactic of continuous patrol. Fearful that the Israeli patrols were the prelude to an invasion, and weary of repeated shellings, 20,000 Lebanese streamed north, away from the border, by donkey, car and truck. Two farming villages, Kfar Chouba and Kfar Hamam, were completely deserted and soon occupied by Arab guerrillas. In nearby Khiam, Houla and Blida, men sent their women and children away and stayed on themselves to protect their homes and possessions.

The Israeli incursions and the fleeing farmers created a new crisis for Premier Rashid Karami's government in Beirut. Most of the refugees belong to the Moslem Shia sect, who hold the menial jobs in Lebanon and who have long received second-class treatment in domestic matters from Lebanon's Christians and the religiously dominant Sunni sect, to which Karami and most Moslems in his Cabinet belong. Now the peasants were angry at becoming pawns in war. Imam Mousa Sadr, religious leader of the Shia, called an effective one-day strike last week that even curtailed operations at Beirut airport and forced foreign jets to divert to Istanbul. The government quickly voted $8,500,000 in relief funds for the refugees, but Mousa Sadr threatened more strikes unless his people and their homes were protected.

Protection was the one thing that the government was unable to guarantee. The Lebanese army would have no difficulty controlling the Arab guerrillas who have flocked to southern Lebanon from Syria and Jordan in order to harass Israelis across the border. But in putting down the fedayeen, the army would enrage the 300,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and probably bring down the government. Though Karami considered inviting troops from Tunisia and Morocco to help seal the border, the Cabinet decided instead to enforce a seven-month-old agreement under which the guerrillas are forbidden to carry arms in Lebanese villages or to fire into Israel from Lebanese territory. Even that decision was watered down. The government decided that any commando who can prove himself a member of the Palestine Armed Struggle Command, the guerrillas' central organization, will be allowed to carry arms. Since this includes almost everybody, the order is meaningless.

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