The Third World War: The Untold Story

These processes of military readjustment were intended to assist political realignments so that a central and national Lebanese government, incorporating all parties except Palestinians, could be established. Saudi Arabia’s commitment to and sponsoring of this idea continued to advance its general political position in the Arab world, while it was hoped that Syria’s dependence on the Soviet Union and its former hostility to the Fahd eight-point plan would be further reduced. If there appeared to be little of value in these various comings and goings for the Palestinians themselves, they could at least console themselves with the thought that the inter-relationship between the Saudi and Lebanese plan could lead to more general support for their own national aspirations.

All this sounded admirable in theory. But it was still theory, and there still had to be found some means of getting once again under way those international initiatives without which there could be no breaking of the deadlock. The key to finding these means lay in Egypt.

In 1981 and 1982, as had been expected, the newly appointed Egyptian President continued with the Camp David peace process in order to regain the whole of Sinai, yet he tried to reconcile this process, which required the co-operation of the United States and Israel, with a move back into the moderate Arab camp. At the same time, Israel itself had been tempted to slow down the hand-over of Sinai in order to gain time to judge further influences and policies. Such temptations, however, were removed by intense pressure from both the United States and Western Europe. Indeed the United States, which had already given some indication of future intentions by further military assistance to Saudi Arabia following the AWACS deal in 1981, made it clear that the balance of military aid could switch away from Israel to Arabia if the Sinai were not handed back on time. There was not yet any progress from Camp David to a proper re-assessment of how both the PLO and Israel could be persuaded to acknowledge each other’s rights in order to pave the way for negotiations on the lines of Prince Fahd’s plan. Once all the Sinai had been handed back to Egypt, however, and a peacekeeping force, which included Third World, American and European troops, had been established, a new set of circumstances emerged.

In 1982, with the Sinai back in Egyptian hands and the so-called normalization of Egyptian-Israeli relations still proceeding, the Saudi Arabian Sheikh Faisal Abdullah, who had long been working for a rapprochement between Egypt and his own country, succeeded in arranging a meeting between the Crown Prince and the President of Egypt. It took place in Geneva and was to set in train a series of events which, unlike all previous initiatives, began to break the Palestinian deadlock. In essence the policy they agreed upon was that Arab unity would as far as possible be restored. Disruptive movements, such as Moslem fundamentalism or adventurism in the Sahara, would be controlled by friendly, or if this failed, unfriendly persuasion. Given a degree of Arab unity, irresistible pressure should be brought to bear in two quarters: first on Israel, through the United States, to make the Israelis sit down and negotiate the future of an autonomous Palestine; secondly on the PLO, to oblige it to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist and thus also sit down at the negotiating table. The weapon to be used against the United States and thus its Western allies would, of course, be oil. In simple terms, the bargaining would be: no Palestine, no oil. This position had to be taken seriously and a settlement based on it did in the end come about. But the voices of those not present at the Geneva meeting still had to be heard. The principal voices, both demanding and entitled to be heard, were those of the United States, Israel, Libya, Jordan, Syria and the Soviet Union.

During the remaining months of 1982 and the early ones of the following year these voices made themselves heard in various bilateral and multilateral meetings, and in doing so helped to shape the final outcome. We must shortly consider the way in which the United States was persuaded to sponsor a formula for peace, broadly acceptable to the bulk of the Arab nations and to which Israel could be obliged to submit. We must also examine how the Soviet Union took a hand in the game which all but brought the superpowers to a direct clash in the very area they were seeking to pacify. But first, we must clear out of the way two other obstacles which were impeding solution to the central problem. The first was Libya, the second Iran.