invasion had the effect of persuading Washington to send Philip Habib back

invasion had the effect of persuading Washington to send Philip Habib back into the diplomatic fray. With no early sign, however, of Arafat agreeing to leave, Arik now steadily tightened what amounted to a siege on west Beirut. For seven weeks in July and August, our forces pounded the PLO-controlled neighborhoods from land, air and sea; intermittently cut water and electricity supplies; and hoped that the accumulated pressure, and casualties, would force Arafat and his men to agree to Habib’s terms for a wholesale evacuation. By this point, I was spending most of my time in the Airya, with periodic visits north, sometimes with Arik or Raful, to our positions on the eastern, Phalangist-controlled, side of Beirut. On several occasions, I helicoptered back with Habib or his deputy, Morris Draper. In one instance, I accompanied Draper into a meeting with Arik. In what I imagine had become a familiar, and frustrating, part of the US mediation mission, he pressed Arik to rein in our bombardments, arguing that we were in danger of ruining the chances of getting a negotiated deal on Arafat’s leaving. Arik argued straight back. His view was that unless the PLO felt squeezed into submission, they would stay put. On that, I thought Ank was probably right. Other Israeli generals with far more experience, and weight, also seemed to agree. Notably, Yitzhak Rabin. He was no longer in government, nor even in charge of Labor. But he had always had a soft spot for Arik, as did Sharon for him. With uneasiness, questions and outright criticism of the siege building both internationally and inside Israel, Arik got Rabin to helicopter north with him to Beirut. Yitzhak spent six or seven hours there. His verdict on the siege, at least as reported in the Israeli press, was more than Arik could have hoped for. Lehadek, he said. “Tighten it.” In the end, I’m convinced the siege did have a critical effect on getting the evacuation deal. But unleashing our single most relentless series of air attacks, on August 12, when the deal was basically done, seemed both perverse and excessive, and not just to me. Habib, and President Reagan himself, fumed. So did a lot of Begin’s own ministers, with the result, unprecedented in Israeli military annals, that they formally removed Arik’s authority to decide on future air force missions. That turned out not to matter, however, because August 12 effectively marked the end of the siege. On the afternoon of Saturday, August 21, the first shipload of an eventual total of nearly 10,000 Palestinian fighters left Beirut harbor for Cyprus, and then for a variety of new host countries. On this score at least, Arik’s grand design had proven beyond him: the Palestinians were not bound for Jordan. By far most of them headed for the PLO’s new political base, the north African state of 203 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_028051