When Arab-Israeli peace agreements are mentioned, the main two that usually come to mind are Anwar Sadat’s Camp David Accords in 1978, followed by Yasser Arafat’s Oslo Accords of 1993.
What is generally dropped from the list is the 17 May Agreement between Lebanon and Israel, which although approved by the Lebanese parliament, never materialised.
In his 1998 book ‘Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace’, Canadian historian Neil Caplan describes the agreement as a “perfect failure.”
And indeed, it was.
The Israeli army had invaded Lebanon in 1978 with the objective of driving out Yasser Arafat’s fighters. In June 1982 it laid siege and occupied Beirut.
Its invasion of Lebanese territory had been facilitated and nudged by the young Bashir Gemayel of the Lebanese Phalange, who abhorred Arafat and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO).
In fact, it was the skirmishes between them that had triggered the entire Lebanese conflict in mid-April 1975. Gemayel was elected president on 23 August and killed on 14 September 1982.
Sharon’s initial demands
His brother, Amin Gemayel, would replace him as president later that month and in his inauguration address, he, too, didn’t mention Israeli troop withdrawal from Lebanon.
A 18 May 1983 article in The New York Times says: “Much of the groundwork on the agreement was done last fall by Defence Minister Ariel Sharon...who met secretly with a still unidentified confidant of President Amin Gemayel and drew up a document outlining an accord.”
Sharon, like Bashir Gemayel, hated Arafat and longed to see him dead. He demanded, among other things, limits on Lebanese weapons in the south and intelligence agents with the right to enter Lebanese homes and detain civilians in search of fighters from the PLO.
He also asked for five outposts in southern Lebanon manned by 750 Israeli soldiers, which was flatly rejected by the Lebanese.
Lebanon Beach talks
Official negotiations commenced at a hotel called Lebanon Beach in Khaldeh, a seaside town south of Beirut, on 28 December 1982. Representing Israel was David Kimche, a legendary Mossad figure and deputy chief who by then was serving as director-general of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
On the Lebanese side stood Antoine Fattal, a seasoned Lebanese diplomat of Syrian origins who had served as Lebanon’s former ambassador to the Vatican.
Mediating the talks and handling them from afar was US Secretary of State George Shultz and representing him at the negotiating table was his special envoy, Morris Draper.
President Gemayel was following up closely on every detail, although his prime minister Shafiq al-Wazzan mulled along, very unwillingly. Shortly before his death in 1999, he would later say that he cried on the day that the 17 May Agreement was signed.
Israeli withdrawal and establishment of security zone
The agreement’s final text called for a phased Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, within 8-12 weeks, to be supervised by a joint committee from the two countries, headed the United States.
In return for full withdrawal, the Israelis demanded that the Lebanese army establish a security zone in southern Lebanon, 20-37 miles from Israel’s north, to keep Palestinian fighters away from the border area.
