(3 of 4)
Nonetheless, the celebrations continued. When a shipload of guerrillas reached the Syrian port of Tartus, they were greeted by shouts of "Victory!" and "Palestine!" Five sheep were slaughtered on the dock and skinned to provide a carpet for the visitors to walk upon as they came ashore. When a four-year-old Palestinian boy in Beirut asked his father, "Why is everybody shooting?" he was told, "To celebrate a great victory." To which the boy replied, "But if the soldiers won, why are they going?" The answer, only partly obscured by the fanfare of the occasion, was that they had no choice; the Israelis had forced them out.
Day after day, the exiled P.L.O. left Beirut for Syria, for Jordan, Sudan, Tunisia, North and South Yemen. Some 185 wounded guerrillas embarked on a Red Cross vessel bound for Cyprus and Greece. Conspicuous among the countries that had not agreed to accept a significant number of P.L.O. evacuees was Egypt, which had been asked by the U.S. to take a group of 3,000 Palestinians. The government of President Hosni Mubarak refused, saying that the removal of the P.L.O. from Lebanon should be linked with diplomatic steps toward a comprehensive settlement of the Palestinian problem. Explained an Egyptian official: "When we signed the Camp David peace treaty, we were accused by other Arabs of only being concerned about a partial solution," that is, of getting the occupied Sinai back from Israel. "We do not want the same accusations to be leveled against us again." In the end, the Egyptians agreed merely to provide medical care for some of the Palestinian wounded and to pay canal tolls for the five ships scheduled to carry P.L.O. guerrillas to the Sudan and the Yemens.
In Tunisia, President Habib Bourguiba welcomed a contingent of 1,100 Palestinians who arrived Saturday by sea. The Tunisians had been busy last week erecting a tent village near Béja, 60 miles from Tunis, for the guerrillas. They were also refurbishing the Salwa Hotel at Borj Cedria, 16 miles southeast of the Tunisian capital, so that the tourist resort might serve as either a temporary or permanent headquarters for Yasser Arafat and 100 or more of his colleagues. The hotel contains a luxury suite for Arafat, a not altogether appropriate residence for a man of spartan taste who sometimes prefers to sleep on the floor. Arafat's movements last week were something of a mystery. The Lebanese radio announced Saturday that he had sailed with some of his men that morning for Cyprus and from there would continue to Tunis, but his actual departure from Beirut was not confirmed. Once the evacuation is completed, some diplomats speculated, the P.L.O.'s fighting units would be based in Damascus, while Arafat would make his own headquarters in Tunisia.
In the devastation of Beirut, there were some signs of an easing of tensions. Barricades were beginning to come down. The Italian forces, wearing white helmets adorned with black feathers, were a highly visible and almost festive presence.