Dismantle the SLA now
By Zvi Bar'el
The party being thrown by the guys who weren't invited to the party is starting to take shape in Lebanon. Three weeks ago, General Antoin Lahad, commander of the Israeli-backed South Lebanon Army, reiterated his appalling warning that SLA soldiers might use their arms against Israel if the IDF withdraws from Lebanon. Last Thursday, while Ehud Barak and Farouk Shara were holding talks at Blair House, shells fired by SLA gunners landed in a school yard in the village of Arab Salim, located outside the Israeli-controlled security zone. Fortunately, "only" 24 children were "only" wounded by the mortar shells. They could have been killed, and Barak could have been stuck with a new Kafr Kana affair. Kafr Kana was the site of a command post of the United Nations battalion from Fiji, and thousands of Lebanese took shelter there from the barrages of Israel's Operation Grapes of Wrath in the spring of 1996. But a 155-millimeter shell landed in the battalion's compound, however, killing more than 100 people.If a similar event had recurred last week, it is a safe bet that Shara would have bundled his delegation onto the first plane available and headed back to Damascus for a lengthy cooling-off period. Syria, which Israel is now asking to reduce the level of fire in Lebanon - and which seems to be acceding to the request - is fanatical when it comes to balanced demands: Israel cannot harm Lebanese civilians while it is conducting talks with Syria.
The IDF spokesman did the right thing by expressing regret and apologizing for the incident, and his statement was more detailed than the aggressive expression of regret issued by then Prime Minister Shimon Peres after the Kafr Kana debacle. But at this stage of the diplomacy between the countries, a lot more is needed than an expression of regret. The SLA has embroiled the IDF, and with it the entire north of the country, more than once with its impulsive reactions, even though, on the face of it, the SLA is far more tightly under the IDF's control than Hezbollah is under Syrian control.
The SLA is a mercenary force whose members get their wages from the IDF and supplement their income by exacting protection money from Lebanese workers for their work permits. This is a convenient arrangement all around: for the workers, for the SLA and for the IDF, which for a cheap rate gets thousands of troops to man outposts and crossing points and generally fill important holes in the South Lebanon fabric. The possibility of a peace treaty between Israel and Syria and Israel and Lebanon is above all a threat to the SLA, which will lose its raison d'etre and its economic resources. Lahad apparently knows what he is talking about when he threatens reprisal attacks by SLA soldiers.
As differentiated from terrorist actions, the intensity of the war in South Lebanon is amenable to control and direction. The IDF and Hezbollah have already proved on numerous occasions that when diplomatic or political reasons exist, they can hold their fire and show restraint, just as other circumstances have dictated a massive attack or the rocketing of Israel's northern settlements.
The SLA seems to be formulating an agenda of its own, even if mistakenly, which is liable to threaten, if not to thwart, the policy of the Israeli government, particularly now that an opportunity has arisen to leave Lebanon as part of an agreement. Because from now on, every event in South Lebanon will become a diplomatic incident that goes beyond the bureaucratic handling of the multinational "committee of understandings" that was set up after Operation Grapes of Wrath. Too much is now at stake for "one shell too far," as the shell that left more than 100 dead at Kafr Kana was dubbed, or for the shelling of a school, to have the effect of eradicating the peace process.
Because Barak has already decided on a withdrawal from Lebanon and wants to implement it within the framework of an agreement, it would be best to move quickly and neutralize any problem that is liable to block that aspiration. The dismantling of the SLA, with its personnel treated handsomely - compensation for those who deserve it, a new place of residence for those whose lives will be in danger - is the step that is required now, ahead of the withdrawal from Lebanon. This will be a useful move, if only to forestall a situation in which the SLA dictates the IDF's pace of withdrawal or the length of the bloody trail to be left behind
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