No peace in Galilee
The residents of the northern border have once again been
forced to spend the night in their shelters in the wake of a
series of events in southern Lebanon. This time two
members of the South Lebanon Army - the
Israeli-supported militia - were killed by a bomb planted by
Hezbollah, and in reaction the SLA shelled the homes of
Lebanese civilians, killing two and wounding seven. This
incident came just days after six Lebanese civilians were
wounded in a raid by the Israeli air force at the beginning of
the week. The deputy secretary-general of Hezbollah, Naim
al Kassem, warned that Hezbollah will react to civilian
casualties, and that warning was sufficient for the IDF to
issue the appropriate order to the residents in the north.
The result is that Hezbollah, without making a major effort,
is able to bring life in northern Israel to a standstill.
The events of this week demonstrate that despite the
tremendous effort made not to harm civilians and to limit the
pretexts for escalation, it is impossible to avoid inflicting
civilian casualties in the Lebanese arena. Two months
have gone by since Israel's large-scale attack on
infrastructure targets in Lebanon, and once more the IDF
finds itself unable to prevent a Hezbollah threat - or its
realization. The IDF's problem in Lebanon lies not only in
the impossibility of separating military from civilian targets,
but also in the excessive independence that the SLA
arrogates to itself. This is not the first time the SLA has
reacted as it saw fit to an attack on its personnel, dragging
the IDF and with it the entire north of the country into a
renewed confrontation.
It stands to reason that Israel, on the eve of a visit by U.S.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and ahead of the
signing of an agreement with the Palestinians, does not
wish to heat up the front in southern Lebanon. The restraint
that Hezbollah displayed in the past two months, under
Syrian-Lebanese pressure and at American behest,
enabled the IDF to continue operating in Lebanon on the
basis of the well-known rules of the game, and the
government to make decisions without undue pressure.
It emerges, however, that the SLA does not always
consider itself bound to Israel's political-diplomatic
interests, or to the principles which guide the IDF's
reactions in Lebanon. The SLA, despite the assistance it
provides and the advantages it enjoys, is thereby turning
itself into a burden that could trap the Israeli government
and the IDF in situations where they will no have control
over the outcome. One can understand the blow to morale
and the desire for revenge that seizes the SLA when its
personnel are killed, but the SLA is not waging an
independent war in southern Lebanon, and therefore must
not be allowed to set its own rules of behavior at the
expense of the well-being of the residents in the north.
The declared reason for the war in southern Lebanon is the
peace of the Galilee. To date, that war has not produced
the desired result. Prime Minister Ehud Barak has made a
commitment to remove the IDF from Lebanon by the end of
his first year in office, realizing that this move, by
dissipating the day-to-day tension, may well bring calm to
the border. Assuming that this is indeed Barak's intention, it
is not superfluous to ask, against the background of the
recent events, whether a year is not too long a period for
implementing a wise decision.
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