An occupation Israel would love to end
The Economist
7 Mar 1998
But if it is to get out of south Lebanon, Israel will either have to make peace with
Syria or accept the risk of unconditional withdrawal IT IS a measure of Binyamin
Netanyahu’s credibility that when he signals a desire to withdraw Israel’s army from
south Lebanon, everyone looks for ulterior motives. Israel, the prime minister said
last weekend, accepts United Nations Security Council Resolution 425. This
resolution, passed 20 years ago this month, calls on Israel to “withdraw forthwith its
forces from all Lebanese territory”. Israel, which has neither rejected nor obeyed this
command, seems this time to be hedging its acceptance-in-principle with slightly
fewer conditions than in the past. But it still demands that Lebanon should establish
the “proper security arrangements” in southern Lebanon to ensure the safety of
northern Israel. “A significant shift in policy,” claims the minister of science, Michael
Eitan. What is Mr Netanyahu really after, ask the sceptics.
Some point to the prospect of imminent American intervention—read
pressure—designed to resuscitate the half-dead Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
The Clinton team, worried by the Arab world’s resentfulness during the Iraqi crisis, is
considering confronting the two sides with detailed proposals of its own for a phased
Israeli redeployment in the West Bank. Mr Netanyahu is openly apprehensive. This
week he urged visiting American Jewish leaders to lobby Congress against any such
design. A surge of diplomatic activity on the Israel-Lebanon front could, perhaps, be
a useful diversion.
In any event, on March 1st Mr Netanyahu sent two aides to Paris for “secret” talks
on Lebanon. The defence minister, Yitzhak Mordechai, was himself due in Paris on
March 5th. Rumour suggested that France might send its troops to police a cordon
sanitaire along the border after Israel pulls out, perhaps by reinforcing UNIFIL , the
UN peacekeeping force that has been there since 1978. There was even speculation
that Syria might have indicated, through France or Russia, a new readiness to
negotiate over the Golan Heights and south Lebanon too.
Mr Netanyahu seems comfortable to let the rumours proliferate. But the more
circumspect Mr Mordechai gave warning on March 2nd that “we will probably be
stuck with the Lebanon headache for a long time . . . We need solid security
arrangements before we can withdraw.” The army chief of staff, Lieut-General
Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, told a Knesset committee the following day that in practice
there could be no withdrawal from south Lebanon without Syria’s blessing. And this,
he hinted, was available only as part of a comprehensive accord covering the Golan.
Mr Mordechai, a former general who commanded Israel’s northern front, and
General Lipkin-Shahak have set themselves against all talk of unilateral withdrawal.
Lebanon’s Hizbullah guerrillas, they argue, would probably continue the fight. And
Israel’s surrogate South Lebanese Army might get short shrift if it were abandoned.
But theirs is not the only view in the army high command. And, outside the army,
advocates of unilateral withdrawal have been gaining strength on both sides of the
Knesset. Other cabinet members besides the science minister would like to see the
army leave south Lebanon, even without an agreement with Syria. On the Labour
side, Shimon Peres, a former prime minister, this week publicly declared his support
for withdrawal, although the party’s present leader, Ehud Barak, is firmly opposed to
it.
The debate heats up each time the fighting with Hizbullah takes Israeli lives. On
February 27th, three Israeli soldiers died when the guerrillas pounded their position
with mortars. As they were buried, members of the Four Mothers, a women’s group
campaigning for withdrawal, demonstrated around the country. Last year 39 Israeli
soldiers were killed in Lebanon, and 73 more died in a helicopter crash. The women
are accused of sapping army morale but they contend that it is the seemingly endless,
seemingly pointless bloodletting that threatens to weaken the army.
Whatever its motive, Israel’s initiative has provoked no excitement in Lebanon. Faris
Boueiz, the foreign minister, has rejected the idea of extra security guarantees,
insisting that the resolution leaves no room for creative interpretation. Lebanon’s
President Elias Hrawi has often pledged that not a single bullet would be fired across
the border from Lebanon should the Israelis withdraw. But he too refuses to
contemplate a more formal commitment. Syria, which has the final say over
Lebanese foreign policy, is equally unimpressed, a government newspaper describing
Israel’s move as a “new trap”. The Syrians, who use the guerrillas to exert pressure
on Israel, have no intention of giving up a valuable bargaining point in future peace
talks.
If Israel wants to end its occupation of south Lebanon, say the Lebanese, it must
either risk a unilateral withdrawal without preconditions, or offer the Syrian
government inducements to accept a negotiated peace. Otherwise, any talk about
pulling out is simply grand-standing. The Lebanese shrug off Israeli fears of guerrilla
attacks on northern Israel after a withdrawal. They argue that with UNIFIL ’s help
they are perfectly capable of disarming Hizbullah and preventing any attacks across
the border. UNIFIL officials agree. After 20 years of sitting in the crossfire, they are
keen to fulfil their original mission of supervising Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon.
But UNIFIL ’s position is weak. It is a lightly armed force of 4,500 peacekeepers, at
the mercy of both the Israeli army and the Lebanese guerrillas. Both sides criticise
what it does. When it (occasionally) takes weapons from Hizbullah, it is accused of
defending the Israeli occupation; when it tries to shield civilians from the fighting, it is
accused of protecting terrorists. Its budget has shrunk from $400m in 1991 to
$125m this year. After it was first deployed in 1978, the UN , in a hurry to salvage a
shaky Israeli-Egyptian peace, did not wait for the front line to stabilise before setting
up camp. In some areas, the battle moved on, but UNIFIL did not. Concentrated in
the west, it no longer even separates the combatants along the entire front.
Without much co-operation from the Israelis, the Lebanese and, by extension, the
Syrians, the most UNIFIL can do is to offer its services as an intermediary when the
fighting flares up. It does its best to shield the 500,000 civilians in the zone it patrols
from the worst of the fighting—though it was signally unable to protect the people
sheltering in its compound at Qana, more than 100 of whom were killed by Israel
during its bombardment of Lebanon in 1996. The peacekeepers are useful as
observers but have to step aside when the dispute becomes political: a special
American, French, Israeli, Syrian and Lebanese group was brought in to monitor the
sensitive post-bombardment agreement not to direct attacks at civilians.
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