"More Israelis Questioning
More Israelis Questioning Military Presence in South Lebanon
8 September 1997
Serge Schmemann
JERUSALEM -- A simmering debate over whether Israel should keep its troops in
southern Lebanon gained new strength Sunday following Friday's disastrous rout of an Israeli
commando team deep in Lebanese territory and the killing of another Israeli soldier on
Sunday in Israel's "buffer zone." With Israel tense on several fronts, police officers and
soldiers were much in evidence in Jerusalem, maintaining a high alert after Thursday's triple
suicide bombing on western Jerusalem's premier promenade, in which four Israelis died.
Officials evidently feared the possibility of another attack before the visit of U.S.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, which is to start on Wednesday. Israeli security forces
continued rounding up suspected Palestinian militants in the West Bank, with more than 100
reported in detention. But investigators said they still had no information about the three men
who blew themselves up or about two other suicide bombers who struck a Jerusalem
market on July 30. Responsibility for the last two attacks was claimed in leaflets by a faction
of the militant Muslim movement Hamas, demanding the release of Arab prisoners held by
Israel, but the bombers were not identified as they were in former attacks.
The debate over Lebanon occupied both the government and the Labor opposition.
Questions swirled about the debacle of the seaborne commando raid, in which 12 Israeli
soldiers were killed when they were ambushed in the middle of the night by Lebanese Shiite
Muslim guerrillas of Hezbollah, or Party of God, and Amal movements. Four members of
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Cabinet -- including the hawkish infrastructures
minister, Ariel Sharon -- publicly questioned whether the security advantages of operating in
Lebanon justified the mounting casualties. On the opposition side, Yossi Beilin, a leader of the
Labor Party, said he was forming a nonpartisan movement to campaign for withdrawal from
Lebanon. And many ad hoc groups formed to oppose Israel's continued presence in
Lebanon, including mothers of Israeli soldiers.
The 12 men killed in Friday's raid and an officer killed by Hezbollah guerrillas Sunday in
Israel's "security zone" in Lebanon brought the number of deaths this year alone to 31, in
addition to 73 Israeli soldiers killed in the collision of two helicopters en route to Lebanon in
February. Israel formed the nine-mile-wide security zone in Lebanon in 1982 to keep
Palestinian guerrillas from shelling its northern settlements. But more and more Israelis now
say that the zone only exposes Israeli soldiers to attack from Lebanese guerrillas and that
Israel has other defenses and deterrents against attacks.
In what was said to have been a stormy meeting of the Cabinet on Sunday, Netanyahu
assailed the ministers who have publicly advocated withdrawal -- especially Science Minister
Michael Eitan, who argued that "the presence of our soldiers doesn't prevent the firing of
Katyushas in the north," a reference to the vintage rockets used by the Hezbollah guerrillas.
According to Israeli television, Netanyahu said at the meeting, "All this talk about getting out
of Lebanon quickly under pressure is like fuel for the rockets of Hezbollah."
Probably the most significant new voice questioning Israel's presence in southern
Lebanon was that of Sharon, who as defense minister led the widely denounced invasion of
Lebanon in 1982. In an article in the mass-circulation Yediot Ahronot, Sharon said that
Lebanon "has become a real burden to Israel" and that the choice was either to change
tactics or to withdraw, "on the basis of our own decision and timetable" -- that is, without
making any deal with Syria, which controls Lebanon.