Paying for Lebanon

...The consensus is that he will not decide to advance his retirement...

...Later, warring villages had to be separated by armored vehicles...

...Some government loyalists have gone further, charging that the testimony before the commission and the mass demonstrations that led to its creation have blinded the world to the distinction between murderer and alleged accomplice...

...Begin understands, however, that this tolerance probably cannot be stretched indefinitely...

...The rest of the Cabinet, it could be inferred, either accepted the Defense Minister's less than candid accounts of the campaign in the north, or lacked the courage to demand the truth...

...Up to this point, there has been amazingly little grumbling from the soldiers' parents, or from their brothers, who are doing extra reserve duty...

...And while Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops sitting in electrically heated foxholes watch their frozen Syrian counterparts being carried from observation posts at daybreak, they are far from happy about having to spend the winter away from home...

...But it is hard to imagine that law enforcement authorities would fail to act if the inquiry's report indicated patent criminality...

...THE WAR GOES ON Paying for Lebanon m eliahu salpeter Tel Avtv Now that Prime Minister Menachem Begin has shaved off the stubby beard he grew during the 30-day mourning period for his wife, Aliza, observers here are watching for signs of how her death will affect his political plans...

...So Druse militiamen armed by the PLO fight Christian villagers protected by Israeli-equipped forces...

...Sharon's standing, in contrast, has dropped significantly since the massacre...

...They were very close, and at his age when one suddenly has to face even the discomforts of a common cold alone, it can have strange effects...

...The most loyal of the non-Jewish minorities, Druse Eliahu Salpeter, who regularly reports for The New Leader from Israel, is a correspondent for the daily, Ha'aretz...

...form crack units in the Israeli Army and the border police...

...The commission, whose proceedings have been closed to the public since late November, announced on January 2 that it had finished hearing testimony...

...Yet the politically active elements of the Lebanese Druse, under the leadership of Walid Jumblatt, have long been allied with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and Syria...

...Upon completion of the open testimony, the three-man panel formally warned Begin, Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, Foreign Minister Yitzchak Shamir, Chief of Staff Rafael Eytan, Chief of Military Intelligence Yeho-shua Saguy, and four other high officials that they might be "harmed" by the probe's outcome...

...Another complicating factor is the violence in Syrian-controlled Tripoli between Moslems of Syrian President Hafez al-Assad's Alawite sect and the dominant Sunni Moslem population...

...Some Israelis still speak of "Begin's Watergate," but many now predict that the ultimate political effect of the inquiry will be limited, if not insignificant...

...There isa long way to go, though, before an accord is reached...

...This applies not only to the massacre...

...Escalating hostilities between Christian and Druse militias in the Shuf Mountains southeast of Beirut have not made matters easier...

...Aside from the sorrow, and resentment felt by the casualties' families, the fighting has fostered discontent in the Israeli Druse community...

...Still, the wife of one associate cautioned: "Let us first see how he weathers his first flu without Aliza...

...All the same, the average Israeli's interest in the commission seems to be flagging...

...Nobody knows, of course, what was said in camera by the witnesses...

...If not, and one or more of the witnesses is found to have lied, it is inconceivable that a judicial investigation and appropriate criminal proceedings would not be undertaken...

...Through the summer and early autumn, Israeli officers were able to mediate ceasefires when skirmishes erupted...

...Begin emerged during the hearings as inconsistent, often inattentive to crucial matters, poorly informed, and incapable of controlling his underlings...

...One immediate source of distress for Begin, the Lebanese negotiations begun at the end of last month with the participation of special U.S...

...Barring this, the inquiry's practical impact will depend on the course taken by a rather limited number of politicians, Begin's coalition partners naturally being the most important...

...The consequences of such a scandal cannot be for seen...

...Recently, the militias have taken to opening fire over the heads of the IDF more and more frequently, occasionally wounding, or killing, an Israeli...

...Although the Christians have mostly been on the defensive in the past few months, the Israeli Druse are demanding that IDF detachments on the scene-which include Druse soldiers and officers?take a less impartial stance...

...The Prime Minister's aides have intimated that should the commission find him at fault in any way, he would ask the voters to pass judgment in new elections...

...In addition, apparently contradictory testimony on certain key points raises the possibility that perjury charges could eventually be brought...

...Some of these conflicts may have been resolved during the secret cross-examinations or in the supplementary statements...

...Several of the group have had to answer accusations of more general impropriety, including insubordination and providing superiors with false or at a minimum incomplete information...

...All the unrest has underscored the fact that Lebanon's myriad religious and communal conflicts are far from resolved, and increased the Reagan Administration's nervousness over the continued delay on an agreement to withdraw foreign troops...

...Meanwhile, Begin and the rest of the country are awaiting the report of the three-man commission investigating Israel's role in last September's Phalan-gist massacre of Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps...

...Shamir seemed callous and disingenuous toward his colleagues...

...Under Israeli law, an investigatory commission is not authorized to make recommendations on the question of criminal indictments...

...Accordingly, they were entitled to review evidence, cross-examine witnesses and retestify themselves...

...Except for Begin, all chose to exercise one or more of these privileges...

...But the Knesset must pass a Premature Elections Bill before the date of an election can be advanced...

...Perjury charges, on the other hand, could evoke a very different reaction...

...Some members of the Prime Minister's staff have predicted that, on the contrary, he will compensate for his loss by devoting more time and energy to public life...

...That is the province of the Attorney General and the public prosecutor...

...Polls show that if the balloting were held now, Likud would jain a few seats in the Knesset despite-or because of?the Lebanon war...

...Generally, discrepancies in the inquiry record have resulted from the three Cabinet members swearing to one version of the facts and the military men to another...

...But under the prodding of President Ronald Reagan's Mideast negotiator, Philip C. Habib, an agenda has been decided upon that could at least move the talks off center...

...Less certain are the political consequences should the panel denounce the behavior of government officials without implying actual violation of the law...

...Irrespective of the events in the refugee camps, the wartime conduct of the three "possibly harmed" Cabinet ministers appears, if only on the basis of their own testimony, to have left much to be desired...

...Several prominent columnists also have taken to pointing out that an Israeli functionary, no matter how much his short-sightedness or negligence may have abetted the atrocity, cannot be judged more harshly than the Lebanese Christian perpetrators (who seem to be suffering no retribution whatsoever...

...Its findings are tentatively due sometime in February...

...In fact, they maintain, since little is heard abroad about a Lebanese investigation into Sabra and Shatila, much of the world has come to associate the crime primarily with Israel...

...To judge from the open sessions, though, the nine-particularly the political figures among them-could be damaged by the way they appear to have carried out their official duties...

...Sharon seemed arrogant and consistently misleading...

...At present, at least two of Likud's junior partners have no interest in an early vote, and a severely critical investigatory commission report is unlikely to make them more eager to risk losses for Begin's benefit...

...envoy Morris Draper, shows some signs of being alleviated . President Amin Gemayel had refused to entertain any sort of far-reaching agreement that could be presented to the Israeli public as a peace treaty...