Wearing Israel Down

...Israel firmly opposes this or any other plan that would substitute American troops for its own in policing southern Lebanon, especially in the light of the problems that have cropped up between the IDF and the U. S. Marines serving as part of a three-nation peacekeeping force in Beirut...

...Meanwhile, a few fresh elements have been injected into the picture...

...the PLO and the Syrian military...

...Unfortunately, there were several basic flaws in Sharon's assumptions about attitudes in Washington and Damascus, and—more fundamentally—about the nature of the Lebanese state and society...

...The Syrians may also be preparing a shift in tactics due to the arrival in their country of Soviet SA-5 missiles along with the personnel to operate them...

...The PLO infrastructure has indeed been wrecked, but terrorists are active again, ambushing Israeli forces in Beirut and southern Lebanon...

...Israel still wants to maintain some sort of military presence in a border zone extending approximately 25 miles into Lebanon...

...The switch from Sharon to Arens at the Israeli Defense Ministry, for example, may influence Begin's ultimate decision on the minimum conditions he will accept in return for withdrawal...

...Dangling these prospects, Sharon induced his Cabinet colleagues to approve, at least ex post facto, last summer's armed advances...

...In short, it has become clear that the original goals were not realistic, and Israel has retreated from them substantially...

...Finally, Israel wants normalization to be as close to real peace as possible, including the permanent opening of the Lebanese-Israeli border to tourists and commerce...

...and to have Lebanon become the second Arab country to sign a formal peace agreement with Israel...

...Instead of a peace treaty, Begin has had to refocus his sights on de facto "normalization" of relations—and the definition of this term is being constantly watered down...

...The President wants to send him to some distant country as an ambassador, or at best to give him a command in the north, away from his fiercely loyal veteran troops...

...Descent may not be easy, however, for as Foreign Minister Yitzchak Shamir's mid-March talks in Washington indicated, the United States has helped raise the lowest branches too high for a safe leap to earth...

...Haddad was pronounced a "traitor" by the former Syrian-dominated Lebanese President Elias Sarkis, and regarded less than enthusiastically by the Israeli-assisted Phalangists under the late Bashir Gemayel...

...Eliahu Salpeter, who regularly reports for The New Leader from Israel, is a correspondent for the daily, Ha'aretz...

...For Israelis the most significant aspect of the trip was simply seeing foreign affairs being handled by the Foreign Minister again...

...Now Gemayel has rejected this idea, too, though he was reportedly favorable to it some time ago, and the U.S...

...Begin and his Cabinet feel that permitting such a move would amount to a betrayal, with serious repercussions for Israel's image among the residents of southern Lebanon, not to mention its determination to prevent the PLO from returning to the area...

...The likelihood of complete Syrian withdrawal, and thus of genuine Lebanese independence, has grown increasingly remote...

...It has never been stationed outside the USSR before, and two explanations for its deployment in Syria now are circulating here...

...the late Prime Minister Levi Eshkol reportedly remarked when informed during the June 1967 Six Day War that Israeli forces had completed their occupation of the West Bank and Sinai...

...and not the UN...

...Initially, Jerusalem proclaimed three objectives in the Lebanese campaign: to destroy the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) infrastructure in southern Lebanon and abolish the guerrillas' "state within a state...

...has proposed "joint Israeli-Lebanese-American supervision teams" as an alternative...

...American officials have said their "nonsupport" of Israel's bargaining position reflects a sensitivity to Lebanon's need to avoid antagonizing other Arab states, particularly the rich ones...

...Sharon had gradually elbowed Shamir out of all talks concerning Lebanon—declaring that these were "strategic discussions"—and was in the process of taking control of Israel's relations with Africa as well...

...Of the sticking points that remained unresolved by Shamir's discussions with President Reagan and Secretary of State George P. Shultz, the paramount one involves keeping the PLO from reestablishing its southern bases...

...The SA-5 is the weapon that guards Soviet cities against air attack...

...The latest position, communicated by Shamir in Washington, asked only that Israel Defense Force (IDF) units be allowed to conduct joint patrols with the Lebanese Army...

...During the negotiations that have been taking place with the Lebanese either directly or through American intermediaries, the Begin government, while still eager to appear tough in the eyes of the Israeli public, has in fact begun to show greater flexibility...

...PRESSURE FROM WASHINGTON Wearing Israel Down BY ELIAHU SALPETER Tel Aviv Now, how will we get down from this tree...

...This was later reduced to static, self-contained "observation posts...

...A second sticking point is Jerusalem's refusal to turn its back on Major Sa'ad Haddad, whose Free Lebanese Forces became an ally in combatting the PLO during the years that it dominated southern Lebanon...

...Initially, Jerusalem insisted on several "warning posts" in the region and the right to move its troops freely to and from them...

...It has taken Prime Minister Men-achem Begin's government 10 months to get around to the same question in the case of the Lebanese cedar upon which Israel was hoisted by former Defense Minister Ariel Sharon...

...Which of these theories proves correct will be crucial in answering the question of whether the increased Soviet involvement will harden or mitigate Syrian intransigence and aggressiveness in Lebanon...

...The other holds that the Kremlin, sensing a weakening in America's commitment to Israel, has decided that the time is right to give President Hafez al-Assad the upgraded military support he has long agitated for...

...Amin Gemayel's rejection of the Major has proved to be even more categorical than was his brother's, as he has steadfastly rebuffed Israel's attempt to have Haddad reinstated as commander of the Lebanese Army in the south...

...Such an arrangement would in practice amount to a resurrection of the Mixed Armistice Commissions that proved ineffective in the days before the 1973 YomKippur War, theonly difference being that the Chairman would be appointed by the U.S...

...But the greater fear is that a thriving business with the Jewish State would create vested interests in favor of further expanding relations...

...Israelis suspect that Washington is acting according to its own perceived interests in the Islamic world—responding above all to Saudi pressure...

...Coming from a year as ambassador to the U. S., Areris is more a ware than his predecessor was of the international consequences of the lingering Lebanese situation...

...Allegedly, too, he never subscribed to Sharon's thesis that defeating the PLO in Lebanon would strengthen Israel's hold on the West Bank (and America's support for it...

...The worry shifted to outrage after the more recent contentions by Marine Corps General Robert H. Barrow and the Beirut Marine Commander, Colonel James M. Mead, that undisciplined IDF troops had endangered the lives of their American counterparts...

...According to this view, the SA-5s will probably stay in their present locations near Damascus and the central Syrian city of Horns, except for occasional Soviet tests of their long-range accuracy...

...While Beirut in principle accepts the desirability of forging ties, in fact it is striving to curtail future contacts...

...to help the Lebanese government attain full sovereignty by ridding it of occupying armies, i.e...

...Israelis have worried for some months about the Marines' seemingly unfriendly posture—compounded by an order forbidding them to fraternize with IDF soldiers, and by the praise Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger showered on the Marine captain who, thanks to a mistaken reading of the map, leaped onto an Israeli tank brandishing his pistol...

...Gemayel and his advisers are particularly eager to restrict trade with Israel, ostensibly because it might jeopardize Lebanese exports to Arab countries observing the boycott against the "Zionists...

...The new Defense Minister, Moshe Arens, apparently has a conception of his duties more in keeping with tradition...

...Yet the U.S., rather than nudging Beirut toward a compromise that would save face for both sides, has seemed to encourage President Amin Gemayel's unyielding stance...

...Nonetheless, this did not seem to encourage any real "meeting of the minds" during Shamir's visit to Washington...

...One holds that Moscow mainly wants to salvage its prestige, badly wounded when the Israeli Air Force quickly destroyed all the sam-6 antiaircraft batteries Syria sent into Lebanon last year...