A Hard Way Out of Lebanon
SALPETER, ELIAHU
ISRAEL IN ANGUISH A Hard Way Out of Lebanon by ELIAHU SALTPETER TEL AVIV The departure from Lebanon has become a matter of such grave concern here that even the country's sharply deteriorating...
...The Israeli-Shiite confrontation has grabbed the headlines, but it is neither EliahuSalpeter...
...For one thing, his obvious subservience to Syria's President Hafez al-Assad has alienated many members of his own Christian community, as well as the militias that used to be the mainstay of the Maronite leadership...
...Old enemies are denounced as "collaborators" by the remaining local power, and are arrested or summarily executed...
...Small wonder, then, that the President cannot stop the "settling of accounts" in towns and villages evacuated by Israel...
...All of which appears to confirm the view of political pundits here that although the maj ority has shifted toward the Left, among the choices in Likud it favors the more extreme Right—an ambivalence Israel's antagonists would probably be wise not to ignore...
...The outcome was more attacks on the IDF, more villages surrounded, more homes blown up, and more hatred for the invaders...
...His Likud predecessor, Foreign Minister Yitzchak Shamir, dropped from the top to third place in the ranking...
...Hezbollah, on the other hand, under the influence of Iran's Ayatollah Ru-hollah Khomeini, will probably undertake sorties and perhaps rocket launch-ings into Israeli territory—possibly in cooperation with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which is slowly infiltrating back into Beirut and the South...
...That is one reason Israel is closely watching the Sudan, where the coup d'etat that overthrew President Gaafar al-Nimeiry had the backing of Libya's Colonel Muam-mar Qaddafi and the Moslem Brotherhood...
...The actual course of events may be affected by developments in the Iran-Iraq War and the fortunes of Islamic fundamentalism elsewhere...
...If weapons or explosives were found inside a house, it was evacuated and blown up...
...And now it appears that the Shiite extremists behind most of the attacks will try to hit targets inside Israel after the last of its soldiers have gone home...
...Hussein agreed to accept a PLO political presence, making it clear that he would not allow terrorist acts to be mounted from his soil...
...Not surprisingly, these troubles have revived the debate in Israel about responsibility for the 1982 invasion of Lebanon and its consequences...
...If the President wants to send his soldiers to an area, he must first obtain the agreement of whatever armed group may control it—and this does not necessarily assure their actual entry...
...Stone peltings, small-arms fire, full-scale ambushes, bombings, or suicide missions killed or wounded Israeli troops in Lebanon almost every day...
...That tragic region is the scene of a murderous free-for-all...
...But looming largest as a problem following the pullout is the prospect that Shiite fanatics will try to strike at targets inside Israel...
...The United Nations Emergency Force is both not able and unwilling to interfere in the blood bath...
...Jerusalem realizes the effectiveness of this approach will depend in good measure on the cooperation of local civilians and their confidence in Israel's ability to prevent retaliation...
...When IDF troops entered a village then-actions generated the kind of ill-will that won Hezbollah additional adherents, which in turn prompted the once not overly hostile Amal toward an increasingly anti-Israeli posture...
...Opinion polls show the Left gaining at the Right's expense: If a general election were to be held soon Likud would do worse and Labor would do better than in 1984 (when they won 41 and 43 seats, respectively) .Peres himself also is more popular than he had been: InanAugust 1984 poll a mere 27 per cent of the respondents considered him the most suitable person to head the government...
...A fundamentalist Sudan would leave Egypt surrounded by extremist neighbors and promote their cause in Lebanon and other Near Eastern nations...
...Announced plans call for the establishment of a 10-15 mile security belt north of the international boundary, a strip that Christian militias would patrol, with IDF help available when it is needed to keep out the terrorists...
...Noneoth-er than Ariel Sharon...
...Many Israelis have therefore criticized the "iron fist" as politically and strategically counterproductive...
...It does not matter that those inhabitants who really helped the IDF had earlier been invited to find refuge inside Israel...
...Two groups are currently vying for control of the Shiite Moslems—the dominant, established Harakat Amal (The Movement of Hope) and the new, fiercely fundamentalist Hezbollah (Party of God...
...the only nor the most violent straggle in South Lebanon today...
...Prime Minister Shimon Peres' government believes the Amal will end its anti-Zionist offensive to concentrate on shoring up its position in the Shiite community and wresting its share of power in Lebanon's political institutions...
...Trade Minister Ariel Sharon, Likud's Defense Minister in 1982, has already counterattacked, charging that "Labor Party sabotage" prevented his carrying the operations in Lebanon to their intended conclusion and therefore caused the failures and the setbacks...
...Nevertheless, the Open Bridges between Jordan and the West Bank have permitted PLO leaders in Amman to exert greatly increased power over sympathizers across the river, producing unrest even in East Jerusalem, previously the most tranquil of Israel's 1967 conquests...
...in March 1985, almost a year after his becoming Prime Minister, slightly over 50 per cent picked him...
...Meanwhile, as the adventure in Lebanon is winding down it is having its first significant, albeit indirect, influence on the situation in the West Bank...
...Everybody is shooting at somebody: Moslems at Christians, Christians at Moslems, Shiites at Israelis, Israelis at terrorists, Druses at Christians (and occasionally at Shiites, supposedly their current allies...
...Without such operations, it insists, both the number and effectiveness of the assaults on the IDF would surely have been greater...
...Prime Minister Peres is resisting involvement in the controversy, hoping to avoid any quarrels that might undermine the National Unity coalition with Likud, since it was in power when the war started...
...The Lebanese Army, assigned the task of pacifying the place, prefers to keep a safe distance lest it get hurt...
...The IDF responded to the recent terror by surrounding the villages where incidents occurred, usually Shiite, and interrogating all adult men likely to have known the guilty parties...
...During the second stage of the withdrawal the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were plagued by 70-200 violent incidents a week...
...The collaboration charge concerns Israel, though, because it may have an impact on the pacification of the border after the withdrawal's completion...
...Public reaction to the brouhaha seems ultimately to be mixed...
...For another, the regular Lebanese Army, theoretically responsible to him, is totally ineffective...
...That led to a reconciliation between Arafat and King Hussein, who had originally sent him packing to Lebanon...
...But several prominent members of his Labor Party have begun, privately, to demand that a commission of inquiry investigate the origins and conduct of the fighting...
...aregularNLcontrily-utor, is a correspondent for Ha'aretz, one of Israel's leading newspapers...
...The man in second place...
...Still, the Army maintains that the searches were based on careful preliminary intelligence work and always led to the killing or capture of armed terrorists...
...Following the PLO defeat and expulsion from the South and Beirut in 1982, it will be recalled, a Syrian-backed revolt against Yassir Arafat's stewardship split the organization...
...Moreover, the Army, instead of being an integrated force, is in fact divided into units constituted along narrow religious or communal lines...
...Sometimes the Israeli-backed Christian militia, called the South Lebanese Army, is attacked by—or attacks —the Amal or Hezbollah...
...Lebanon's Maronite President Amin Gemayel, whose writ hardly runs beyond the grounds of his official residence at B'Abde, near Beirut, has tried without success to exert authority...
...This "iron fist" policy, however, drew Israel into a vicious circle...
...ISRAEL IN ANGUISH A Hard Way Out of Lebanon by ELIAHU SALTPETER TEL AVIV The departure from Lebanon has become a matter of such grave concern here that even the country's sharply deteriorating economy has failed to push it into the background...
Vol. 68 • March 1985 • No. 4
