Window of Opportunity

An Ariga Editorial

April 14 1996

Between the Lebanese fleeing north and the Israelis fleeing south lies a political conundrum that both holds up the peace process and provides a window of opportunity for a great leap forward.

The Iranians who run the Hizbollah derive all their Lebanese support from the fact the Israelis occupy a strip of southern Lebanon.

The Israelis would be happy to leave that strip of southern Lebanon if the Hizbollah cease their military activities against Israel's north. The Lebanese government says it will assert its authority against the Hizbollah after Israel leaves the security zone left in place after the Israeli withdrawal from central Lebanon in the mid-80s.

The Lebanese government can't act against the Hizbollah, since that Iranian-backed organization (which has representatives in the Lebanese parliament) is resisting Israeli occupation of Lebanese territory.

The Syrians hold many of the cards in the poker game being played in Lebanon. They occupy a vast swath of central Lebanon, essentially guaranteeing the stability that makes possible the Beirut reconstruction. The Beirut government is not exactly a puppet, but neither is it free to act independently.

Syria can clamp down on the Hizbollah presence in Lebanon, and it uses that potential as a negotiating card in the negotiations that are far more important to it -- the Golan Heights question.

Like Israel's insistence that the Palestinian Authority in Gaza and the West Bank act against the armed militias and guerrilla cells of the Hamas, Israel's actions in Lebanon this past week are an expression of the demand that the Lebanese government take responsibility for its sovereignty. No sovereign country can allow armed groups to operate unabated from inside their territory, no matter what the reason for the activity -- -- political, moral, spiritual, economic, or religious.

Since the mid-80s, Lebanon has been trying to rebuild after a decade of civil war. Billions are being spent in Beirut to rebuild what was once called the Paris of the Middle East. Downtown Beirut, say people who have traveled there recently, is one huge construction site, and if there is a comparison to be made nowadays, it's to Hong Kong.

However, all those billions will be spent in vain if the central government in Beirut doesn't assert its authority vis a vis the independently armed forces operating from inside Lebanon.

The Iranian-run Hizbollah derives all its internal Lebanese support from the fact that Israel occupies a stretch of southern Lebanon. That occupation began in the days when it was the PLO that used southern Lebanon as a launching pad for its military operations against Israel.

For nearly a century, Arab political leaders blamed Western imperialism, Zionism, colonialism, and plenty of other isms for whatever problems they faced in their own countries. In the short run, it was easy to lay the blame elsewhere. In the long run, it postponed the true solutions to the problems, for solutions are only possible when the truth is faced head on.

And the truth in Lebanon is that the Hizbollah's resistance to Israel's presence in south Lebanon has less to do with the occupation and more to do with Teheran's efforts to undermine the slow but ineitable rapprochment between Israel and Syria -- and Lebanon.

If it is honest with itself and its people, the Beirut government would say clearly, "enough is enough" and demand the Syrians, as well as the Israelis, the Hizbollah, as well as the rejectionist Palestinians in the refugee camps of Sidon -- all leave Lebanon.

Israel is prepared to do so. The Syrians understand that if they want to make a deal with Israel on the Golan, they'll have to provide a quid pro quo in Lebanon, as well. And the Lebanese, more than anything else, need stability to continue their reconstruction.

Traditionally, military operations in the Middle East end with diplomatic activity. It might be premature to expect a full-fledged three-way peace agreement between Israel, Lebanon and Syria to emerge from the current round of fighting. But it is not premature to believe that such a deal is neccessary for all three countries.