Danger lurks in Israeli pullout from south Lebanon

By Jack Redden

TYRE, Lebanon (Reuters): If Prime Minister Ehud Barak keeps his promise to end Israel's 21-year presence in south Lebanon by the middle of next year, Lebanese can expect their lives will be much better -- or much worse.

An Israeli withdrawal as part of a comprehensive Middle East peace agreement opens the prospect of a normality not seen in at least three decades.

But a withdrawal without a resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict raises the specter of a return to the worst violence seen in those decades.

Which fate awaits the long-suffering Lebanese is largely out of their hands; the vital decisions will be made in Israel and Syria.

A peace agreement would have to include Israel leaving both Lebanon and Syria's Golan Heights, occupied since 1967. But with less than eight months left to the deadline for a withdrawal promised by Barak when he was elected Israeli leader last June, negotiations have not even begun.

That deadline could slip like Israel's numerous missed deadlines with Palestinians, and the prospect of Israel extricating itself from its exposed position in Lebanon puts pressure on Syria. However, military experts say if there are no prospects by May of a peace treaty, Israel would have to make the decision on a unilateral withdrawal.

Israel would not tolerate a humiliating withdrawal like that suffered by its Lebanese proxy militia, the South Lebanon Army, which retreated under fire early this year from the Jezzine enclave north of the main area occupied by Israel.

And once back beyond its frontier, Israel would not tolerate a resumption of the cross-border attacks that first drew it into punitive raids over the border and ended with its current 15- kilometer (nine mile) deep occupation zone.

That could be averted by Lebanon moving its army up to the frontier and disarming guerrillas.

A new United Nations report called for Lebanon to prepare. "The state (should) rapidly reaffirm its political and military sovereignty in the region, which can imply actions of disarmament," it said.

Privately, foreign experts expect a repeat of events in Jezzine, where Israel's militia left but the Lebanese army has never deployed. It is commonly assumed that Syria, which controls Lebanese policy towards Israel, ordered Lebanese forces to stay put.

It would likely do the same again. If Lebanon imposed quiet on the border with Israel, the Jewish state would have peaceful frontiers everywhere for the first time since its creation. Syria, which has kept calm on its front with Israel for 25 years while quietly backing guerrillas in Lebanon, would have lost one of its few cards to secure the return of the Golan Heights.

Israel, especially with Barak who has focused more on security than integration into a peaceful Middle East, might be quite content possessing the strategic plateau overlooking the approaches to Damascus instead of a peace treaty.

That scenario leaves the ominous prospect of a military vacuum in south Lebanon if Israel leaves next year without Syrian cooperation.

Attacks on Israeli occupation forces, which have produced the steady toll that makes a withdrawal so popular inside Israel, have been carried out mainly by the Lebanese militias Amal and the more formidable Hizbollah.

While the guerrillas studiously avoid saying whether they will continue to attack Israelis after they leave Lebanon, residents of south Lebanon believe both groups -- which are rooted in local communities -- are more interested in a conventional political future inside their country than a quixotic quest to wipe Israel from the map.

That, however, is no guarantee of calm.

"Syria has no shortage of proxies even without Hizbollah," said an expert with years of involvement in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Syria and Lebanon have moved strongly in the past month to counter efforts by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who is negotiating with Barak for a state in the West Bank and Gaza, to reassert control over Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.

Syria hosts several Palestinian groups who oppose Arafat's peace policies, one of its bargaining chips for negotiations with Israel. Syrian President Havez Asad will not accept losing control of the Palestinian camps in Lebanon.

Twice recently the militant Palestinian group Islamic Jihad has attacked Israeli positions in south Lebanon, an area where it was rarely active. "To announce it meant they had a Syrian green light," said a Palestinian politician.

While a claim by the head of the organization that Lebanon is a "free field" for attacking Israel drew an immediate rebuke from the Beirut government, the warning of potential instability in south Lebanon had been delivered.

"There is nothing that 4,500 UNIFIL troops can do to control an area Israel failed to control since 1978," said a member of the UN force that has been waiting 21 years to secure an Israeli withdrawal.

If events spin out of control in south Lebanon after an Israeli withdrawal, with attacks over the border and Israeli retaliation, the Lebanese will be caught once again the middle.

The model is likely to be Israel's blitz last June, when its planes bombed infrastructure across Lebanon in reprisal for Katyusha rocket attacks into Israel, in turn triggered by Israeli shelling of a Lebanese village.

"The more you look, the bleaker it gets," said one of the military experts who are becoming increasingly alarmed by the potential for violence if there are no Israeli-Syrian peace talks. "Beirut could pay a very heavy price."