Israel's Lebanon War: The quagmire continues

By Jeff Abramowitz

TEL AVID (DPA): It has become an increasingly familiar feature in Israel in recent months. The radio or television interrupts its regular programming with a special report announcing that Israeli soldiers have been killed in south Lebanon.

That news is followed by angry reactions from politicians, and anguished reaction from family members of the dead, and the ongoing debate about whether Israel should remain in its self- declared "security zone" in south Lebanon goes up a notch.

The latest anger and anguish came Monday, a day after Hezbollah guerrillas killed three Israeli soldiers, including the commander of the Israeli forces in south Lebanon, and an Israel radio reporter.

Once again the Israeli deaths propelled the Israeli public to ask, "what to do about the Lebanese quagmire."

And most Israelis agree that it is a quagmire, a no-win situation.

Israel has said it will not pull out of its self-declared security zone in South Lebanon until and unless it receives guarantees that guerrillas will not infiltrate across the Israeli-Lebanese border.

But such guarantees -- whether from the Lebanese government, or the guerrillas themselves -- have not come and are not likely to come so long as Israel remains in south Lebanon.

Moreover, so long as Israel remains in south Lebanon, it can expect more Hezbollah attacks, given Hezbollah's stated aim of ridding south Lebanon of the Israelis.

On the other hand, Israel's options for resolving the Lebanon impasse are limited.

Facing a similar situation -- increasing guerrilla attacks and the need for Israel not to appear helpless -- in 1996, a few months before scheduled elections, then Prime Minister Shimon Peres launched "Operation Grapes of Wrath," a massive Israeli air and artillery offensive against targets, including civilian targets, in Lebanon.

But it went tragically wrong when an Israeli artillery shell hit a group of refugees sheltering at a United Nations camp. Over 100 refugees died. The world-wide condemnation sparked by the grisly television pictures brought Operation Grapes of Wrath to an end, with an understanding between Israel the Hezbollah, that neither side would target the other's civilians.

Peres was forced to conduct the rest of his election campaign haunted by the fall out from Operation Grapes of Wrath. He lost the election by the narrowest of margins -- about 30,000 votes.

Current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, facing elections on May 17, is unlikely to open a new air, sea and ground offensive against guerrilla targets in Lebanon. The possible televised images of Israeli troops returning to Israel in body-bags could well lose him the election.

On the other hand, for Israel does nothing will be perceived as weakness, by the electorate and by Hezbollah. This is an unthinkable option for a hard-line government campaigning for reelection.

More likely, Israel will launch concentrated air strikes at Hezbollah targets, and will adopt a more aggressive policy in south Lebanon, while being careful not to escalate the conflict beyond the point of no return.

In particular, this means not angering Syria, since current Israeli conventional wisdom has it that the road out of south Lebanon runs via Damascus.

"Officials in Israel have discerned a Syrian effort to escalate the situation in Lebanon, probably so as to bring Israel to the negotiating table over the Golan Heights," wrote veteran military commentator Ron Ben-Ishai in Monday's Yediot Aharanot newspaper.

Israel and Syria broke off peace negotiations in 1996, and even if the Israeli government wanted to renew the negotiations -- by no means certain -- the facts of political life in Israel make this difficult.

Any agreement with Syria would involve Israel withdrawing from the Golan Heights, something the current Israeli government is not prepared to do.

This government adopts a hard-line approach to negotiations with Israel's neighbors, and says -- as do many, if not most, Israelis -- that the Golan Heights, which overlook much of northern Israel, are essential to Israel's security.

"The solution, it must be said, even in this difficult hour, can be found in the political arena, and not in a unilateral (Israeli) withdrawal from Lebanon, or a unilateral violation of the grapes of Wrath understandings," wrote commentator Oded Granot in the Ma'ariv daily Monday.

But with Israel headed for elections on May 17, and Netanyahu campaigning under the slogan that only he can resist pressures to hand back occupied territory commentators say a breakthrough on the Israel-Syrian track is unlikely, at least before the elections.