Lebanon attacks should stop

Israel's strategy in Lebanon now seems clear. By attacking targets in Beirut and other communities, as well as blockading port cities, Israel hopes to produce enough turmoil and refugees to force Lebanese and Syrian authorities to crack down on Hizbollah terrorists.

This strategy has worked before. In 1993, Israeli military pressure on Lebanon produced a cease-fire agreement, brokered by Washington, which reduced terrorist attacks on Israel from southern Lebanon. The question now is whether Israel is using excessive force in order to achieve a desirable and legitimate objective.

Prime Minister Shimon Peres of Israel has demonstrated that an Israeli government committed to negotiating peace will not hesitate to use force against those who shelter terrorists. That is sound policy and smart politics for Peres, who faces an election later this spring.

But having made his point, he needs to bring the offensive to an end. Otherwise, he risks creating new Hizbollah supporters among the Lebanese civilians uprooted by the Israeli raids.

Secretary of State Christopher has begun contacting Mideast leaders in an attempt to find a way to end the fighting, with Peres saying on Monday that he was prepared to talk. Jordan's prime minister is going to Israel on Tuesday, seeking to mediate a cease-fire.

Israel's offensive began last Thursday in retaliation for Hizbollah's rocket attacks against northern Israel and the killing of an Israeli soldier in southern Lebanon. Hizbollah contends that it was responding to two earlier fatal incidents which Israel claims were the result of accidents. One involved stray rifle fire and the other an exploding mine.

Israel argues that Hizbollah has been steadily increasing its attacks on civilians in violation of an unwritten understanding between the two sides, which ended the Israeli raids into Lebanon in 1993. Those raids killed 130 Lebanese. The present raids have killed several so far, including four children in an ambulance which Israel says was also transporting a Hizbollah militant. Israel has generally broadcasted advance warnings to cities and villages it was about to attack, forcing their residents to flee.

Peres knows that the Lebanese authorities cannot cope with housing and feeding the hundreds of thousands of refugees now streaming towards Beirut, and hopes this pressure will compel Lebanon and Syria to seek relief by reining in Hizbollah.

But if Israel continues its retaliatory raids much longer, it can only reinforce Hizbollah's anti-Israeli message to Lebanese civilians. The core of that message is that Israel, which already occupies a "security zone" in Lebanon's south, is indifferent to Lebanon's sovereignty and civilian suffering.

Israel has every right to defend itself from terrorist threats, but after five days of pounding Lebanon, Peres should silence his guns and move towards a cease-fire.

-- The New York Times