Only an Unconditional, Unilateral Withdrawal Will Halt the Bloodshed

By Victor Ostrovsky

It took the death of an Israel Defense Forces brigadier general and five additional members of his entourage in the explosion of a roadside bomb in Israeli-occupied southern Lebanon to overshadow the upcoming election in the Israeli media. Some commentators pointed out that during 17 years of continuous occupation of a so-called “security zone” on Lebanese territory, every possible scheme had been tried by the military to reduce its casualties, but to no avail.

Most of the casualties are inflicted by two Shi’i Muslim Lebanese militias, Hezbollah, which receives support from Iran, and Amal, which receives support from Syria. Some Syrian-affiliated Palestinian groups also are active in resisting the Israeli occupation.

Now in Israel a new group calling itself the “red line” has emerged. Its first action was to stop traffic in Tel Aviv by burning tires in the streets. It has promised to continue escalating the civil disobedience, even if it means resorting to violence, in order to force the Israeli government to pull its forces out of Lebanon.

Time will tell if the misguided consensus among Israel’s top brass—the same men who end up crossing the line into politics upon retirement from the military—has finally shifted from an unwillingness, or inability, to admit defeat.

But until they agree upon unilateral withdrawal, the death toll in the occupied south of Lebanon is likely to escalate.

Hezbollah is keeping a tactical step ahead of the IDF. It has lined the roads of southern Lebanon with a large number of bombs waiting to be detonated. They are placed and concealed weeks in advance by Hezbollah, whose members are operating in familiar terrain with a supportive population.

Further, soldiers from Israel’s Southern Lebanese Army (SLA), many of them forced against their will into service as IDF allies, now are convinced that Israel eventually will withdraw from Lebanon, leaving them behind to fend for themselves. They therefore realize that cooperating with the future winners, Hezbollah and Amal, is the only way to ensure they will have a future in their own country. Thus Hezbollah is positioned to receive notice from a wide net of informants when an Israeli or SLA target is on the move, and at a precise moment detonate a pre-set explosive along the route.

Fighting a guerrilla force is something no armies do well, particularly when the local populace favors the guerrillas. When the Israeli army rolled into Lebanon in 1982 in what then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin described as a war of choice (to distinguish it from other Israeli wars in which he maintained that Israel had no alternative but to fight), he explained to the Israeli people and the rest of the world that this action was designed to uproot the PLO from Lebanon.

In fact it was quite clear to most Israelis that the territory we were rolling over was Lebanese land only de jure, while de facto it was “Fatah land,” meaning territory under PLO control.

When Israeli planes bombed and Israeli tanks and artillery shelled Beirut, the Israeli government was adamant that it was PLO strongholds and not the capital of Lebanon that was being destroyed. Nor, when the Israeli navy blocked all Lebanese ports and put the entire country under siege, was any thought given to the Lebanese people involved.

So Lebanese soil was drenched with the blood of both its own people and of foreign soldiers in the course of driving out the PLO. Initially, many Israelis regarded scattering Yasser Arafat and his followers to the ends of the earth worth the tragic price. Yet, ironically, it was the expulsion of the PLO from its Lebanese stronghold that set the stage for the eventual return of the PLO to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and will probably be looked upon in years to come as the catalyst that brought about establishment of the Palestinian state in those two areas.

In Lebanon, meanwhile, little has changed. The same invasion that rid Israel of one enemy (the PLO) on its borders gave birth to a far more deadly one, Lebanon’s Hezbollah (party of God). The guerrilla war it is waging against Israel has turned what used to be Israel’s safest border into its bloodiest.

In an interview given by U.S. General William Westmoreland to George magazine in New York, he attributes the U.S. loss in Vietnam (which he does not see as a defeat and, from a military standpoint, he is right, as the U.S. did not forfeit a battle to the North Vietnamese) to the fact that the U.S. army was sent to fight a war the American people did not support.

The lesson applies to all wars. The military is only the combating element of the people. If the people who send an army to fight are not behind it, there is no chance for victory. And clearly the Israeli public’s heart is not in the Lebanese quagmire.

Whoever pulls Israeli forces out of Lebanon will be the hero, as was the case when the U.S. left Vietnam, the French left Algeria and the Russians withdrew from Afghanistan.

Now Labor Party candidate Ehud Barak has announced that he will get the Israeli army out of Lebanon, no matter what, by June 2000. Incumbent Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, not to be outdone, has followed suit.

But what will a withdrawal mean? If Hezbollah has no claims beyond the border with Israel, such a move would bring an end to the hostilities. However, if the Israeli military intends to hold on to any posts on the Lebanese side of the border, the Hezbollah will not lay down its arms.

Up to this point, successive Israeli governments have tried to equate their stubborn occupation of Lebanese land with the need to protect Israel’s northern borders from terrorists. Yet it is the occupation itself that fans the flames of war.

Those who justify the occupation maintain that a unilateral withdrawal will only worsen the situation, and a comprehensive agreement is needed, or at least a Syrian guarantee that the Hezbollah will not strike into Israel.

However, the Israeli leaders who say they also know that the Syrian government will not give such a guarantee unless it gets all of the Golan Heights back, and that so far no Israeli government has been willing even to consider a total withdrawal. (During the current election campaign, however, Barak has said that he will consider such a withdrawal. But at the same time he has promised settlers in the Golan that they will not be forgotten. Since the two election promises seem mutually incompatible, both are, for the moment, worthless.)

In fact, there is no solution other than a quick withdrawal from Lebanon, the sooner the better. The Lebanese have been telling invaders since time immemorial, “Anyone can swallow Lebanon, but no one can digest her.” Once again, history is proving them right.

Victor Ostrovsky, a former Mossad case officer, is the author of By Way of Deception and The Other Side of Deception, the audiotapes of which are now available from the AET Book Club.