As Conflict Flares, Students “Liberate” a Village From Israel and a Corruption Investigation Opens in Beirut

By Carole Dagher

As Lebanese prepared nervously for an Israeli pre-election blitzkrieg comparable to Shimon Peres’ “Grapes of Wrath” offensive against Lebanon just prior to Israel’s 1996 general elections, UNIFIL troops posted in south Lebanon were placed on alert for the first time since that Israeli operation in which more than 200 Lebanese died.

The pretext was supplied with attacks by the Hezbollah resistance in which several Israeli soldiers were killed, including Gen. Erez Gerstein, Israel’s top commander inside its “security zone” in Lebanese territory.

His death prompted a press conference by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Lieutenant-General Shaul Mofaz, Israel’s chief of staff, in which the two men announced that Israel “will respond very seriously to such attacks,” hinting that they planned massive air, land and sea offensives.

Air raids were carried out on various Hezbollah positions in the south and in the region of Baalbeck. In turn, three Katyusha rockets were fired into northern Israel.

The Air Force Magazine reported that in the attacks on Lebanon Israel used its latest model warplane, the F-15I, in battle for the first time. The U.S.-made aircraft are an enhanced version of the F-15, equipped with Israeli-developed electronic warfare gear. Each fighter is worth $84 million, according to the magazine.

Israeli leaders were divided over the strategy to adopt in Lebanon. Avigdor Kahalani, Israel’s internal security minister, said Lebanon’s infrastructure should be targeted every time an Israeli soldier is killed in the south. Defense Minister Moshe Arens called for an abrogation of the April 1996 Israeli-Lebanese cease-fire to allow the pounding of civilian areas. In fact, Israel has never abided by the agreement. Since it went into effect three years ago, about a hundred Lebanese civilians have been killed in southern Lebanon, while not one Israeli civilian has been killed.

While Israeli politicians and generals debated what Israel should do about Lebanon (see articles by Victor Ostrovsky and Stephen Sosebee on pp. 8 and 9), Israeli forces also faced, for the first time, a “defeat” inflicted on them by young Lebanese students.

In the last week of February, Israeli occupation troops and their Lebanese puppet militia had enlarged the occupation zone by gobbling up the Lebanese village of Arnoun, which lies on the fringes of the 15-kilometer-deep occupation zone and is overlooked by an Israeli position in the Crusader-era Beaufort Castle.

Arnoun residents woke up and found themselves prisoners in their own homes.

They planted mines around the village at dawn, preventing residents from coming or going. Signs in Arabic and Hebrew reading “Caution Mines” and “Stop—Border” were posted at the entrance of the village. Residents of the village told reporters through barbed wire that they woke up and found themselves prisoners in their own homes. Most of the residents of Arnoun had left the village a long time ago because they faced constant harassment from the Israelis. Of the 3,000 people who used to live there, only some 100 remained.

As the Lebanese government prepared to file a complaint to the U.N. secretary-general, news reports said it was advised by the U.S. administration to give quiet diplomacy a chance.

But the surprise came when protesting students arrived at Arnoun to challenge Israeli troops. The youngsters, most of them members of political parties (including several pro-Communist activists), dismantled the barricades and roadblocks erected by the Israeli soldiers.

Then, accompanied by reporters, they advanced through a swing gate in the center of the village which controls the road leading to the castle and past houses demolished by Israeli troops in January, and planted a Lebanese flag within 200 meters of Beaufort. Further progress came to an abrupt halt when Israeli troops opened fire to warn the crowd not to approach the military base. A young student was wounded and carried away.

Later in the day, hundreds of Lebanese flocked to Arnoun to celebrate, while politicians, including Prime Minister Salim Hoss, ventured to the liberated village to praise the mass civil action that returned the village to Lebanese control.

On the orders of President Emile Lahoud, two bulldozers were sent to the village to demolish the earth barricades blocking the track into the village. Then a new road was asphalted, ditches were dug to connect the village to the national water supply, and power cables were repaired.

Israel and, ironically, the U.S. reportedly warned against “doing another Arnoun,” as residents of another occupied village, Mlikh, staged a sit-in and vowed to “liberate” their village as well. The Mlikh protest elicited a threat from Israel that demonstrators risked being shot, according to Al-Hayat newspaper. The paper said also that U.S. Deputy Chief of Mission in Lebanon David Hale advised Prime Minister Hoss to delay new demonstrations aimed at ‘liberating’ other villages in the zone.

Fighting corruption

Lebanon is witnessing major internal changes under President Emile Lahoud’s regime. Restive Druze leader and former Minister Walid Jumblatt, who engaged in anti-government rhetoric after Lahoud’s election, handed over to the state the ornate and carefully restored 19th century Beiteddine palace that fell under his control after Israel’s withdrawal in 1983. Before he took control of it and changed its name to “the People’s palace,” Beiteddine was the summer residence of Lebanon’s heads of state. Jumblatt had rejected previous government attempts to take it back.

Meanwhile, former Petroleum Minister Chahé Barsoumian was charged with participating in illegal oil deals and sent to the Roumieh central prison, becoming the first ministerial-level official to be prosecuted on criminal charges in Lebanon’s post-independence history.

A challenge to such a trial in a civil court was presented by Barsoumian’s chief defense lawyer, who said the former minister should be tried in parliament’s special court, which is charged with investigating the misconduct of statesmen. Barsoumian and six others were questioned regarding a deal involving the sale in Houston, Texas of a tanker-load of crude oil allegedly resold for as much as $73 per ton more than was originally paid for it.

The investigation is likely to lead to “senior political figures,” according to Lebanese newspapers. Speculation has grown that accusations could reach relatives of former President Elias Hrawi, of whom Barsoumian was a close political ally.

But Lebanese media said that security sources rejected the speculation, as well as any connection between the Barsoumian case and a visit of Mr. Hrawi and his sons, Roy and Roland, to Syrian President Hafez al-Assad.

Carole Dagher is a free-lance Lebanese journalist and frequent visitor to the United States.