Uneasy Coexistence: A Look Inside Israeli-Occupied Lebanon

By Marilyn Raschka

For years a Lebanese journalist friend of mine regaled me with tales of his trips to the area of south Lebanon that is occupied by Israel. He told great stories of smuggling by mule from Lebanon into Syria from the mountain town of Chebaa and delightful anecdotes from his interviews with Major Lahad, the Maronite Christian former Lebanese army officer who heads the Israeli militia called the "South Lebanon Army" (SLA). For me the most impressive of all my friend's tales were of his troubles just to get into the Israeli-occupied south.

He always concluded his stories with "let me know when you want to go, maybe I can arrange it." But if threats can be empty, so can promises, and my dream trip to occupied south Lebanon remained unfulfilled.

Then last March I was given the name of a taxi driver who makes daily round trips from Hasbaya, one of the largest towns in the occupied area, to Beirut. I asked where his "garaaj" (Lebanese for taxi station) was. I found the spot but not the driver. I had arrived too early. Another driver said I could wait or I could telephone the driver I was seeking in the evening at his home in Hasbaya. This hassle-free solution seemed unbelievably easy, keeping in mind the tales of my journalist friend.

When I called and explained what I wanted to do´´but that I had no pass as is issued to residents of the area´´the man answered with everyone's favorite phrase, "No problem." All he needed to set up my visit was a photocopy of my passport and my Lebanese residency card. Two days later another phone call assured me that whenever I was ready, I could go.

Had I just gotten lucky? Was I given permission because I am a foreign journalist? Or had I been the one to discover that the "no problem" attitude was at least for the present time in vogue with the SLA and its Israeli patrons.

My trip south didn't make me any friends with certain fellow journalists. Their first resistance was to my simple tale of how I got permission to go. But that was only the beginning. They could not accept my conclusions, based upon personal experiences.

What each of these experiences suggested was this: life under SLA and Israeli control, now into its 18th year, has settled into a peaceful, even profitable co-existence. And should the peace process ever see some Lebanese ink on the line, normalizing relations with the Israelis will come easily to the people of occupied south Lebanon.

And so I entered occupied south Lebanon, called by the Lebanese on either side of it "el-hizaam," the belt, an understatement considering that the area encompasses not a narrow strip but a 410 square mile area of sovereign Lebanon. Once through the stretch of no man's land that separates Lebanon from its occupied "belt," the driver descends to open, pass through and then close a red-and-white swinging gate. Situated in full view but some distance from the SLA checkpoint, this gate is to slow down incoming cars and provide a look at the drivers´´most of whom are well-known after all the years this system has been in place. Security is the number one issue here and everywhere else in the area.

Beehives of Activity

A series of sheds, simple affairs that resemble hamburger stands at a country fair, are beehives of activity. Here all cars entering the territory must switch license plates. Hundreds of red-and-white plates stand on shelves, leaning against the walls like miniature pairs of skis. No car can enter or operate in the zone without them.

Upon presentation of proper identification, taxis and private drivers are handed their own special plates. These are slipped over the Lebanese plates and held in place by wide rubber bands. The first three numbers on each plate indicate which town the driver comes from. More security.

All of these exchanges of official papers and plates are very congenial. After all, the SLA men the drivers are dealing with are their neighbors, or even their own sons. The papers the drivers carry in the zone, like the paper I was issued, were written in Hebrew as well as Arabic. Although this came as a shock to me, it was old hat to them.

Around a sharp bend several miles down the road, a blue-and-white Israeli flag snaps in the wind as it flies over the remains of Beaufort castle, the largest and still grandest of Lebanon's Crusader structures.

This is as close as I got to the Israelis anywhere in the occupied area. They have learned to keep their distance. Casualty figures don't look good in the home press and Lebanese resistance fighters have become more professional and therefore more successful in their attacks.

From this point on it's a downhill drive to Marjeyoun, a large town and the headquarters of the SLA. True, there are a lot of checkpoints around Marjeyoun and throughout the zone, but it would be hard to argue that they are more numerous than in unoccupied Lebanon, where stops at Syrian and Lebanese army checkpoints have become a way of life.

I wanted to know to what extent Israeli products were on the market and in use. The opportunity to find out presented itself at Sunday lunch at the home of a Lebanese family whose son I had met in the taxi. When offered a drink I asked for a beer. A tray appeared with a choice´´Almaza, a well-known Lebanese beer, and Maccabbee, an Israeli brew.

My surprise was itself a surprise to the family. They saw no problem in the twinned beers. At lunch I praised the french-fried fish nuggets only to be told they were Israeli.

Lebanese merchants in the zone deal with both Lebanese and Israeli wholesalers. My suggestion that Israel was forcing its goods on consumers here was met with near ridicule by merchants I talked to. "Do you think the little they sell here offsets what they pay out for occupation?"

This easy consumer relationship has not slipped by the leaders of Hezbollah, the Iran-sponsored Shi'i "party of god" militia who have called these traders traitors. However, neither the accusation by the Hezbollah nor its raison d'étre, the liberation of south Lebanon, carried much clout with the people I talked to. In short, while no one wants to remain under Israeli occupation, no one wants the liberator to be Hezbollah.

Also in the area are 5,000 United Nations troops, whose original 1978 mandate has been renewed every six months. Although they also have a say in limiting SLA and Israeli activities in the area, their greatest energies are put into keeping resistance groups´´chiefly Hezbollah´´from infiltrating the zone.

Other easy consumer relationships I came across included medical services. One Lebanese I met takes his daughter to Israel for treatment by a specialist. Although he could travel to Beirut, the easier route is to go south. Ditto for traveling abroad. Tel Aviv is closer and easier than Beirut. Business cards list two phones, one linked to Lebanon, the other to Israel.

Up to a thousand Lebanese work in factory jobs in Israel. Although the price of getting such a job is to have a son serving in the SLA, the salary at the end of the month goes a lot further than any earned in Lebanon.

At the end of five days in occupied Lebanon I managed to copy-cat some of my journalist friend's adventures. I visited the smuggling village of Chebaa and talked to an adviser to SLA commander Antoine Lahad. I also had realized that the present seemingly stable state of affairs in occupied south Lebanon had not come easily. Thousands of Lebanese have been displaced, expelled, killed, wounded and imprisoned in the years since the first major Israeli invasion of March 14, 1978.

Even now, when the overall opinion one gets is of a co-existence that could stand the test of the peace process, there are ugly incidents that scar the relatively positive impression I had acquired. I returned to Beirut with the same driver at the end of my stay. The man sitting next to him was talking, but no one could understand him. Close to Beirut the man got out, and the driver told this tale.

Two years ago, the man and a friend were driving along when they rounded a curve, taking an Israeli tank patrol by surprise. The soldiers reacted by firing, killing the passenger and wounding the driver. Although he received free medical care in Israel, doctors could do nothing about the man's severed tongue, and little for his facial disfigurement. He wears his keffiyyeh tied around his head to hide his lower face. Nothing can disguise his incomprehensible speech.

The driver said the dead man's family was given a good sum of money by Israel. The wounded man received a lesser amount and today lives on the charity of his relatives.

Marilyn Raschka is a free-lance writer who lives in Beirut.