Washington Report, August 23, 1982, Page 4

The Outlook

Despite the U.S.-Israeli tensions over Beirut, there seems to be general agreement in Washington that the American Administration shares Israel's stated goals for that country.

Among these are the withdrawal of all foreign troops—i.e., PLO, Syrian and Israeli—from Lebanon, and the restoration of a viable Lebanese central government there.

On the surface, these aims appear irreproachable. But one big problem for the Administration will be to determine the extent to which Israel's stated goals are its real ones.

In the opinion of many observers both inside and outside Israel, a major but unstated goal of the Begin government was to nail down, once and for all, its de facto annexation of the West Bank. With the PLO crushed in Lebanon, according to this theory, the Palestinians of the West Bank would become so demoralized that they would knuckle under. This outcome would undermine the U.S.'s plans for that territory, which are to revive the talks on the "full autonomy" called for by the Camp David agreements.

Other doubts are being expressed about Israel's real plans for south Lebanon, which up to the Litani River has historically been considered part of Israel by the Zionist faction to which Begin himself belongs, and whose water reserves would be of immense economic value to the Israelis. It may riot be a great strain on Israeli ingenuity to figure out a way of keeping their troops in south Lebanon, as they did for all practical purposes in a narrow strip of it for four years after their "mini-invasion" of 1978. But this time they could also be looking for ways to absorb the area permanently into Israel.

At some point, if these unstated goals of Israel are a reality, the U.S. is likely to find itself on a collision course with Israel. In the meantime, though, it has to search for ways to attain the goals the two countries are said to share. First on the agenda will be the search for a way to get the rest of the Palestinian fighters and all of the Syrian troops out of Lebanon. This task alone could take forever.