Israelis fear Syria's Lebanon exit is no panacea
Reuters
Date: 03-15-05
By Allyn Fisher-Ilan
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Publicly, Israel is only too glad to see Syrian forces packing up and leaving Lebanon.
But Israeli officials and analysts also suggest the pullout could help strengthen Hizbollah guerrillas rather than weakening them and bring violence to a border that has seen only irregular clashes since Israel quit south Lebanon five years ago.
"The seeming withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon may not turn out to be such a panacea," a senior Israeli official said on Monday.
Under heavy international pressure, Syria has begun pulling troops out of Lebanon to end three decades of tutelage since it first sent in soldiers during the 1975-90 Lebanese civil war.
One Israeli worry is that the departure of the Syrians could increase the chances of Lebanon slipping back into chaos.
Perhaps even greater are suspicions that Syria could encourage Hizbollah to step up attacks on Israel as a way of demonstrating its own importance for ensuring stability.
"It may be that the Syrians, by leaving Lebanon, will want to show everyone how they were the ones who kept matters quiet and to show that the change is liable to enlarge the terror threat," Israel's army chief Moshe Yaalon said last week.
"We must follow this closely and ensure that our interests are not hurt."
Israel has long demanded a Syrian withdrawal and recently added it to conditions for any talks on returning the occupied Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in 1967.
But the Jewish state also wants to avoid anything that risks pulling it back into a battlefield from which it withdrew in 2000 under pressure from Hizbollah attacks to end a 22-year occupation.
"One key danger from Israel's standpoint is if Syrian forces leave and this brings instability to Lebanon ... this is liable to precipitate a new civil war in Lebanon," Israeli strategic analyst Yossi Alpher said.
"This is not good for anyone, including Israel."
PAINFUL HISTORY
Israel's history of intervention in Lebanon is a painful one. Troops entered in 1978 after an attack by Lebanon-based Palestinian militants. A full scale invasion was launched in 1982, which later spurred the creation of Hizbollah.
Some argue that a new Lebanese civil war could have advantages for Israel.
"Any struggle inside Lebanon will draw Hizbollah there and leave them less time for us," said Efraim Inbar, an Israeli Middle East expert at Bar-Ilan University.
But many also think that if Hizbollah came under heavy pressure, either diplomatic or military, the group could benefit from renewed clashes with Israel to emphasise its importance as a "resistance force" and rally support.
Despite the rhetoric from both Israel and Hizbollah, the border area has been much quieter since Israel pulled out of Lebanon than it was before.
Some 20 Israelis have been killed by Hizbollah there since the withdrawal from Lebanon -- a toll dwarfed by the nearly 1,000 dead in four years of fighting with the Palestinians.
Since 2000, there have been five Katyusha rocket attacks on Israel compared to hundreds of barrages in the years before. But Israel says Hizbollah still has a stockpile of some 13,000 Iranian-supplied rockets.
Alpher said renewed civil strife in Lebanon could also give Hizbollah an even greater prominence as it asserted its military strength with the political support of the growing Shi'ite population.
"The last thing Israel wants is to see Lebanese society dominated by Hizbollah," Alpher said.
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