What Is the War About - 02-Mar-99

What Is The War About?

(Op-Ed by Ron Ben-Yishai, "Yediot Ahronot", Mar 2, 1999, p. B5)

The IDF is fighting in southern Lebanon in order to continue our hold over the Golan Heights. Until Assad becomes flexible, the alternatives to fighting in the security zone are worse.

The public debate on whether or not to withdraw unilaterally from Lebanon has long since turned into a popular ritual. Like any recurring ceremony, the same arguments are repeated over and over, and like the eternal argument between secular and ultra-Orthodox Jews, neither side has any chance of convincing the other.

And since most of the elements of Israel's political and military establishment reject a unilateral withdrawal, the debate on a withdrawal from Lebanon has only one purpose to let off steam, to kill the frustration we all have in the face of the apparently endless, purposeless and hopeless fighting and casualties in southern Lebanon That is the reason that the debate breaks out every time we suffer losses or when Katyushas fall on the northern communities and it ebbs after a day or two, when the feeling of frustration dims and another news item grabs the headlines.

It seems to me that one of the reasons that this has become a useless ritual is the exaggerated focus by both camps on peripheral rather than core issues. The heart of the debate is how the IDF should deploy and operate against Hizballah in order to give the maximum security and normal life to the residents of the northern Galilee communities. However, the main reason for the continued fighting in Lebanon is not the ambition of the Shi'ites to liberate southern Lebanon, rather it is the Syrians' desire to get the Golan Heights back.

An analysis of the speeches by Shi'ite leaders in the not so distant past, as well as intelligence material, clearly shows that Hizballah and Amal have no burning desire to continue the battle into Israeli territory. Despite the Islamic fervor that beats within them, and despite Iranian incitement, it is reasonable to assume that if they were free to decide for themselves, they would stop fighting us the moment the IDF withdraws to the international border. The proof for this is the fact that Hizballah and Amal, as is known, barely bother the northern communities and do not attack movement along the northern roads although they have the ability to do so with relative ease.

But in the existing situation, with the Syrians having complete control of Lebanon, Hizballah and Amal cannot themselves decide their policy or positions in the Israeli-Lebanese conflict. If they do not fulfill the role given to them by Damascus to fight Israel, they risk their supply line from Iran being cut off and becoming marginal factors in the Lebanese economic-political arena.

The inescapable conclusion is that the IDF is not fighting in southern Lebanon for the safety of the northern Galilee communities, but rather for Israel's hold on the Golan Heights. Therefore, the fighting will not stop even if Israel withdraws to the international border. In contrast, there is almost no one in Israel who does not understand that if the Syrians are satisfied on the Golan Heights, the fighting in Lebanon would cease immediately.

Since the IDF, and in fact no modern army of a democratic state, cannot totally defeat a guerrilla organization, there is no point debating whether it is better to fight Hizballah from the line of the international border or from within the security zone. Instead, the debate should focus on the question from what position and method should we take in negotiations with the Syrians, that will be the quickest and best way to bring about a cease-fire in the fighting against us in southern Lebanon.

Assad's uncompromising demand that Israel should announce, even before negotiations begin, that it is prepared to withdraw to the international border, as a condition for negotiations, forces Israel to choose one of three options: accept the Syrian diktat and agree in principle to come down from the Golan Heights as far as the international border; to enter into a direct confrontation with the Syrians while risking all-out war, in order to make it clear to them that continuing war-by- proxy against us in Lebanon will cost them dearly then perhaps they will re-evaluate whether their stubbornness is worth the cost; to continue the low intensity warfare in Lebanon until the Syrians, for some reason and under international pressure, reach the conclusion that they are prepared to compromise over the Golan Heights.

The first option depends on a total concession on the Golan. The second option could exact a heavy price in blood. Therefore, the government chose the third. So long as this is its position, it seems that the IDF's deployment in the security zone and the war for the Golan from there, with a minimum of casualties and a maximum of security for the northern communities, is the least bad solution.