18 - 24 April 2002
Issue No.582
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 18 - 24 April 2002 Issue No.582 |
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Resistance within limits
With the Shebaa front on the Lebanese-Israeli border active again and the ongoing violence in the occupied territories, tension is growing in south Lebanon. Zeina Abu Rizk reports from Beirut
The blue line -- the UN negotiated border between Lebanon and Israel -- and the Shebaa settlements are once again uneasy. In past weeks, Katioucha and Grade rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israel, the farms in Shebaa and Hasbaya were subjected to Israeli military operations and over 50 Palestinians, including three from the Islamic Jihad group, have been detained in connection with incidents on the border. Last week, it was alleged that Israel launched air strikes against over southern Lebanese villages, including Ain Al-Helwa in Sidon, the site of one of the largest Palestinian refugee camps. Observers fear that the region is close to collapsing back into violent chaos and that Israel will once again attack Lebanon's infrastructure.
BACK TO THE STONE AGE: An Israeli air raid on Lebanon's Chebaa Farms, 12 April (photo AFP)
The region was quiet, for the first time in two weeks, on the eve of US Secretary of State Colin Powell's arrival in Lebanon on Monday. During meetings with Lebanese President Emile Lahoud and Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, Powell warned that recent events on the Lebanese- Israeli border "threatened to escalate into a regional conflict."
Powell reminded the Lebanese dignitaries that the US support to the Arab peace initiative, endorsed at the Arab summit in Beirut last month, was dependent upon all parties working to achieve peace.
The Lebanese authorities have played down the importance of events on the border, while claiming they have deployed all possible measures to avoid the further deterioration of the situation. The government asked political and military forces on the border -- including Hizbullah -- to respect the security of the blue line, though according to the Lebanese this does not include the Shebaa Farms. Lebanese politicians have reassured the UN and US in recent meetings that Lebanon did not predict any military escalation in the south. This plea to respect the blue line may have caused these forces to concentrate military operations on the Shebaa Farms instead.
Lebanese officials consider the incidents at the border as natural reactions to the bloody Israeli aggression against the Palestinians, but assert that the region remains "under control." "What Lebanon has been trying to do, is to avoid an undesired military deterioration, by working to contain the natural reactions to a minimum," an official source said. "Lebanon is commitment to enforcing security along the blue line." He continued by arguing that the ongoing events at the Lebanese-Israeli border did not justify a military strike by Israel against Lebanon.
While reasserting Lebanon's commitment to the blue line and stating, that military operations would be restricted to the Shebaa Farms, officials also said that any long-range strike would be answered in kind.
Whether or not to deploy the army on the border has been a heated debate in Beirut in past weeks, but the authorities maintain that they are right to not send the military. Such a deployment, they argue, would be provocative. The government believes that as long as the Palestinian question is unsolved -- including the issue of the refugees -- any military escalation in Palestine will inevitably provoke reactions in southern Lebanon, particularly in the Palestinian camps. Sending the army to the border would cause friction between Lebanese soldiers and the Palestinians -- not to mention Hizbullah, the Lebanese resistance. In having to subdue this friction, the Lebanese army would by default be protecting Israel. A hypocrisy Beirut would rather avoid.
Since any military escalation in the region is contrary to Lebanese interests, many are asking why now is Hizbullah increasing its military activities in the Shebaa settlements? The common answer is that the organisation is a puppet for Tehran and Damascus.
But Syria has little to gain from destabilising southern Lebanon, such a situation might divide the country, at a time when internal unity is of paramount importance to both Syria and
Lebanon.
Moreover, the widening of the scope of the conflict could provide an excuse for Israel to attack Syrian troops -- whether in Lebanon or in Syria. Sources close to Damascus say that Syrian officials repeatedly stress the need for calm on the border during their meetings with Lebanese security chiefs.
Iran's stance is more uncertain. The Iranian Ambassador to Lebanon, Mohamed Ali Sebhani, said after a meeting earlier this week with the Lebanese Speaker Nabih Berri that "no one could guarantee that Arab borders with Israel would remain safe and stable" as long as Israel's "criminal" aggression against the Palestinians continues. However, on Thursday, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi called for self-restraint "to avoid giving Israel a pretext for widening the circle of its war."
Political observers suggest that Iran's change of tone was caused by Russian demands that Lebanon, Syria and Iran work together to relieve the mounting tension on the Lebanese-Israeli border.
The question of who is behind the Hizbullah recent antics is thus unresolved.
It has been suggested that Hizbullah's Secretary General Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah is prisoner of his own rhetoric. In the past his speeches have ridiculed the Arabs for their apathy over the Palestinian issue. If Hizbullah failed to launch military operations now, it would lose credibility. Not wishing to compromise the Lebanese army, the party has therefore decided to restrict its operations to "legitimate" resistance in the Shebaa region but to cooperate with security forces along the blue line.
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