Flexibility behind the rhetoric
Israel downplayed threats by Hizbullah to take more soldiers hostage if Lebanese detainees in Israeli prisons are not released. Mohalhel Fakih reports from Beirut
Addressing thousands of supporters in the South Lebanon village of Jibsheet, Hizbullah's Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah warned that Israel had only one chance left to secure the release of three soldiers and a reserve colonel held by the organisation.
"If this chance passes we will consider the negotiations... to have reached a dead end and that the existing number of detainees in our hands are not enough to carry out successful negotiations and a full exchange. The alternative is not to back down but work night and day to have in the clutches of... the Islamic Resistance new Israeli detainees," Nasrallah said in a speech commemorating the 14th anniversary of Israel's kidnapping of Sheikh Abdul-Karim Obeid, a Hizbullah commander, from inside Lebanon.
Israel has been detaining at least 15 Lebanese, partly as bargaining chips to trade for soldiers who went missing during its 22- year occupation of South Lebanon, which ended in May 2000. Hizbullah, which vows to oust Israel from the occupied Shebaa Farms region, captured four Israelis in October 2000 to swap them for the Lebanese in Israeli custody along with other Arabs.
Nasrallah confirmed that Reserve Colonel Elhanan Tannenbaum had been ill and was treated, but he did not reveal whether the man Israel claims was in Lebanon on business is alive or dead. Israel's chief rabbi has declared the other three soldiers dead. Hizbullah has not confirmed their deaths, but the group's leader urged Germany to jumpstart deadlocked mediation with Israel to swap the prisoners.
"We were ready for an exchange of prisoners and the missing and we still are," Gideon Ezara, Israel's minister for relations with parliament said. He blamed Nasrallah for the failure to swap prisoners. Ezara said the Hizbullah chief's threat to capture more Israelis was a direct result of Israel's decision to free Palestinian prisoners, without Hizbullah's intervention.
Israel has agreed to release hundreds of Palestinians prisoners as part of the US-led "Roadmap for Peace". Hizbullah previously had demanded the release of Palestinian activists in any prisoner exchange, but now Israel has already agreed to release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners as part of the US-promoted "Roadmap for Peace". Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz appeared to take Nasrallah's threat lightly. He claimed Hizbullah's leader was under pressure from the families of detained Lebanese, in light of Israel's separate decision to release Palestinian prisoners.
Israel's military chief of staff, Lt. General Moshe Yaalon, also echoed Mofaz's stance. He branded Nasrallah's warning "blackmail" resulting from Hizbullah's "failure" to win the release of Lebanese detainees. Yaalon also held Hizbullah responsible for the life of captured Israeli Tannenbaum. He said Israel had been reassured that Tannanenbaum was still alive.
Nasrallah's speech in Lebanon coincided with comments made in Damascus by Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Al-Sharaa who dismissed US pressure to dismantle Hizbullah, and accused Israel of seeking to damage already strained American-Syrian ties.
"The Hizbullah question is a Lebanese affair. But to dismantle it before concluding peace in the Middle East would allow Israel to meddle in Lebanese affairs and reawaken... civil war," Al-Sharaa said.
Syria and United Nations Middle East Envoy Terje Roed-Larsen both have denied Israeli reports claiming President Bashar Al- Assad had expressed readiness to help release the Israeli soldiers in Lebanon in return for concessions in deadlocked peace talks. Syria has been coming under intense US pressure to disarm Hizbullah, withdraw troops from Lebanon and end backing for Palestinian factions.
Reacting to the possibility that the US Congress might impose sanctions on Damascus for its backing of Hizbullah and troops presence in Lebanon, Al-Sharaa said Syria "won't shed any tears over it", while describing the current administration of US President George W Bush as "stupid and foolish".
He blamed worsening ties with Washington on "most members of the American administration", whom he said were "afraid of Israel". US President Bush this month again accused Damascus of harbouring and assisting terrorists, without specifically naming any groups. The State Department had already listed Syria as a sponsor of terrorism for backing Hizbullah and Palestinian groups, a charge Damascus denies.
Observers in Beirut expect Syria and its weaker neighbour, Lebanon, will face more US and Israeli pressure in the wake of the US- led war on Iraq, including calls to disarm Hizbullah and free Israeli soldiers detained by the group. Although Lebanon and Syria strongly opposed the Iraq war, the Israeli-Lebanese border remained unusually quiet.
Tallal Salman, owner and editor-in-chief of the As-Safir newspaper in Beirut said Nasrallah's threat to capture more Israeli soldiers and Al-Sharaa's comments on ties with Washington coincided because both reaffirm mutual goals. "The leader of the resistance, in the tongue of the mujahidin, [expressed] the same national stance that the Syrian leadership is committed to," Salman wrote. He highlighted Al-Sharaa's defiance and argued that despite "the difficulties and pressures" that Syria has been facing, the country will not yield.
The war of words between the Shi'ite Hizbullah and Israel, coupled with Al-Sharaa's criticism of the US, coincide with rising regional tensions. Next door to Syria, American occupation troops in Iraq are coming under persistent guerrilla attack. In his speech in Jibsheet, Nasrallah appeared careful to remind Israel and the US that majority Muslim Shi'ite post-war Iraq remains unstable, and Washington has its hands full in Baghdad without coveting Damascus or Beirut.
"There are two Muslim and Arab countries under occupation. Palestine is under the Zionist occupation of Israel which is supported and protected by the United States, and Iraq is under direct US occupation," Nasrallah said.
Despite the usual rhetoric, there are some hints that Hizbullah is tacitly willing to negotiate. However, the daily Al-Mustaqbal in Beirut quoted sources within Hizbullah as saying that in his speech Nasrallah "dealt in the highest form of reason" with developments in Iraq and the Palestinian territories. The newspaper wrote that Hizbullah's leader was "flexible" and showed understanding for the decision of Palestinian factions to announce a truce with Israel, while some Iraqi groups have chosen to address their grievances through peaceful demonstrations and talks with the American authorities and not by armed resistance.
