No bluffing in the Lebanese poker game
By Amir Oren (Haaratz) 15 March 2000
"How are the leaves?" combat soldiers ask their buddies, referring to the frequency of leaves to go home to Israel. But there's no good way to leave Lebanon. An exit under an agreement would be derived from an overall settlement with Syria, but that would also mean a withdrawal from the Golan Heights. A unilateral withdrawal will not be a total exit and in effect will only be a redeployment of forces, as opposed to a change in the circumstances that dictate the deployment.The copyright on the exit that is no exit belongs to Justice Minister Yossi Beilin, who came out with it over a year ago. Peeling away its political wrappings, the plan for shortening the lines was written (after commissioning by Beilin) by two senior reserve officers, Yonatan Lerner and Asher Sadan. With professional honesty, they warned that the topography of the northern border necessitates keeping at least some points on the new line within sovereign Lebanese territory, and in some places up to a kilometer away from the outskirts of Israeli settlements along the fence.
Similar plans have been considered, but not accepted, by the Israel Defense Forces. This plan envisioned reducing the number of Israeli military targets vulnerable to attacks on the ground. But it does not imagine an end to the war. The Hezbollah and others who fly the banner of Lebanese opposition to the occupying IDF will be able to continue to act against the remaining outposts. Beilin did not deep six the military analysis by Lerner and Sadan; he just ignored its significance and continued to appear as the prophet of unilateral withdrawal.Now, in his footsteps - but from the other side - comes Chief of General Staff Shaul Mofaz. He has been forced by the government's decision to present a plan for a unilateral withdrawal, and compelled by the government leadership to acknowledge the fragile rationale behind the exit that is no exit.
The plan called "Morning Twilight" is a rewrite of the rules of Israel's favorite game: Lebanese poker. Each side in this game tries to hide his cards from his rival and raise the stakes, but ultimately everyone will have to show their cards and someone - perhaps more than one side - will lose a lot.
The Hezbollah's expected continuation of fighting against the occupation is only the external layer of the problem with "Morning Twilight." The main difficulty is Syria's desire, in the absence of a deal that gives it back the Golan Heights, to allow, indeed encourage action against Israel on the Lebanese front. The outposts inside Lebanon combined with a new regime of opening fire near the new line may provide some protection for the nearby Israeli border settlements. But they will not provide a solution to two closely related dangers: the abandonment of the Southern Lebanese Army, which could lead to a serious of vengeful retaliations against them, dragging Israel back into Lebanon; and an escalation in counter-responses by the hostile organizations, the government of Lebanon and its army, the Iranian revolutionary guard and Syria. And that, as military intelligence is warning - could undermine regional stability.Lebanon is an arena for political players adept at changing their guises.
Beilin's partner is Likud chairman MK Ariel Sharon, who is capable of calling for a unilateral withdrawal, for the sake of cutting the link between the mess in Lebanon and the bargaining with Syria over the Golan, while at the same time professing shock at the threat of the slaughter that will hover over the heads of SLA personnel and the rest of the collaborators with Israel after the unilateral withdrawal. Sharon is not the only one who is afraid of such an outcome of the no-exit exit. Some IDF officers this week were comparing the abandonment of the SLA and "the ignoring of the righteous gentiles, who saved Jews during the Holocaust," and predicting that if this happens, Israel will never again be able to win cooperation from groups in the Arab world. The difference between them and Sharon is that he is ready to call for the establishment of a commission of inquiry that will condemn the responsibility of the present leadership for the next bloodbath, to counterbalance the public's reckoning of his ejection from the job of defense minister after Sabra and Shatila. Prime Minister Ehud Barak is trapped by his promise to get out of Lebanon by July.
Mofaz is tightening the noose around Barak by formulating such a problematic plan for a unilateral withdrawal, which in turn is pushing Barak into some sort of agreement with Syria, just so there will be a settlement.
But all this is but the latest twist in the northern poker game, where the ante is the knowledge that Syria's aim, no more and no less, is the return of the Golan, and that the holding the Golan does not protect Israel (or its inhabitants, who will be evacuated on the day the war breaks out) from attack, but rather invites it.
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