Israel’s uneasy peace

Press, 9 April 1977, Page 14

Israel’s uneasy peace

Two statements made in Tel Aviv after the meeting in Cairo last month of the Palestine National Council no doubt explain in large measure the continuing military involvement of Israel in the fighting in Lebanon. The council had rejected a United Nations resolution implicitly accepting the permanence of Israel", and defining Palestinian unrest as “ a refugee problem ”. When the meeting in Cairo ended, the Israeli Prime Minister. Mr Yitzhak Rabin, said that there could be no peace with the Palestinians. “ The only place we can meet is on the battlefield", he said bluntly. His Foreign Minister, Mr Yigal Allon, followed Mr Rabin’s comment with: “ There are no moderates in the Palestine Liberation Organisation, only more or less extremists. The former want to destroy Israel at once, and the latter in stages ”, Given these two attitudes, and recognising that Syria's commitment to the Palestinian cause in Lebanon is now too positive to permit of any withdrawal, the only conclusion seems to be that a political solution to the war is impossible.

From that premise it can be argued that the Israeli Government sees its support for the Christian Rightists in Lebanon, the Phalange Party, as an integral part of its own defence policy. Israel's intensified civil defence programme is. in fact, based on the assumption that the only way to prevent another Middle East war might be to help crush the so-called liberation movement in Lebanon's southern border region. There is possibly a link here with the assassination last month of Mr Kamal Jumblatt. political leader of the Lebanese Left-wing forces, of which the Phalangists have been accused. President Assad of Syria went so far as to accuse them of the killing, to sabotage hopes for peace by remov-

ing the one man who might have brought it about. Now, it is suggested. Syria may become more deeply involved in a bid to enforce a military solution.

It is certainly true that the Phalangists regarded Mr Jumblatt as the architect of the Moslem-Palestinian alliance. He had wanted some sharing of power between the Moslem and Christian communities—a proposal that the Maronite Christians had rejected. At the moment there seems no possibility of an agreed political formula for a settlement. On the contrary. President Sarkis has been trying to form a Lebanese force to be sent to the troubled southern border area with Israel. The regular Lebanese Army had virtually disintegrated; and Mr Sarkis, in desperation, had hoped that the Arab League would approve of a plan to keep Syrian troops in Lebanon for at least another six months.

It is understandable that Israel should regard very gravely the possibility of Palestinian control of the border region, whether Syrian-aided or not. In a sense, support for the Rightist forces by the Israelis is essentially an operation designed to cover their own rear. Palestinian control could open the way for a drive into Israeli territory. The Israelis, moreover, are mistrustful of army “ reorganisation ” in Lebanon. They say that the units so far formed are commanded by Syrian officers and equipped with Russian weapons. For this reason they refused to regard them as Lebanese at all, and are determined to prevent their deployment along Israel's border. To that end. Israeli penetration of Lebanese territory may be necessary—a risk that Mr Rabin’s Government is apparently prepared to accept