The new balance of terror

Press, 3 July 1985, Page 17

The new balance of terror

The hijacking of TWA Boeing 727 marks a watershed.. It shows that something like a balance of terror has been achieved in the Middle East between Israel and the United States on the one hand and their enemies on the other.

What should be understood are the reasons for the hijacking. It is a response to Israel’s own strongarm tactics in Lebanon over the past 15 years, of which the harshest episodes were the two invasions of 1978 and 1982, and the “iron fist” retreat of 1985. The United States is paying for its failure to rein the Israelis in even, in Arab eyes, for its support for Israeli actions.

From 1970 onwards the Palestinian guerrilla presence in southern Lebanon and the Israeli bombing combined to destroy the Shias’ village society there, driving tens of thousands of them north to Beirut’s slums. These came to be a breeding ground for anger and fanaticism.

What has given religious extremism a leg-up is the evident failure of the Arab states and other Arab ideologists to wrest concessions from Israel on the Palestine problem. The rise of their co-religionist, the Ayatollah, has given Lebanon’s Shias confidence, prestige, and the backing of a state. Today, they are

the most powerful single force in Lebanon.

Israel’s unsuccessful campaign in Lebanon has shown up a shift in the regional balance of power which probably started as far back as 1973 when, for the first time, two Arab states dared initiate a war. The technological gap between Israel and its Arab opponents remains wide, but not so wide as to outweigh other factors such as demography and strategic depth. Israel is no longer the unchallengeably dominant force in the region. An inescapable conclusion from the hijack drama is that Israel will not be able to act militarily as freely as before. This is what the balance of terror means.

As East and West have discovered in Europe and elsewhere, mutual deterrence can keep the peace, can in its imperfect fashion be a security doctrine. But it also implies steady dialogue, a degree of mutual respect, compromises, and concessions. These are likely to be attitudes which Israel and its neighbours will be forced to adopt by the fact that each can now inflict intolerable damage on the other.

Israel, accustomed to military supremacy, will find it difficult to adjust, as will its enemies who, in Lebanon and Syria at least, have

PATRICK SEALE of the London “Observer,” argues that this time the hijack by Shi’ite “wild men” has changed the power balance in the Middle East and that neither Israel nor the United States can afford to ignore the consequences.

the scent of victory in their nostrils. The hijack has been the work of an extreme splinter group from the Shia mainstream. What is significant, however, is that the mainstream, in the person of Nabih Berri, has taken control of the hostages and made the hijackers’ demands its own. What Berri is saying to the United States and Israel is: “I am a responsible leader. Talk to me. If you don’t, the wild men will take over.” In other words, the Shia movement of Lebanon has come above ground. It is no longer a shadowy, unchartered collection of terrorists and fanatics operating under labels of convenience, such as Islamic Jihad. Like political movements elsewhere, it is a movement with a

moderate centre and an extremist periphery. If the extremist fringe is to be checked, the centre must be given credibility and reward. It may be repugnant for Americans, but a clear win for Berri could be to everyone’s advantage in the long run and could make a contribution to the stability of Lebanon. Berri’s strategic ally is not Tehran but Damascus. The present trial of strength over the hostages is not a random event but one more battle in the long campaign which Syria and the Lebanese Shia movement have been fighting. They believe Israel’s invasion of 1982 was an attempt to change the nature of Lebanon in the Christians’ favour, drive Syria out, and bring Lebanon under a sort of Israeli-American condominium. The killing of Israel’s man,

Bashir Gemayel, the blowing up of the American embassy, the slaughter of the Marines, the expulsion of the multi-national force, the destruction of Secretary of State Shultz’s May 17, 1983,' accord between Lebanon and Israel, and finally the steady harassment of Israel’s occupation army, forcing its retreat, were all stages in the Syrian-Shia fight-back against what they saw as a mortal threat to their interests.

The campaign is by no means over. Israel hangs on'in southern Lebanon with its proxy militia, the South Lebanon Army, stiffened by some hundreds of Israeli advisers. Whichever way the hijack is settled, the pressure on that Israeli foothold will continue. Indeed the hijack is part of that pressure. Already these are alarming signs that the next major battlefield could be Jordan. Behind the TWA airliner on Beirut airport stands the charred remains of a Jordanian plane, blown up by'Shia gunmen a few days before the hijack of the Americans — a pointer to the way Jordan is being sucked into the Israeli-Syrian conflict and its Lebanese sub-plot. Lebanon cannot be separated from the wider issues of Israel’s relations with all its Arab neighbours, sometimes euphemistically described as the peace process. Both Israel and Syria are aware

that control of Jordan, even more than control of Lebanon, will determine the pattern of power in the region in the coming phase. Each considers Jordan essential to its national security. If King Hussein makes a separate peace with Israel, Syria will feel outflanked and threatened. If Hussein joins Damascus in a united eastern front, it will be Israel’s turn to feel menaced. Hussein’s current peace plan, cooked up with Yasser Arafat, is a desperate, last-ditch attempt to salvage a future independent existence for Palestinians and Jordanians together, out of the path of the colliding Israeli and Syrian juggernauts. In the present balance of power, encouragement to Hussein to do a deal with Israel could be as rash as was the attempt two years ago to get Lebanon into such a separate deal. The new forces of the region, Syria and its allies, both Shia and Palestinian, can be counted on to fight back. The hijacking is a warning; rarely has it been more important for the United States, Israel, and its many friends to recognise that old recipes which provided security over several decades are no longer valid. The balance of terror is the new reality to which adjustments in attitudes and doctrines will have to be made.