THE UNILATERAL WITHDRAWAL FROM LEBANON: DELAYED GRATIFICATION


The Jerusalem Post's Arieh O'Sullivan (not be confused with other great Irish-Israeli journalists such as Yitzie Flanagan, Moishe Shaughnessy and Dorit O'Connor) has an interesting anlaysis of the recent Israel-Hezbollah prisoner exchange, in which he cites Professor Eyal Zisser of the Dayan Center's position that the Hezbollah is increasingly acting from a position of weakness.

"While the prisoner deal will be a feather in his cap, in the end Hizbullah has a problem," he said. "It actually pulls the rug out from under them and the reason for the organization's existence. Until now, he could say he exists because of the Lebanese prisoners. What is Nasrallah going to say now to those who say the time has come to put an end to it all?"

Zisser said that there is a rising number of Lebanese who are questioning Hizbullah's necessity. Newspaper editorials are saying that there are other, more important matters than the Shaba farms, like the economy.
Furthermore, the flowering of southern Lebanon has also restrained Hizbullah from heating up the border, where even the slightest action draws the IDF's wrath

If Zisser is correct, Israel may finally reap the full benefits of Barak's decision to unilaterally withdrawal from South Lebanon. Up until this point, the decision has had mixed results. The withdrawal sucessfully reduced Israel's casulties along the northern border, and dramatically reduced Syria's leverage in any negotiations involving the Golan. On the other hand, the impact of the withdrawal on the Palestinian front has been calamitous, as it led to a mistaken Palestinian view that the "Hezbollah" approach could have equal success in the West Bank and Gaza, obtaining an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders without the Palestinians having to make the concessions required by the Camp David proposals.


The lessons of Lebanon are important to consider in the light of steady slide of Israeli policy towards a unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza. Mostly, as this article by Dennis Ross notes, because there are no real alternatives.) There is clearly a serious short-term risk that such a withdrawal will be misinterpreted as a reward for Palestinian terror. However, in the longer term, separation may weaken the terrorist by udnercutting their domestic and international legitimacy.


The real lesson from Lebanon might be that how the withdrawal is executed is critical. The circumstances surrounding the IDF's withdrawal gave it the appearence (if not the reality) of a panicked retreat. In contrast, if Israel is able to fully construct a border fence on its terms, methodically remove the isolated settlements, and maintain the capacity to strike back after any terror attacks, it might be able to execute the withdrawal in a way that minimizes the ability of Palestinian militants to claim victory. If that is the case, the withdrawal creates the context for Palestinian pragmatists to step forward to take advantage of the opportunities for peace that separation brings.