The recent rocket attacks coming
out of Lebanon and directed against Israeli troops,
followed by a tough Israeli response, serve as a poignant
reminder that Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon a year
ago tomorrow did not exactly live up to expectations.
It may be useful to recall
just how high those expectations were. By a nearly
four-to-one margin, Israelis endorsed the retreat
from Lebanon as an excellent strategic move.
On the left, Internal Security
Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami thought Syria's President
was "very stressed by Israel's decision to withdraw
from Lebanon." On the right, Foreign Minister
David Levy declared the pullout would weaken Syria's
position.
Others speculated further.
Dan Margalit of Ha'aretz newspaper forecast it would
"spur Syria to come back to the negotiating table."
Novelist Amos Oz boldly predicted about Lebanon's
most aggressively anti-Israel organization: "The
minute we leave South Lebanon we will have to erase
the word Hezbollah from our vocabulary."
A year later, how do things
look?
The idea that an Israeli retreat
would scare Damascus into restarting negotiations
turns out to be as silly as it sounds. Hafez al-Assad
went to his grave without returning to the bargaining
table and his son Bashar has so far shown no willingness
to talk.
The expectation that Israel
would enjoy a peaceable northern border proved similarly
misguided. Hezbollah concocted a new claim to a piece
of Israeli-held land (the Shebaa Farms) to justify
continued hostilities. No longer restrained by Israel's
security zone in Lebanon, it threatens to use Katyusha
rockets against Israel proper, prompting an alert
as far away as Israel's third-largest city, Haifa.
Hezbollah has already attacked Israel seven times,
attempted many infiltrations, abducted three Israel
soldiers, and killed two others. In response, Israel's
government has deployed helicopter gunships and attacked
a Syrian radar site, killing three Syrian soldiers.
In brief, Hezbollah has hardly
been erased from the Israeli vocabulary.
But the greatest consequence
of the Israeli retreat was felt among the Palestinians.
That impact is partly practical, with Hezbollah providing
instruction and arms to the Palestinian Authority.
For example, Hezbollah reached an agreement with the
PA "to train fighters and provide weapons against
tanks and aircraft," reports the Middle East
Newsline.
Palestinians took up Hezbollah's
distinctive tactics and tools -- suicide bombings
on the one hand, roadside bombs detonated by mobile
phones on the other. They even adopted the Hezbollah
technique of filming themselves carrying out attacks
on Israelis, then making the film available to the
Arab and Muslim media. The impact is also psychological.
Palestinians watched Hezbollah impose every last one
of its demands on Israel, without having to sit around
a table with Israeli diplomats; this served as an
object lesson. Palestinians concluded that if they
used enough violence, they too could get all they
wanted from Israel, without having to compromise.
This "Lebanonization"
of the Palestinians has had major consequences. Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon draws a connection between the
Israeli retreat from Lebanon and "what happened
later on" with the Palestinians. The head of
Israel's former Lebanese allied force puts it more
strongly; Israel's every concession to Hezbollah,
he says, has been "very costly" for it in
dealing with the Palestinians. Specifically, Hezbollah's
success first inspired the Palestinians to turn down
even the amazingly generous terms that Ehud Barak
subsequently offered them, confident they could do
better on the battlefield. It prompted the Palestinians
to abandon the bargaining table and revert to violence
against Israel. It helps account for the escalation
in that violence, which started with rocks and now
includes long-distance mortar shellings.
The great majority of Israelis
a year ago lived in the sweet delusion that unilateral
concessions to neighbours would eventually win acceptance
and quiet. After eight months of Palestinian violence,
violence partly attributable to their withdrawal under
fire from Lebanon, the hollowness of this hope is
becoming increasingly apparent.
As they shudder back to reality,
Israelis can console themselves with the knowledge
that by abandoning their Lebanon delusion, however
painful that process is, they are taking the necessary
first step toward dealing with today's crisis. The
second step will be to understand that acceptance
by neighbours will result not from Israel's making
unilateral concessions but from its being respected
and feared.
