Israel-Lebanon Talks on Pullout Close to Collapse

Talks aimed at securing an Israeli troop withdrawal from Lebanon appeared to be headed for collapse Monday.

Returning from a 17-day recess, Israeli and Lebanese military officers held their 12th negotiating session at the U.N. headquarters here near the Israeli border. Afterward, Lt. Col. Bassam Saad, a spokesman for the Lebanese delegation, said the negotiations “are at a risk of breaking down.”

His Israeli counterpart, Lt. Col. David Gazit, concurred, saying, “There is a possibility the talks will not resume.”

The atmosphere at the negotiations was tangibly gloomier--down to the presence of tombstone-like concrete slabs at the conference area to discourage a car bomb.

At their previous negotiating session Dec. 20, the Israelis gave the Lebanese what amounted to an ultimatum on the question of deploying U.N. peacekeeping forces in southern Lebanon to replace the Israeli troops that invaded Lebanon in 1982.

Israel wants the international troops--of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, or UNIFIL--to take up positions between the Zahrani and Awwali rivers, a large region north of the current UNIFIL zone of responsibility in the south.

On Sunday, Lebanese President Amin Gemayel asserted that his country “does not accept, nor will it accept, that United Nations forces be used to separate one Lebanese region from other regions or one Lebanese from other Lebanese.”

Beirut insists that the Israelis provide a timetable for withdrawal of their forces before it will spell out what expanded U.N. troop role it will accept.

The Lebanese delegation submitted Gemayel’s speech as its opening position at the talks Monday and the Israelis replied, saying that the Lebanese “evaded giving a clear answer” on the question of UNIFIL deployment.

Israeli military officers privately acknowledge that they are engaged in a round of brinksmanship with the Lebanese and that they expect to eventually return to the Naqoura talks.

By threatening to walk out of the talks, the Israelis hope that the specter of a unilateral withdrawal, and the chaos it would create in areas of southern Lebanon, will cause the Lebanese to reconsider and make concessions.

In addition, there are external factors that suggest that the time may not be right for either the Lebanese or the Israelis to reach a settlement in southern Lebanon.

Israel’s national unity government is made up of the Labor alignment, which feels no responsibility for the presence of Israeli forces in Lebanon and wants to get out, and the Likud bloc, which launched the invasion.

The Lebanese government, in turn, is reportedly under pressure from Syria to avoid making concessions to the Israelis.