Danger on the Border

The violence that accompanied Israel’s invasion of Lebanon attends its withdrawal. The phased pullout that is supposed to bring all Israeli troops home by fall has now unwisely relocated the bulk of the occupying army smack in the Shia heartland. The results of this concentration of forces amid a notably hostile population have been predictable and bloody. Attacks on Israelis have increased, and brutal countermeasures have followed. Israel says that its raids on Shia villages are meant to protect its forces from guerrilla assaults. But the policy of iron-fisted retaliation has also taken innocent lives and inflicted needless destruction, feeding a hatred that will endure long after the last Israeli has gone home.

It is an ugly and tragic business, and prolonging it brings no advantage. Prime Minister Shimon Peres seems to recognize that. So does Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who has indicated that only the need to dismantle the army’s defensive and operational facilities delays its departure. The Israeli press is virtually of one voice in calling for a prompt withdrawal. The Israeli public is shocked and disgusted by the mounting human costs of maintaining a pointless occupation. For all that, powerful political figures, including some within the cabinet, continue to argue against a rapid pullout, implicitly threatening to bring down the government if their counsel is ignored.

Among them are some of the architects and strongest supporters of the disastrous invasion who now, standing logic on its head, cite the outburst of guerrilla activity as a reason for staying put, rather than getting out. Others, including some high army officers who have never been happy with the Lebanon adventure, fear that a retreat under guerrilla pressure could have unhappy consequences for military morale, and might even inspire more intense anti-Israel activity on the West Bank. These concerns, probably overstated in any case, ought hardly to be determining in the light of what is happening now.

Israel can gain nothing either politically or militarily by delaying its full withdrawal. It can only lose morally by continuing to send its troops and tanks into villages to shoot suspects, crush cars, blow up homes and cart away every male capable of carrying a gun. The Shias are not going to be cowed by brute force, and the security that Israel seeks is hardly going to be won by actions that create additional hostility on its border. Nothing in Lebanon has gone right for Israel, least of all its effort to get out gracefully. What is left for it now is simply to get out, as fast as it humanly can.