All Lebanese Aren’t the Enemy : Any raid by Israel needs to be targeted tightly on Hezbollah

Frustrated by its inability to suppress Hezbollah’s rocket attacks on its northern communities, Israel is waging war against Lebanon’s economy in the hope that the Beirut government and its Syrian masters can be bludgeoned into reining in the radical Islamic organization. Power stations in the capital, newly restored after the devastation of the Lebanese civil war, have been bombed. Israeli naval craft are imposing a partial blockade on Lebanese ports. An estimated 400,000 refugees have been forced from their homes in southern Lebanon by Israeli raids. Several score Lebanese have died in Israeli air and artillery attacks, none of them, if the Beirut government can be believed, members of Hezbollah.

U.S. diplomats are working to restore and strengthen an unwritten 1993 agreement that was supposed to put civilian targets off-limits to both Israel and Hezbollah soldiers. Israel says this time it wants an explicit commitment, guaranteed by Lebanon and Syria, that all cross-border attacks on Israel will cease. Under the 1993 agreement, fighting was supposed to be confined to the Israeli-declared, nine-mile-deep “security zone” in southern Lebanon, where Israeli ground forces are supported by a Lebanese mercenary contingent. But Lebanon’s government, as it freely acknowledges, lacks both the political and military strength to restrain Hezbollah, let alone disarm it. And Syria, which keeps 35,000 troops in Lebanon and controls Hezbollah’s supply routes, has so far shown no interest in ending this latest battle in a seemingly unending conflict.

Critics charge that Israel’s disproportionate response to Hezbollah’s rocketry is dictated by domestic politics. They’re at least partly right. With national elections coming on May 29, Prime Minister Shimon Peres cannot afford to appear anything but resolute when his country is under attack. His task in the campaign is not simply to persuade Israelis that peace with all of their Arab neighbors is a good thing--with that no one argues--but that his policies can achieve security along with peace. Hezbollah’s attacks contradict that goal.

In time, diplomatic efforts will find all parties ready for a settlement, and a negotiated halt to this latest round of bloodletting and destruction will come. Meanwhile, Israel would do well to remember that its sworn enemy is not all of Lebanon but the fanatics of Hezbollah. Military measures should be directed at that specific enemy.