Israel Insists on U.S. Brokering Lebanon Truce

Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres said Sunday that he intends to negotiate a cease-fire in southern Lebanon with the United States--and not with the Russian, French and other officials who are shuttling around the Middle East in hopes of making peace.

Citing the long history of the U.S. role in Middle East peace negotiations, Peres warned that the efforts by other governments to end the fighting between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia forces might become too disorganized and chaotic.

“If there will be more than one channel [for cease-fire talks], there will be total confusion,” Peres said after talks here with Secretary of State Warren Christopher. “And the responsible channel that has both the experience and the mechanism to do so is the United States of America.”

With Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny M. Primakov preparing to fly to Israel on behalf of his country’s peacemaking efforts, Peres said that “whoever wants to come in is welcome. But we cannot have three agreements on the same issue, because this will mean no agreement at all.”

As the diplomatic efforts continued, Israeli gunboats and warplanes pounded southern Lebanon, and Hezbollah guerrillas fired more rockets into northern Israel on Sunday.

But the intensity of the Israeli offensive, which it launched April 11 in response to Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel, diminished. Police said four people were wounded in the hostilities. The fighting has killed at least 136 and wounded more than 300 on both sides, according to Lebanese, U.N. and Israeli figures. Most of the casualties have been Lebanese civilians.

On Sunday, Israel lifted a week-old naval blockade on Beirut, but Israeli gunboats fired intermittently on the 50-mile-long coastal highway, blocking the main supply artery from Beirut to the south for the fourth day, Associated Press reported.

*

Peres’ remarks Sunday underscored the difficulties Christopher and other U.S. officials are having in working out an end to the fighting in southern Lebanon.

While Christopher was in the second day of Middle East shuttle diplomacy, both Primakov and French Foreign Minister Herve de Charette were carrying out their own talks with other governments in the region.

U.S. officials admit they have never had to conduct Middle East diplomacy with so many other would-be peacemakers on the scene. “The main reason [the other officials] have come is that this crisis took on such an intense human character. There’s such an immense cost in human suffering,” one senior State Department official said.

On Thursday, Israeli artillery shells crashed into a U.N. compound filled with refugees in southern Lebanon. U.N. officials say at least 75 people died in the attack, but Lebanese hospitals say the toll is closer to 100.

Both the French and the Russians are said to be trying to get Israeli forces to withdraw from southern Lebanon and to dismantle the 9-mile-wide “security zone” Israel has established in the area. U.S. officials support Israel’s position that its security zone cannot be dismantled quickly because it is necessary to protect communities in northern Israel.

Israel has said it will agree to no cease-fire without an ironclad promise that Hezbollah attacks on those communities will end.

There was no sign Sunday of how long it would take to arrange a cease-fire. Christopher’s aides estimated that it might take at least two or three more days. One Israeli television commentator quoted an aide to Christopher as saying the secretary has “clothes for three weeks.”

Israeli officials told Christopher on Sunday that they want to make sure that any cease-fire is an enduring one. U.S. officials said Israel does not want a cease-fire that might break down within a few days.

As a result, both Israel and the United States are seeking to have a detailed set of rules written down to cover military operations by both Israeli forces and Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon.

One problem confronting Christopher and other U.S. officials is the fact that the United States has no relations with Iran, the prime sponsor of the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah. Both the Russians and the French do have such ties, and they seem to believe they are in a better position than the United States to broker a cease-fire.

*

During two days of diplomacy here, U.S. officials have repeatedly said the United States has no intention of dealing with Iran. They contend that they can deal with Hezbollah primarily through Syria, which maintains about 35,000 troops in Lebanon and is in a position to control what supplies and arms the group obtains.

The more the United States seeks to keep Iran out of Middle East diplomacy, the more it is forced to rely upon Syrian President Hafez Assad to help arrange the cease-fire.

“Syria is a very important, vital, crucial player in this particular dialogue, and I wouldn’t be focusing my attention there--and I’m sure he [Assad] wouldn’t be taking the time--if he didn’t agree with that,” Christopher told reporters here Sunday.

But Israeli commentators say that Assad is behaving as someone who has “all the time in the world” because he feels international opinion turned against Israel with the shelling of the U.N. camp. Assad is reportedly pushing for Israel to get out of Lebanon and then hold subsequent talks about the disarming of Hezbollah.

U.S. officials argue that Russian and French diplomacy can’t work because both Israel and Syria will deal only with the United States.

Times staff writer Marjorie Miller contributed to this report.