The Costs of Wrath May Be Peace Delayed

Operation Grapes of Wrath will probably grind to its end without Israel winning the guaranteed long-term relief it has sought from cross-border rocket attacks by the Lebanese militia, Hezbollah. Meanwhile, the operation is piling up other costs for Israel and for the United States. Syrian President Hafez Assad’s “scheduling conflict,” which denied Secretary of State Warren Christopher a meeting with him on Tuesday, encapsulates the new complexities facing American diplomacy. The French formula for a cease-fire, which is at serious variance with Israel’s demands, has given Syria wider room to maneuver.

The Clinton administration’s initial position appeared to offer full support to Israel, creating the perception in the Middle East that Israel had a green light to respond to attacks as harshly as it wished. This perception caused potential risk to Americans because of the resentment felt by groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. In fact, when backgrounding the press last week in Washington, unidentified officials said the U.S. would neither intervene nor mediate. Only after the operation had been in progress for a week did President Clinton change the administration’s stance, invest his prestige in a call for an immediate cease-fire and send Christopher to the region.

It is easy to understand pent-up Israeli frustration at the bus bombings for which the Palestinians, Hamas and Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility earlier this year. No Israeli considers closure of the borders with the West Bank and Gaza an assurance of full protection against further suicide bombers. To have a more easily identifiable target in their sights, the Hezbollah fighters, with whom Israel has been dueling since 1983, surely contributed to the jubilation evident in the early photos of Israeli artillerymen.

Prime Minister Shimon Peres’ hope for reelection alone did not create the present operation. He acted in accordance with longstanding Israeli security doctrine. Washington’s initial posture reflected its unwillingness to criticize Israeli security decision-making and its desire to see Peres reelected and the peace process furthered.

It is early to say whether Operation Grapes of Wrath has helped or hurt Peres. But there are four clear downsides for Israel:

* By deliberately creating a refugee population of 400,000 and inadvertently killing civilian Lebanese, including the refugees at a United Nations post, Israel has raised a firestorm of international criticism and eliminated any question of a balance of suffering between Israelis and Lebanese.

* The fighting will enhance Hezbollah’s recruitment efforts. This does not mean that Hezbollah will have won friends among the non-Shiite population of Lebanon, but it will have burnished its claim to be the only defender of Lebanese sovereignty within its own community.

* The operation will stimulate further violence down the road. Hamas and Islamic Jihad promised actions against Israel in a joint statement on the third day of the operation.

* Israel cannot drive a wedge between Lebanon and Syria by these attacks. Lebanon is not a free agent when it comes to dealing with its southern sector. Hezbollah military will continue to operate there as long as it is in the interest of both Iran and Syria that it continue. As far as Damascus is concerned, it will probably await satisfaction in the (now suspended) Syrian-Israeli negotiations to make it worth Syria’s while to put Hezbollah down once and for all. Israel cannot today shift the pressures that it is putting on the Lebanese population directly onto Syrian shoulders, and Syria is showing it can comfortably bear Lebanese pain.

The 1993 agreement mediated by Christopher, which prohibited Hezbollah from cross-border attacks and Israel from attacking north of the security zone, should be reinstated and, if possible, tightened. Hopefully the current military exchanges will soon end and all the parties will find their way back to the negotiating table to build on their remarkable achievements since the 1991 Madrid summit. Eventually, those talks will restart, but this exercise in wrath may prove costly to the peace process.