Israel Accepts ’78 U.N. Order for Lebanon Pullout

In an official policy shift, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s national security Cabinet team Wednesday formally accepted a 20-year-old United Nations resolution calling for a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.

The vote is symbolically important but unlikely to bring a quick end to the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, increasingly unpopular at home.

This is the first time an Israeli government has accepted U.N. Resolution 425, adopted after Israel first invaded Lebanon in 1978 to wipe out Palestinian guerrilla camps.

The decision also represents a change for Netanyahu, who once said he would pull back Israeli troops only under a formal peace treaty with Lebanon or its de facto ruler, Syria.

But the government conditioned its willingness to bring Israeli troops home on a security agreement with Lebanon ensuring that the Lebanese army will take control of the area and prevent attacks on northern Israel by the Shiite Muslim guerrillas of Hezbollah.

The Lebanese government and Syria dismissed the decision, saying that any Israeli pullback must be unconditional. Syria has tens of thousands of troops in Lebanon and a veto power over Lebanese security and foreign policy decisions.

“Lebanon will not negotiate with Israel over the withdrawal,” Lebanese President Elias Hrawi told reporters in the United Arab Emirates, where he was visiting.

Netanyahu insisted that the Cabinet decision indicates he is serious about getting Israel out of the bloody quagmire in southern Lebanon. “It’s an indication of our intention to resolve the Lebanon question once and for all, and we hope that other governments--but especially the government of Lebanon--will heed this call and enter into discussions with us on how to implement it,” he said.

But Netanyahu’s critics asserted that the announcement was a ploy to deflect attention from the failing Palestinian peace talks. They said he knows that a Lebanon initiative will not go anywhere without negotiations with Syria for the return of the Golan Heights, which Israel captured in 1967.

The withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon would weaken Syria’s bargaining position with Israel. Hezbollah is Syria’s “club” in any negotiations with Israel, as supplies and funding for the guerrilla group pass through Damascus; removing Hezbollah as a threat would remove Israel’s incentive to negotiate with Syria over the Golan.

“This is a theoretical decision,” said Moshe Maoz, head of Hebrew University’s Truman Institute and an expert on Syria. “You need not only Lebanon to agree but the Syrian sanction, and nothing has changed here.”

He said the Israeli government was trying to “throw the ball in Lebanon’s court” and drive a wedge between Lebanon and Syria.

Meanwhile, Yossi Beilin, of Israel’s opposition Labor Party, put his own Lebanon plan forward, calling for a unilateral and unconditional pullout but with a U.N. force moving in to guarantee Israel’s security. He said the Americans, Europeans and Japanese should then tell Syria that it would be treated as “a pariah state” if it promoted or supported attacks against Israeli territory by Hezbollah or other groups.

“If the plan means leaving Lebanon only on condition of an agreement with Lebanon and Syria, regretfully it will not happen,” Beilin said.

Infrastructure Minister Ariel Sharon, who as defense minister in 1982 engineered an Israeli invasion of Lebanon to drive out guerrillas of the Palestine Liberation Organization, makes a similar argument. He contends that Israel should withdraw unilaterally, but in stages and with threats of massive retaliation if there are attacks against Israeli territory.

The PLO is long gone from Lebanon and is now in the West Bank and Gaza negotiating for a Palestinian state via the Palestinian Authority. But for more than a decade, Iranian-backed Hezbollah has been fighting a guerrilla war to drive Israel out of Lebanon.

In Washington, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright welcomed the Israeli offer as “a positive step” and called for discussions between Israel and Lebanon.

The Israeli decision was made by the 11 of 18 ministers who make up the security Cabinet. They said they accepted Resolution 425 “so that the [army] will leave Lebanon with appropriate security arrangements and so that the Lebanese government can restore its effective control over southern Lebanon and assume responsibility for guaranteeing that its territory not be used as a base for terrorist activity against Israel.”

The ministers called on the Lebanese government to begin talks to retake control of its territory. They also said Israel considers protection of the Christian-led South Lebanon Army, its proxy force in southern Lebanon, “an integral part of the implementation of Resolution 425.”