Thorny Challenge for Beirut

The inability of Israel and Syria to agree on a basis for restarting their intermittent peace talks hasn’t affected Israel’s plan to withdraw its soldiers from their costly quasi-occupation of south Lebanon in July. Had peace talks been resumed, Israel probably would have won assurances from Syria, the behind-the-scenes power in Lebanon, that the border would stay calm. Instead the pullout could produce a security void that holds the seeds of renewed conflict.

The withdrawal represents Israel’s laggard acceptance of U.N. Security Council Resolution 425, more than two decades after it was voted. But it also presents an uncomfortable challenge to the Beirut government, which must now choose between exercising sovereignty by sending its army into the south to maintain security or abdicating that responsibility and letting de facto authority pass to Hezbollah, the militant Islamic group that has waged a long and now successful guerrilla war against Israel.

It’s clear that Beirut has little stomach for taking on the security role along the border, not so much because it fears Israel but because it fears a possible confrontation with Hezbollah. Such a face-off could threaten to reopen Lebanon’s brutal and destructive civil war. Over the weekend Lebanese Defense Minister Ghazi Zaytar suggested that Syrian troops--there are more than 35,000 stationed in Lebanon--might move into the border area to maintain security, an invitation Damascus swiftly declined.

Hezbollah warns that Israel won’t have peace until it reaches a comprehensive settlement with all Arabs. This implicit threat to Israeli territory, and the response it could provoke, should alarm Lebanon and Syria at least as much as Israel. A volatile border is a threat to regional peace. The Beirut government should make ready to assert its authority in the south.