Israel’s Allies in Lebanon Face Unsure Future

The Azouri brothers, fresh from a six-month stint in prison, might be considered traitors to their country.

They joined an enemy army fighting on behalf of Israel and received paychecks from that force until the day it left town.

But then they decided to take their chances: Instead of fleeing, the Azouris turned themselves in to Lebanese authorities, did their time and are home again--out of work but alive.

“We stood trial, and that’s it,” Nabil Azouri said, huddled over the wood-burning stove in his mother’s stone house. Outside, snow blanketed this mountaintop Christian enclave that once headquartered troops of the South Lebanon Army. “The case is closed. Halas. It’s over.”

Trained and financed by Israel, the South Lebanon Army, or SLA, has helped battle Palestinian guerrillas and Islamic militants since the early 1980s in an Israeli-held buffer zone in southern Lebanon. The long, debilitating conflict has claimed hundreds of Lebanese, Israeli and Palestinian lives.

When the SLA withdrew its forces from Jezzine in June, it was the beginning of the end of Israel’s 22-year occupation of Lebanon.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak says he intends to bring his troops home by the fall as part of a broader agreement being negotiated by Israel and Lebanon’s political masters in Syria. The talks are scheduled to resume Wednesday in the U.S.

And if Jezzine was the test run for a full withdrawal, then the plight of the SLA militiamen who stayed behind could serve as a harbinger for what happens to thousands of Lebanese fighters and their families soon to be abandoned by their Israeli allies when a peace deal makes them obsolete.

As Jezzine was evacuated, the predictions were grim: Lebanon’s Syrian-backed Islamic Hezbollah guerrillas, who are still fighting the SLA, would sweep into Jezzine and slaughter Israel’s collaborators en masse; militiamen’s families would be rounded up and carted off to prison; bloody feuds to exact revenge would spill through the hills of southern Lebanon and beyond, destabilizing a precarious region.

The picture, thus far, is somewhat different. Active-duty SLA militiamen remain extremely worried about their futures, and many plan to quit Lebanon altogether. But here in Jezzine, those who stayed, such as Nabil Azouri, his two brothers and scores more, have shifted loyalties and made a delicate deal to survive.

Whether they are fully re-integrated into society is the next test for Lebanon’s shaky powers of reconciliation after years of sectarian bloodshed nearly destroyed the country and its institutions.

In summary trials before a military court, SLA militiamen from Jezzine were given sentences that ranged from six months to two years, according to attorney Edmond Rizk, a prominent politician who has represented Jezzine in parliament for years and whose law firm defended several of the men.

Of 180 men who surrendered to authorities in Jezzine, about 80 have served their sentences and been released, Rizk said. Efforts to introduce in parliament an amnesty law for former SLA collaborators have failed, however. The SLA has an estimated 2,000 fighters, but with families, the number balloons to about 17,000, Israeli officials say.

Rizk said a higher number of former fighters would surrender if the weak, fragmented Lebanese government had offered greater guarantees that the men would be safe. Instead, the government’s handling of Jezzine mirrors its actions everywhere else in Lebanon, he said, where officials respond to clans and religious sects, not to voters or out of a sense of fairness and democracy.

The Azouri brothers were among the first to finish their prison terms. Nabil Azouri, who is 30 and has three children, said he was a soda pop delivery man until he was press-ganged into the SLA in 1995. Once the SLA command withdrew in June, he was able to convince the Lebanese army that his service was forced. Brother Jibran Azouri, 35, had similar good fortune.

By their own accounts, neither Azouri was a hard-core fighter, and that explains in part their lenient treatment. Moreover, the SLA in Jezzine consisted primarily of local men who joined under threat or out of necessity. With Jezzine surrounded by enemies and most access cut off, jobs were scarce; working for the SLA meant a monthly paycheck of $350 to $1,000.

How they will make a living now is the Azouris’ biggest concern. Convicted collaborators have had to choose between living in Beirut or their hometowns, and once the choice is made, they cannot move. In a sense, Jezzine and its residents remain under siege: A Lebanese military checkpoint controls the road in, nonresidents must have a permit to visit, and plainclothes security men roam the streets.

Hezbollah guerrillas have been spotted on the fringes of town, but no revenge killings have been reported, residents and human rights activists say. This could be a ploy by Hezbollah, however, holding off for now to encourage more soldiers to desert or surrender.

If Jezzine and men like the Azouris seem calm, the reverse is true for other SLA fighters. This was evident last week in Safed, a Crusades-era town in northern Israel where the Israeli army hosted a New Year’s gala for about 500 officers of the SLA.

With all the forced gaiety of a farewell party on the Titanic, the crowd feasted on Middle Eastern food at tables laden with juices, beer and liter bottles of Chivas Regal. Israeli soldiers danced the Arab nekba with Lebanese and heard rousing speeches from the armies’ top commanders, including the Israeli deputy defense minister, who entered the ballroom to a five-minute rendition of “Jingle Bells.” Banners with the Star of David and the Lebanese national symbol, a cedar tree, festooned the hall.

Ephraim Sneh, the deputy defense minister, said to sustained cheers that Israel will stand by and protect its “neighbors who have been with us for all these years.”

“What is crystal clear is we do not abandon our allies,” Sneh said later in an interview. But he would not specify how Israel can protect Lebanese citizens once it withdraws. And, despite news reports that the Israelis are building two residential camps for SLA fighters in Israel, Sneh insisted that most of the militiamen should return to their homes and villages.

“They didn’t fight for 23 years to become refugees,” Sneh said.

As he spoke, belly dancers provided by the army were bumping and grinding down the aisles. Some of the officers struggled to place shekels in the silver-tasseled bra of a blond dancer.

Mohammed Khader, an 11-year veteran with the SLA, sat looking rather dejected at a back table with his wife, Samira, and three children. He knows full well that no peace agreement can stop revenge killings in the small villages throughout southern Lebanon. At best, he can expect an armed truce.

“I am not afraid of Hezbollah,” he said. “We have weapons. If anyone attacks, we will protect ourselves.”

Although the SLA leadership is dominated by Christians, most of the rank and file and many officers, such as Khader, are Shiite Muslims. Israel’s economic draw goes beyond funding the fighting force. All told, about 3,000 SLA soldiers and family members hold jobs in Israel.

While many SLA fighters consider themselves the only true patriots who have defended Lebanon against Syria and the Palestinians, many of the commanders were involved in some of the gruesome atrocities that characterized Lebanon’s civil conflict and war with Israel. A number have already been tried in absentia by Lebanese courts and will seek refuge in France, Israel or other countries.

Gen. Antoine Lahad, the 70-year-old commander of the SLA, was also at the party in Safed. Like Sneh, he offered few specifics on the fate that awaits his men.

“Some will run to join the Israelis, and some will join those who are fighting the Israelis,” he said. “And some will turn to prayer.”