‘Lebanon Solution’ Is Not an Option

The unprecedented Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon has been hailed by many as a direct result of the armed attacks by Hezbollah fighters and other Lebanese resistance groups. It didn’t take long for many to encourage Palestinians who want to liberate their occupied lands to follow the armed resistance methods used successfully in Lebanon. The Islamic Jihad and the Hamas movement were quick to call for the suspension of peace negotiations and the taking up of arms against Israel. Even Palestinian supporters of the peace process feel it is difficult to ignore what is now being called the “Lebanon solution.” They argue that it is difficult to convince people that nonviolent resistance works, when we see that armed resistance produced what negotiations failed to. They find it almost impossible to preach nonviolent acts like the recent Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strike when, on TV, Lebanese prisoners are shown liberated because of the armed resistance.

Theoretically, it is difficult to deny the results that the Lebanese military resistance has produced. Claiming to be fulfilling Security Council Resolution 425, Israel for the first time withdrew as a direct result of armed attacks without even a cease-fire agreement.

There also is no doubt that, just like the occupation of southern Lebanon, the continued occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip contradicts international resolutions, among them U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which demand that Israel withdraw from areas it occupied in June 1967.

Yet this may be as far as the similarities go. Southern Lebanon is very much different from the West Bank. The Lebanese resistance has the advantage of a weak central government, regular and protected lines of support and refuge areas, as well as the active support of two key Arab countries.

The Lebanese also had the advantage of fighting for an area that Israeli Jews made no religious claims to or had ambitions for. And finally, unlike the Palestinian areas, Israeli Jews have not built a single Jewish settlement in Lebanon. Palestinians tried the armed struggle long before the Lebanese and Hezbollah. Between 1965 and 1988, Palestinians fought Israel militarily despite the active opposition of all the Arab countries in the region.

The change from the armed struggle to political negotiations is perhaps the most important and basic difference between the Lebanese and Palestinian situations. For Palestinians, this change of tracks began in the late 1980s as a result of the intifada, the uprising of Palestinians under occupation. The popular intifada and pressure from the local Palestinian leadership caused a strategic change in Palestine Liberation Organization thinking and policy to the negotiations track. This became evident during the historic resolutions of the Palestine National Council in 1988 in which the PLO accepted the concept of two states--a Palestinian one alongside the state of Israel.

The pressure from inside the occupied territories to the PLO leadership outside to follow the negotiations track stemmed from the realization that the long-term future of Palestine can’t benefit from indefinite armed confrontation. In this, the Palestinian situation is much different from that of the Lebanese.

Both Lebanon and Syria are sovereign countries with stable regional and international relations. They could easily do without any relations whatsoever with Israel. Palestinians in the occupied territories recognized that any long-term solution to their problem must include some type of normal relations with the three surrounding countries--Jordan, Egypt and Israel. With all three countries violently opposed to the military option, the PLO had no realistic choice but to negotiate.

What is troubling about the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon is not whether Palestinians will follow the Lebanese example, but whether the Israeli response to the Palestinian olive branch will be similar to its response to the Hezbollah gun. Despite the actions of a few Palestinian hotheads, the current leadership of the Palestinian people and the consensus among most Palestinians is that negotiating is the right course. Failure to produce convincing results on the ground will prove the mistake of the pro-peace majority of Palestinians and will influence those who might be easily swayed to the romantic notion of armed struggle rather than political negotiations.

The Barak government can answer the skeptics of the peace process by immediately releasing the pro-peace PLO fighters still in jail, fulfill the remaining interim agreement commitments and move seriously in the permanent peace negotiations. The real challenge to the Israeli prime minister is to show the same courage he did in fulfilling Resolution 425 by adhering to Resolution 242, which calls for the withdrawal from the Palestinian occupied territories and the resolution of the refugee problem. Otherwise, this conflict will drag on as a result of the belief by many that the “Lebanon solution” can work in Palestine.