The escalating exchange of heavy firepower killed at least two Israeli civilians and nine Lebanese. It began with an artillery assault on a village in southern Lebanon, an alleged stronghold of Hizbullah, the anti- Israel guerrilla army. The artillery belonged to the South Lebanon Army, a militia group armed and funded by the Israeli armed forces. Rather than striking back at the SLA, Hizbullah retaliated with a barrage of Katyusha rockets fired at Israeli targets in Galilee. The Hizbullah attack killed two people and provoked Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s outgoing prime minister, to order the heaviest airstrikes on Lebanon in three years. Israeli jets bombed bridges, power stations and other targets around Beirut, plunging most of the Lebanese capital into darkness. At the weekend, a convoy of Israeli tanks was sent to the border. Meanwhile Barak could do nothing but deny any role in Netanyahu’s decision to launch an attack–and pray he can get his government assembled before worse harm is done.
In some ways the region’s prospects for peace have seldom looked brighter. Al Hayat, the influential London-based Arabic-language newspaper, ran an extraordinary pair of interviews last week with the two men best situated to achieve such a breakthrough: Barak and Hafez Assad. The Syrian president hailed Barak as “a strong and honest man” who “wants to achieve peace with Syria.” The former Israeli Army chief of staff returned the compliment, praising Assad’s achievement in “building a strong, independent and self-confident Syria.” Both men seem intent on making peace. The trick is to ensure Israel’s security while resolving territorial conflicts with Syria in the Israeli-held Golan Heights and with Damascus’s client state, Lebanon, in the “security zone” along Israel’s northern border.
Maybe the two leaders really can make it happen. The thought seems to worry some veteran antagonists in Lebanon anyway. “You have a number of parties with an unholy agenda to sabotage the prospects for peace,” says Moshe Ma’oz, a Hebrew University professor who specializes in Syrian relations. “It’s in their interest to prevent a deal between Syria and Israel.” One major loser in any such deal would be Hizbullah, the Iranian-backed guerrilla army that has been fighting the Israelis in Lebanon for the last 17 years for the explicit purpose of getting Israel out of Lebanon. Syria controls Hizbullah’s military supply lines–and would surely be required to shut them down in any peace pact with Israel. The SLA would be even harder hit by peace; if the Israelis pull out, rival militias will declare open season on their local proxy.
The peacemakers won’t give up easily. Some analysts wonder if the Hizbullah attack means the guerrillas are preparing to part ways with Syria. “They want to make sure they won’t be ignored in the next stage,” says Martin Kramer, director of the Dayan Center for Middle East Studies at Tel Aviv University. Others say the guerrillas’ ploy may backfire, forcing Assad to prove his good will by cracking down on Hizbullah. Barak may yet keep his promise. ^
