Israel, Lebanon, and peace

National Review, March 16, 1992

AS MIDDLE EAST peace negotiators reconvened in Washington in the last week of February, Israeli helicopter gunships swooped down on the motorcade of Hezbollah leader Sheikh Abbas Musawi in southern Lebanon and blew him up; Shiite radicals stepped up their attacks on Israelis along the Lebanese border; Israel launched a major ground incursion and then pulled back; and Katyusha rockets landed on a kibbutz, killing a five-year-old girl.

Lebanon was again the innoncent victim, the dumping ground for the region's worst problems. Last year, Syria and Iran won Western goodwill by pressing Hezbollah to release the hostages there. It now seems that the quid pro quo that Damascus and Teheran gave Hezbollah was a free hand to step up its campaign against Israel. It's a dangerous game, particularly for the Syrians who now dominate Lebanon and may find themselves sucked into an unwanted confrontation with Israel. As for the late Sheikh Musawi, the Washington Post reported that he had boasted of his role in the 1983 car-bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut. He who lives by the sword . . .

Historical experience suggests, in any event, that this brutalizing of Lebanon, tragic as it is, will not seriously affect the central negotiation. The Palestinians, Syrians, Jordanians, and other delegations all showed up in Washington regardless. The breakthrough of Madrid--the agreement of Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate an interim accord on autonomy, without prejudice to the two sides' positions on the final status of the occupied territories--remains in hand. And an Israeli general election, now scheduled for June 23, promises to bring to office a government that will be more capable than its predecessor of restoring the strategic partnership with the United States and bringing the negotiations to a successful conclusion.

For that reason the week's most important news may have been the ascension of Yitzhak Rabin to the leadership of the Israeli Labor Party. Rabin--a distinguished contributor of NR's recent Middle East symposium (October 7, 1991)--combines toughmindedness on security with a strategic vision and commitment to peacemaking. He is also the most popular leader in Israel. The chances grow that, at the very least, we shall see again a Likud-Labor government of national unity that will be able to ignore the extremists and the small religious parties and navigate safely through the treacherous shoals of the negotiations.