A year after Lebanon pullout, “Israelis” ask: Did it backfire?

“ A year after “Israeli” troops pulled out of Lebanon, “Israelis” still debate whether it was a good idea.

The withdrawal ended an entanglement that cost thousands of “Israeli” and Arab lives, and Katyusha rockets have not landed in northern “Israel” since last May. The hasty retreat on May 24, 2000, also hardened Palestinian positions during peace talks that broke off in January.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat told “Israeli” negotiators at the time that the pullout put him in a difficult position, said former “Israeli” Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami, who headed the “Israel” team.

"Arafat told me, `Hizbullah were our pupils and look, 400 of them kicked you out of Lebanon,"' Ben-Ami said in an interview Wednesday. "It had a tremendous effect."

Despite such misgivings, the Yediot Ahronot daily wrote in an editorial Wednesday that former Prime Minister Ehud Barak was correct to order the pullout.

"A year later ... it seems to have been a brave and wise decision to pull out," Yediot wrote. "The hardest question is: Why didn't they decide on a pullout sooner?"

However, others said it was too early to draw conclusions.

Gerald Steinberg, director of the BESA center for strategic studies at Bar-Ilan University, said the situation remains volatile: "There's a pretty high level of alert along the border and the pullout did not end the threat from Lebanon."

“Israel” had hoped the Lebanese army would take the 440-square-mile zone it evacuated and guard the border. “Israel” also expected Hizbullah to be disarmed and with “Israel” no longer an occupier cease trying to fight it.

Instead, the border area is controlled by Hizbullah, and its leader frequently proclaims his group's continued dedication to battling “Israel”.

Clashes continue at one point along the border a hill known as Chebaa Farms. Three “Israeli” soldiers were kidnapped there last fall, and they remain missing.

Also, Hizbullah is trying to help the Palestinians in their renewed struggle with “Israel” attempting to send in weapons, train Palestinian fighters and even claiming a few attacks itself.

What “Israel” hoped would be seen as a gesture "was interpreted by the Arabs as weakness," said military analyst Zeev Schiff. "The Arab side is convinced now that there is no need to reach accords with “Israel”, that only strength will achieve their ends. That's why the Palestinians abandoned agreements in favor of a low-intensity conflict and terror."

In the negotiations, “Israel” had offered the Palestinians a state on 97 percent of the West Bank and Gaza, land compensating for the remaining 3 percent in “Israel” proper, the dismantling of most Jewish settlements and a share of Al-Quds.

Talks broke off days before Barak lost an election. The main sticking points at the time were the fate of Palestinian refugees and control over a disputed Al-Quds shrine.

Many Palestinians say they are inspired by Hizbullah.

"Only the Hizbullah strategy is the way," said Ali Saleh, a shopowner in the West Bank town of Ramallah. "“Israel” is not interested in having an independent Palestinian state beside her which might have its army and power."

Still, the circumstances are different: “Israel” had no territorial claim in Lebanon, whereas for many Jews the West Bank is their biblical birthright. Some 200,000 Jewish settlers live in the West Bank, whereas there were none in Lebanon, and the West Bank abuts Al-Quds and is just a few miles from Tel Aviv.

Yet polls show growing numbers of “Israelis” perhaps a majority now favor a unilateral pullout from much of the West Bank and Gaza.

“Israel’s” Lebanon imbroglio began after 1970, when Jordan expelled thousands of Palestinian guerrillas to Lebanon, where they helped spark civil war in 1975. Palestinian guerrillas turned south Lebanon into a staging ground for infiltrations and rocket attacks.

This prompted two “Israeli” invasions, in 1978 and 1982, that succeeded in expelling Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization. “Israel” continued to occupy half of Lebanon after the Palestinians left, then found itself fighting Hizbullah.

It relinquished most of the territory in 1985, keeping only the border strip. But casualties almost 1,000 “Israeli” soldiers killed from 1982 until the pullout brought public pressure to withdraw.

“Israeli” newspapers this week republished a photo that has became a symbol of the pullout, showing soldiers waving an “Israeli” flag atop an armored vehicle returning to “Israel”. Dominating the photo is Sgt. Sharon Shitubi, his features locked in a smile of satisfaction and relief.

Six months later, while guarding a Jewish settlement in Gaza, Shitubi was shot and killed by a Palestinian gunman.