“Israel’s” Lebanon lesson…(14)

The recent rocket attacks coming out of Lebanon and directed against “Israeli” troops, followed by a tough “Israeli” response, serve as a poignant reminder that “Israel’s” withdrawal from Lebanon a year ago tomorrow did not exactly live up to its expectations.

It may be useful to recall just how high those expectations were. By a nearly four-to-one margin, “Israelis” endorsed the retreat from Lebanon as an excellent strategic move.

On the left, Internal Security minister Shlomo Ben-Ami thought that Syria's president was "very stressed by “Israel’s” decision to withdraw from Lebanon." On the right, foreign minister David Levy declared that the pullout would weaken Syria's position.

Others speculated further. Dan Margalit of Ha'aretz forecast that it would "spur Syria to come back to the negotiating table." Novelist Amos Oz boldly predicted about Lebanon's most aggressively anti-”Israel” organization: "The minute we leave south Lebanon we will have to erase the word Hizbullah from our vocabulary." A year later, how do things look?

The idea that an “Israeli” retreat would scare Damascus into restarting negotiations turns out to be as silly as it sounds. President Hafez Assad went to his grave without returning to the bargaining table and his son Bashar has so far shown no willingness to talk.

The expectation that “Israel” would enjoy a peaceable northern border proved similarly misguided. Hizbullah concocted a new claim to a piece of “Israeli”-held land (the Shaba Farms) to justify continued hostilities. No longer restrained by “Israel’s” security zone in Lebanon, it threatens to use Katyusha rockets against “Israel” proper, prompting an alert as far away as “Israel’s” third-largest city, Haifa. Hizbullah has already attacked “Israel” seven times, attempted many infiltrations, abducted three “Israel” soldiers and killed two others. In response, “Israel’s” government has deployed helicopter gunships and attacked a Syrian radar site, killing three Syrian soldiers.

In brief, "Hizbullah" has hardly been erased from the “Israeli” vocabulary.

BUT THE greatest consequence of the “Israeli” retreat was felt among the Palestinians. That impact is partly practical, with Hizbullah providing instruction and arms to the Palestinian Authority. For example, Hizbullah reached an agreement with the PA "to train fighters and provide weapons against tanks and aircraft," reports the Middle East Newsline.

Palestinians took up Hizbullah's distinctive tactics and tools – suicide martyrdom bombings on the one hand, roadside bombs detonated by mobile phones on the other. They even adopted the Hizbullah technique of filming themselves carrying out attacks on “Israelis”, then making the film available to the Arab and Muslim media.

The impact is also psychological. Palestinians watched Hizbullah imposes every last one of its demands on “Israel”, without having to sit around a table with “Israeli” diplomats; this served as an object lesson.

Palestinians concluded that if they used enough violence, they too could get all they wanted from “Israel” without having to compromise. This "Lebanonization" of the Palestinians has had major consequences.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon draws a connection between the “Israeli” retreat from Lebanon and "what happened later on" with the Palestinians. The head of “Israel’s” former Lebanese allied force puts it more strongly; “Israel’s” every concession to Hizbullah, he says, has been "very costly" for it in dealing with the Palestinians.

Specifically, Hizbullah's success first inspired the Palestinians to turn down even the amazingly generous terms that prime minister Ehud Barak subsequently offered them, confident that they could do better on the battlefield. It prompted the Palestinians to abandon the bargaining table and revert to violence against “Israel”.

It helps account for the escalation in that violence, which started with rocks and now includes long-distance mortar shellings.

The great majority of “Israelis” a year ago lived in the sweet delusion that unilateral concessions to neighbors would eventually win acceptance and quiet. After eight months of Palestinian violence - partly attributable to “Israel’s” withdrawal under fire from Lebanon - the hollowness of this hope is becoming increasingly apparent.

As they shudder back to reality, “Israelis” can console themselves with the knowledge that, by abandoning their Lebanon delusion, however painful that process is, they are taking the necessary first step toward dealing with today's crisis. The second step will be to understand that acceptance by neighbors will result not from “Israel’s” making unilateral concessions, but from its being respected and feared.

The writer, director of the Philadelphia-based Middle East Forum, can be reached via www.DanielPipes.org.