Israel Offers Troop Withdrawal From South Lebanon

JERUSALEM —  Under pressure to end its 20-year occupation of southern Lebanon, Israel is offering to withdraw its troops if the Lebanese can guarantee that the Jewish state will be safe from cross-border guerrilla attacks.

Israel until recently had insisted that this pullout be part of a broader peace agreement with Lebanon and its dominant neighbor, Syria. Now, Israel is saying it need only negotiate a satisfactory security arrangement.

Lebanon and Syria rejected the Israeli overture as “nothing new,” noting that Israel has been ordered by the United Nations to withdraw from Lebanese territory immediately and unconditionally, without further negotiation.

“No one, including Lebanon, is allowed to reconsider or interpret” the U.N. order, known as Resolution 425, Lebanese Foreign Minister Faris Bouez said in Beirut. “Lebanon’s mere acceptance of sitting down at the negotiating table would constitute a backing down” from the resolution.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has come under mounting pressure to end his government’s costly, deadly entanglement with Lebanon, whose southern territory was occupied by Israel in 1978 in what the Israelis have said was an operation to protect their border.

Dozens of Israeli soldiers have since been killed in fighting with Iranian-backed Hezbollah guerrillas, who want to drive Israel from its nine-mile-deep self-declared “security zone” inside Lebanon. Three Israeli soldiers were killed last week and 39 last year, the highest toll in Lebanon in 13 years.

“The moment a promise is made that Hezbollah will be disarmed in south Lebanon and will not pose a threat to the northern [Israeli] communities . . . we will be willing to leave south Lebanon,” Netanyahu told local television Monday.

Senior officials in November began floating the idea of a troop withdrawal. But only now has Netanyahu added his voice. On Friday, he told a delegation of Canadian Jews that he had “no qualms” about heeding U.N. Resolution 425, issued in 1978, as long as Israel’s security was assured.

On Sunday, he went a step further and presented the proposal to the Cabinet.

“We always hoped that the Lebanese problem was to be resolved in the framework of the peace process on the Syrian and Lebanese tracks,” said Uri Lubrani, the Israeli government’s coordinator for Lebanon. “This won’t happen now--not immediately in any case. And we have the desire now to deal with this problem on the basis of net security.”

Netanyahu’s statements appear aimed at quelling domestic public protest over the Lebanon occupation. Critics suggested that the Israeli prime minister was also attempting to divert attention from the moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

And Syria accused Netanyahu of attempting to sow division between Beirut and Damascus. Syria has an estimated 30,000 troops stationed in Lebanon and holds considerable sway over Lebanese affairs. It has attempted to use its influence in Lebanon as leverage to force Israel to relinquish the Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria in the 1967 Mideast War.

While Lebanon and Syria rejected Netanyahu’s proposal, reaction from Israeli politicians was mixed. Several, including Labor Party leader Ehud Barak, said withdrawal is a mistake because it would endanger Israeli villages and convey weakness.

Israeli officials conceded that the condition they are setting--that Lebanon prevent Hezbollah from attacking Israel’s northern villages in the Galilee--might be impossible.

Uzi Arad, Netanyahu’s foreign policy advisor, who was dispatched to solicit European support for the Israeli initiative, said Lebanon might be too weak, and Syria too recalcitrant, to control security. “The Lebanese army has the power,” Netanyahu said in the television interview, “but I don’t think it is backed by political will.”

Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai, who has voiced support for a conditional withdrawal from Lebanon, on Monday attempted to inject a degree of caution. “I suggest we remain realistic,” he told reporters as he toured the southern Lebanon army post where three Israeli soldiers were killed last week. “We will need a whole lot more time to deal with the problems we have in Lebanon.”