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Lebanon pullout raises stakes for Barak, Arafat

May 22, 2000
Web posted at: 11:04 AM EDT (1504 GMT)

By Tony Karon

(TIME.com) -- Israel's race to depart Lebanon could make life difficult for Yasser Arafat, because the spectacle of the Israeli army retreating under fire is emboldening Palestinian militants hostile to the peace process. An offensive by Hezbollah had, by Monday, sliced Israel's southern Lebanon occupation zone in half, leaving hundreds of Israeli-allied militiamen stranded as the guerrillas pressed their attack to ensure that the Israelis are seen to be retreating under duress.

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That decision may be driven by Hezbollah's domestic political concern to claim the mantle of Lebanon's liberators, but its wider significance should not be underestimated. Throughout the Arab world the Lebanese guerrilla outfit is being championed as the first army ever to liberate Arab territory from Israel by force of arms, but nowhere more so than in the Palestinian territories where a new generation of youths has, over the past week, taken up stones and gasoline bombs against the Israelis.

While the violent protests that began last week may have initially suited Arafat's agenda -- "Setting fires in the hope of bringing out the American fire brigade," says TIME West Bank correspondent Jamil Hamad -- they have become a channel for pent-up Palestinian frustration with both Israel and Arafat himself, and the Palestinian Authority may struggle to bring them under control.

Almost a year after his election got most of the Middle East bullish on peace, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak is looking decidedly more embattled. The escalating violence both in the Palestinian territories and in Lebanon prompted the Israeli leader this weekend to call off a visit to Washington for talks with President Clinton, and to also summon home his envoys from talks in Sweden aimed at finding a breakthrough in the deadlocked negotiations with the Palestinians. Barak also has seen his overtures to Syria come to nothing.

Although he plans to fulfill his promise to voters to pull out from Lebanon by July, the absence of a peace deal with Syria -- which is the puppetmaster in south Lebanon -- means that Israel's withdrawal will take the form of a retreat under fire, something Syria's President Assad is not unhappy about. In fact, the whole situation means that a peace agreement with Syria remains unlikely during President Clinton's term of office; the same also may be true on the Palestinian track, where the September deadline for a final agreement set by both sides in conjunction with Washington now appears unrealistic.

Barak's postponed visit to Washington suggests that both he and Arafat may be tempted now to take the measure of the next U.S. administration assigned to umpire the peace process before committing themselves to any final decisions. And to turn up the heat on each other while they wait.

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