POLITICS-LEBANON: Israeli PM Confirms Withdrawal Offer at UN

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, May 15 1998 (IPS) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Friday reaffirmed to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan that Israel is willing to withdraw its troops from Southern Lebanon. Diplomats here and some of Israel’s neighbours have doubted the seriousness of that offer.

Netanyahu’s offer, approved last month by Israel’s right-wing Cabinet, poses several hurdles for the United Nations. A senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was too early to define a role for U.N. peacekeepers in the process. Many diplomats here questioned even the sincerity of the Israeli statement.

The Israeli prime minister, who arrived here following the latest in a series of failed talks with U.S. officials aimed at restarting the peace process with the Palestinian Authority, asserted his offer to end the 20-year Israeli occupation in Lebanon is genuine.

“I affirmed to the secretary-general Israel’s decision after 20 years to accept U.N. resolution 425 and to expedite Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon,” Netanyahu said. “We added no conditions – no requirement for a peace treaty with Lebanon – although we would like it.”

The withdrawal would only occur under conditions of “peace and security in the region,” he added.

Resolution 425, passed by the U.N. Security Council on March 19, 1978, calls on Israel “immediately to cease its military action against Lebanese territorial integrity and withdraw forthwith its forces from all Lebanese territory.”

The same day, the Council authorised a peacekeeping force, the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), to restore peace and security in the area – but it did not place any preconditions for Israel’s withdrawal. Lebanon and its ally, Syria, have been adamant that none should be set.

U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard confirmed after the meeting Friday that Netanyahu “stressed the need to ensure peace and security in the (South Lebanese) zone after the pull-out of Israeli troops,” but added that Israel “does not view that as a condition.”

In recent days, Syria in particular has seemed to doubt the Israeli offer was sincere. Arab diplomats here argued that, by attaching conditions to its withdrawal, Israel was seeking to maintain its hold over the 10-mile strip of Southern Lebanon which it has called its “security zone”.

Some U.N. officials, however, were convinced that Netanyahu’s Likud-led coalition government wants cut its losses in Lebanon, where Israel and its Lebanese proxy forces have suffered many casualties in fighting the Shi’a militias of the Hezbollah (Party of God).

Continued fighting in Lebanon long has been considered a fiasco by Israeli experts, especially since the original reason for Tel Aviv’s invasion – military activity in the South by the forces of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), which was expelled from the area in the 1980s – has been rendered moot.

Not only has the Iran-backed Hezbollah continued to harass Israeli troops and fire across the border at northern Israel, but the occupation has sparked some of the more embarrassing mistakes by the Israeli forces. Most recently, a 1996 Israeli attack on a U.N.-guarded refugee camp in Qana killed dozens of civilians and chilled relations with the United Nations.

Nevertheless, U.N. officials admit, the road out of Lebanon is expected to be a tricky one. Although UNIFIL is expected to ease the transition of Israeli troops from the area, one senior official said, the security arrangements would take time and could not even be determined until the United Nations is clear that Lebanon and Syria would accept the deal.

Still, by coming to the United Nations with his proposal of a Lebanon pull-out, Netanyahu at least managed deftly to escape the intense barrage of criticism his government has faced over the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

His visit came just one day after he and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright failed once again to forge an agreement on further Israeli troop withdrawals from the occupied West Bank.

Only some two percent of the West Bank is under Palestinian control now; although Washington and the Palestinian Authority have agreed on a further withdrawal from 13.1 percent of the West Bank in coming weeks, Netanyahu has insisted that Israel cannot give up more than 9 percent.

The prime minister, who met with many critics of U.S. President Bill Clinton this week, played down the disagreement as “differences around the dinner table” and said he was studying recent proposals made by Albright and would discuss them later this week with U.S. mediator Dennis Ross.

On Thursday, eight Palestinians – including two young children – were killed by Israeli troops, and hundreds more injured, while conducting peaceful demonstrations to protest the 50th anniversary of Israel’s founding.

“This tragic event underscores once more the importance of finding a way of moving the peace process forward without delay,” Annan said Friday as he called on Netanyahu for “maximum restraint”.

Mary Robinson, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, added that Israel must respect the right of peaceful assembly and avoid the excessive use of force, and warned that the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories is worsening.

Netanyahu, however, had no regrets. “We have no problem with peaceful assembly, but this wasn’t a peaceful assembly,” he argued. “This was an incitement to violence.” He accused the marchers of lighting Molotov cocktails and calling for Israel’s destruction and added, “They have to stop treating the creation of Israel as a catastrophe which should not have happened.”