In retrospect, the fighting between Hizbullah and Israeli forces in the Shebaa Farms Friday was a fairly predictable outcome of the assassination last Saturday of Hizbullah member Ali Hassan Saleh, which was almost certainly an Israeli operation. However, why did the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon risk reviving an overt and covert war with Hizbullah that Israel has rarely showed signs of winning?
When entering the dark corners of the Hizbullah-Israeli relationship, one can only speculate. Still, the political context in the region and in Washington allows for fairly educated guesses.
When Israel kills a Hizbullah member, it provokes pleasure or, at best, indifference in the US. In contrast, when Hizbullah retaliates in kind, the Bush administration feigns outrage. That line of reasoning surely guided Israel in Saleh’s killing. With Hizbullah chafing because of its previously enforced quietude in the Shebaa Farms, the Israelis calculated the party would retaliate and, so, provoke renewed US hostility. Hizbullah did retaliate it had to in order to preserve its deterrent capabilities vis-a-vis Israel and now appears to have walked into an Israeli trap.
The killing of Saleh most probably had two other aims. First, it had to be seen in light of Hizbullah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah’s effort 10 days ago to revive negotiations on an exchange of Israeli and Lebanese prisoners, or their remains. By bombing Saleh’s car, Israel warned Nasrallah to avoid kidnapping more Israelis as bargaining chips, as he had threatened to do if a prisoner exchange wasn’t concluded.
In this context, Israel may have also been trying to raise the negotiating stakes. It remains unclear what each side demanded from the other in the past. Does Israel want information on the downed airman Ron Arad? Is Hizbullah trying to ensure that Palestinian prisoners are also included in an exchange package? Are both sides really interested in cutting a deal at all?
More importantly, Saleh’s assassination was also intended to fence in the Syrians. In provoking a Hizbullah strike, the Israelis understood this would only bring more American wrath down on Damascus. With Congress eager to resurrect the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003, any move by Hizbullah could be used against Syria by Israel’s friends in Congress, but also by Washington neoconservatives who have no sympathy for the regime of President Bashar Assad.
Hizbullah’s decision to act in the Shebaa Farms was revealing. Many expected the party to mount a retaliatory attack that was deniable and limited in scope. What occurred, instead, was a return to the unsubtle ways of the past. A possible explanation for this was that Hizbullah had to react quickly to Saleh’s killing, and didn’t have time to plan a surgical attack. Another is that by confining its operation to the Shebaa Farms, Hizbullah showed it was adhering to the rules of the game in the South, even though Israel failed to do so last Saturday.
Yet even a restricted operation in the Shebaa Farms can now be disproportionately played up in Washington, where the hawks are truly hawk-like in their aptitude to zero in on Syrian and Hizbullah transgressions. Syria and Hizbullah found themselves in the unenviable position of being damned if they didn’t react to the Saleh assassination, and, now, damned that they have.
The American backlash may not be felt right away. Israel’s provocation in rubbing Saleh out could have been part of a longer-term strategy to destroy any goodwill the Syrians might still have in Washington, and to use this as leverage to push Assad into disarming Hizbullah.
Whatever the explanation, the message this past week was a simple one: Neither Hizbullah nor Syria may have opened fire on Israel, but the cards are so stacked against them in the US that they’re the ones who will end up paying the highest price.
Michael Young is opinion editor of THE DAILY STAR. His weblog is www.beirutcalling.blogspot.com
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