To return to the new Peace Now website click here.

Hard Questions, Tough Answers with Yossi Alpher - October 16, 2006

BACK FROM VACATION! Alpher responds to questions on Avigdor Lieberman and the performance thus far of the reinforced UNIFIL contingent in southern Lebanon?

Q. PM Ehud Olmert is reportedly planning to bring Avigdor Lieberman and his Yisrael Beitenu party into the coalition and to place Lieberman in charge of strategic planning. How would this affect Israel's security and prospects for closer cooperation with its Arab neighbors?

A. Lieberman's entry into the coalition is not yet a done deal. He has proffered conditions, such as government support for his plan to introduce a presidential system to replace the present parliamentary system and instituting civil marriage (he represents a large Russian immigrant community, among them many non-Jews), that are not likely to be supported by the entire coalition. There is also ample evidence that Olmert is manipulating the Lieberman idea mainly to ensure that the Labor party accepts coalition discipline and votes for the budget, thereby at least temporarily obviating the need to enlarge the coalition.

Lieberman's extreme and even racist views on security and related issues are well known. He wants to detach Israeli Arab areas from the country by force and turn them over to a Palestinian state. He advocates attacking Arab civilians in war situations. Two years ago he threatened to drop a nuclear weapon on the Aswan Dam in Egypt. Olmert almost certainly has no intention of giving Lieberman any genuine responsibility regarding security --if indeed he wants him at all in his government. Were Lieberman and Yisrael Beitenu to join, the most material damage they could likely do would be to pull out of the coalition if Olmert opts for serious negotiations with the Palestinians or seeks to renew his convergence plan for the West Bank. Neither of these are likely options for the near term. On the other hand, Lieberman as "minister of strategic issues" is not likely to endear Olmert's coalition to Israel's Arab neighbors, at a particularly sensitive time.

Nevertheless, the Lieberman gambit is interesting because it tells us something about Olmert's attitude toward security issues. Olmert has reportedly offered Lieberman (who rather graciously has agreed to take on just one portfolio on behalf of his 11 MKs ) the strategic issues ministry and position of deputy prime minister, with the right to peruse the most secret intelligence reports and a seat in the security cabinet. Olmert has apparently reassured Minister of Defense Amir Peretz that Lieberman's job definition would not come at the expense of Peretz's areas of responsibility; he has offered similar reassurances to Minister of Transportation Shaul Mofaz, who is in charge of the strategic dialogue with the United States, and to Minister of Housing Meir Sheetrit, who is responsible for the security services. According to other reports, the strategic dialogue will indeed be delivered over to Lieberman.

Allowing a politician with Lieberman's views access to highly sensitive intelligence material, even without operative responsibilities, would undoubtedly be risky. But even assuming Lieberman's portfolio would be an empty shell, the substantive problem is Olmert's apparent readiness to allocate "security" portfolios to any and all comers as a means of buying political allegiance. His first mistake in this regard, for which the country paid a price in Lebanon this summer, was giving the Ministry of Defense to the inexperienced Peretz. By the same token, Sheetrit has no prior experience qualifying him to deal with the security services. And while Mofaz is eminently qualified to manage Israel's security dialogue with the US, this is by any standard of logic the job of the minister of defense or the national security advisor, not the minister of transportation.

By now, American security officials have grown accustomed to Israeli prime ministers downgrading the strategic dialogue by using it as a political payoff. Ariel Sharon appointed first arch-hawk Uzi Landau, then Tzachi HaNegbi, to manage Israel's end of the dialogue. Neither had significant security experience; Landau is now out of politics, while HaNegbi has been indicted on corruption charges. Then again, Sharon's appointment of the affable Mofaz to the defense ministry portfolio was itself largely a ploy to maintain ultimate control over security issues in the prime minister's hands (after the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre in Lebanon, Sharon was legally barred from serving as defense minister).

Olmert appears to have learned from Sharon. By appointing Peretz, he hoped to retain security control in his own hands. By handing out security "goodies" as political patronage he demonstrates a disdain for the weighty nature of these tasks. Sharon perhaps could get away with these manipulations because he himself was a storehouse of security knowledge and experience; ultimately, he made all the heavy decisions and maintained his own security dialogue with President Bush.

But the difference between Sharon and Olmert is that the latter has virtually no security experience. The Israeli public learned what this means in the recent Lebanon war. Now, in toying with a Lieberman appointment, Olmert appears to be compounding his mistakes.

Q. How would you assess the performance thus far of the reinforced UNIFIL contingent in southern Lebanon?

A. Thus far, some 5,800 international troops have deployed in the south (French, Italians, Spanish, Indians and Ghanaans) and in the waters off Lebanon (Germans and Greeks). Additional troops from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Turkey, Bulgaria and Indonesia are scheduled to arrive. The UNIFIL contingent is flanked by about 8,000 Lebanese troops--a number that is also growing--who have deployed south of the Litani River. According to IDF sources and based on reactions in the Arab press, this combined force, and particularly UNIFIL, appears to be making important progress in some areas but not in all.

UNIFIL is permitted, on the basis of UNSCR 1701 and Lebanon's agreement, to set up roadblocks, use force against hostile actors and confiscate illegal weapons. Hizballah, by quiet agreement, keeps its weapons out of sight in the south, thereby avoiding their confiscation. This is hardly an ideal arrangement from Israel's standpoint, but it is tolerable. More important, in early October UNIFIL headquarters at Naqura in the south stated that its forces have the right to use force even if not in self-defense in order to ensure that no military activities occur in the area of deployment. This was backed up the next day by the German ambassador to Lebanon, Marius Hass, who told the Lebanese daily an-Nahar that Germany had "obtained assurances of future cooperation from the Lebanese navy", thereby enabling the German naval contingent to "effectively pursue the [Hizballah arms] smugglers throughout Lebanese territorial waters in case of a tangible suspicion, and in case of evidence of arms smuggling".

These statements appeared to reflect a growing acknowledgement by UNIFIL that the only way it can do its job properly is to operate on the basis of the more expansive and operative clauses of 1701. In an exercise in constructive ambiguity, that Security Council resolution at one and the same time assigns this sort of authority to UNIFIL and conditions it on Lebanese government request. Accordingly, the Lebanese press has been rife with rumors of a secret protocol of 1701 (not a likely possibility at the UN) that lays out UNIFIL's "rules of engagement" in ways that correspond with these forceful statements, and with accusations that the more moderate factions in the current Lebanese government are making common cause with UNIFIL against Hizballah and Syria.

Thus, columnist Joseph Samaha commented in the Lebanese daily al-Akhbar: "The international force is playing with fire. . . . It is. . . an extension of Israel's aggression. It is showing no regard for Lebanese sovereignty." Perhaps more significantly, Lebanese parliament speaker and Shi'ite leader Nabieh Berri, not a member of Hizballah but closely linked with its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, warned UNIFIL soldiers in mid-October not to spy on Hizballah and Lebanon: "They are on our land. They should work for our interests, not those of Israel."

From the Israeli standpoint, the tenor of these remarks is positive; it indicates that UNIFIL is taking its task seriously and that it enjoys the support of key moderate elements in Lebanon.

On the other hand, UNIFIL has not yet been asked by the Lebanese to deploy along their border with Syria, where most of the weapons smuggling to Hizballah takes place. While the Lebanese Army claims to have intercepted at least one arms convoy at the border, and while weapons for Hizballah will presumably remain north of the Litani River and not be allowed into the South, this is clearly not sufficient. Hizballah already possesses a rocket arsenal capable of hitting Israel from launching sites north of the Litani.

Then too, Lebanon's minister of defense recently went on record threatening to direct anti-aircraft fire at Israeli over-flights of Lebanese territory. Israel argues that it is continuing to operate the over-flights because Lebanon has not yet fulfilled its end of the 1701 bargain: the two abducted soldiers have not been returned, and the embargo on transfer of war materiel is not being enforced effectively along the Lebanon-Syria border. Nor has the UN secretary general come up with a formula for resolving the dangerous Shebaa Farms dispute.

To sum up, UNIFIL appears to be progressing better than expected by most Israeli observers. But there remains plenty of potential for future clashes between Israel and Hizballah and its state sponsors.