Israel Asks for Trouble in Occupying Lebanon

In all of the reporting on the kidnaping of Sheik Abdel Karim Obeid and the execution of Lt. Col. William R. Higgins, very little attention has been paid to a key element in these events: Israel’s continuing occupation of southern Lebanon.

Obeid was a Muslim preacher in a village in that region and well-known to Israeli authorities. After his abduction, the Israeli military described him as an “inciter” of violence and the mastermind behind “attacks against Israel.” But almost immediately, the government radio was reporting the possibility of swapping him for three Israeli soldiers believed taken by Shiite forces in the area. The Israeli spin doctors went to work. Obeid, snatched from his home and family in the middle of the night, was now a hostage being offered for trade. His kidnaping was now an “arrest,” and the three missing military men, presumably prisoners of war, were now “hostages.”

One can reasonably ask whether the designers of the operation against Obeid foresaw the twists and turns that it would produce. Regardless, the Israeli image machine lost no time in keeping up with the changing headlines. At one point they sought to implicate Obeid in everything from the holding of American hostages in Lebanon (which, it should be noted, was not one of their initial charges) to the planning of the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing. At week’s end, Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin was taking credit for refocusing U.S. attention on our hostages in Lebanon, whom, he said, Washington had forgotten “but we have never forgotten.”

Spin aside, Obeid’s kidnaping was not intended to serve U.S. interests or to secure the freedom of U.S. hostages. In fact, only a month earlier a high Hezbollah leader indicated the possibility of movement toward their release. Obeid was taken simply to secure Israel’s control over southern Lebanon.

Israeli Defense Forces first invaded and seized Lebanese territory, up to a depth of more than 10 miles, in 1978. They have continued to control this area, under military administration, ever since. In addition to their direct presence, the Israelis also sponsor, fund, train and arm a surrogate force called the South Lebanon Army (which is a militia, not a government army) at a cost of about $30 million a year.

Israel withdrew to the 10 miles north of the border in 1985 after its ill-fated march on Beirut, giving the world the impression that the occupation was temporary. Since then, however, steps have been taken to establish a de facto annexation of this area:

Water resources have been diverted and are now administered under Israeli control.

Electricity and telephone lines have been severed from the Lebanese network and are now hooked up with Israel’s.

The economy has been brought under Israeli control and Israeli currency is used. Daily, thousands of Lebanese cross into Israel to work, and because the region is now cut off from other markets, Israeli agricultural and industrial products have a monopoly.

Currently visiting Washington, the governor of the district, Halim Fayyad, characterizes the situation as part of Israel’s “imperial designs” on Lebanon. “They seek to expand borders and gain rich water resources,” says Fayyad, and do so “in the name of their national security.”

The United States has refused to press Israel to withdraw from southern Lebanon and to enforce U.N. Resolution 425, which calls for withdrawal and for the securing of the region under U.N. forces. This has left the Lebanese who want to regain sovereignty over the territory no recourse but to wage a war of national resistance.

While the Israeli propaganda machinery describes the resistance force as terrorists, it requires a remarkable contortion of logic to define attacks against an occupation army as anything other than legitimate defense of one’s country.

In fact, it would seem more appropriate to describe the forced expulsion of thousands of Lebanese from their land, the use of collective punishment against entire villages, and the prolonged detention of male leaders without charges or due process as a form of terrorism. After all, the accepted definition of terrorism is the use of force against noncombatants in order to create fear and intimidation for the achievement of political objectives.

But as repressive as Israeli practices have been, they have not subdued the Lebanese resistance. It is in this context that Sheik Obeid’s role can be seen and understood.

Given the resolve of the Lebanese not to submit to Israeli occupation, the crisis will continue to expand and may threaten further harm to the United States if we do not firmly distance ourselves from Israel’s Lebanese adventures. Just as no civilized person can condone the holding or killing of innocent hostages, neither can a civilized nation such as ours condone Israel’s holding southern Lebanon hostage and the kidnaping and killing of its people.