Out of Lebanon

As Israeli governments withdraw from populated areas they had controlled, Arabs who had committed themselves to working or living peacefully with Israel find themselves on the wrong side of their new authorities. Americans have experience with leaving allies — Laotians, Vietnamese, Kurds and southern Iraqis, among others — so we view the problem with some sympathy, but we fear the consequences will dissuade others from long-term cooperation with the Jewish State.

As Israeli governments withdraw from populated areas they had controlled, Arabs who had committed themselves to working or living peacefully with Israel find themselves on the wrong side of their new authorities. Americans have experience with leaving allies — Laotians, Vietnamese, Kurds and southern Iraqis, among others — so we view the problem with some sympathy, but we fear the consequences will dissuade others from long-term cooperation with the Jewish State.

Since Oslo, hundreds of Palestinians have been rounded up, jailed or killed for having had economic and other relations with Israelis. For the Palestinians who worked with Israel, it was self-interest, not Zionism. Perhaps they feared the IDF less than Palestinian “security forces.” Or they believed that working with a democratic state might help them establish one. Or they just wanted to make a living. Whatever it was, Israel didn’t protect its Palestinian interlocutors and now it is clear that many Palestinians are finding it safer to side with the most violent elements in the PA.

In Lebanon, the SLA was not a “Christian militia.” It was a home army that was more than 1/3 Shiite Moslem, working with the IDF to keep Hizballah and radical Palestinians out. They didn’t want the fundamentalism that comes with Iranian-backed guerrillas and didn’t want Israeli retaliation for Hizballah attacks. Since 1982, at considerable risk to themselves and their families, those Lebanese have been Israel’s allies, making the north of Israel a safe place to live. Israel’s planned unilateral withdrawal held dangers for them even if it had gone as scheduled. But the utter collapse left a vacuum filled not by the UN, but by the SLA’s worst nightmare. Southern Lebanese have been rushing toward the Israeli border, at risk of becoming yet another group of refugees. PM Barak said, “The 18-year tragedy is ending.” For Israel, maybe, but not for the Lebanese.

The increasing aggressiveness of Palestinian nationalism in the PA, coupled with what appear to be Israeli withdrawals on political as well as geographic fronts, poses a severe challenge to Israeli Arabs. Many of them now find it in their interest to self-identify only as Palestinian Arabs who live in Israel.

We know Israel lives in a nasty neighborhood. Some of its neighbors are unrelentingly racist, hegemonic, violent and determined to create a region that is judenrein (or at least with Jews as second class citizens), dictatorial (theocratic or secular), and bristling with weapons of mass destruction to make their otherwise insignificant fiefdoms important. We don’t really expect those people to agree that there is a legitimate place for Israel — for Jewish sovereignty — in the Middle East.

But there are other Arabs as well. And thousands of them put their lives literally on the line in Southern Lebanon and the territories (as well as the Druze on the Golan) to work with Israel. Israeli policies that have the effect of leaving those people to the tender mercies of the Palestinian police, Syria, Iran or the Hizballah will have long-term repercussions around Israel’s borders and within Israel itself.