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October 4, 2002/Tishri 28 5763, Vol. 55, No. 6
Fears of Hezbollah provocations in north
GIL SEDAN
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
JERUSALEM - Israeli officials are wondering how the rushed withdrawal from Yasser Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah will affect Israel's deterrent capability on a different front - the border with Lebanon.
The Ramallah fiasco raised difficult questions for Israeli policy-makers, who fear a similar scenario on Israel's northern border: If Hezbollah steps up attacks against Israeli targets, should Israel retaliate? What if the Bush administration orders Israel to stop, as it did in Ramallah, so as not to endanger an American push against Iraq?
The question takes on added relevance amid warnings that Iran and Syria have helped Hezbollah stockpile thousands of missiles that can hit Haifa and other Israeli population centers from southern Lebanon.
Israeli leaders see the disarming or overthrow of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein as a major priority. With the United States trying to build international support for a strike at Saddam, Israeli officials are determined to avoid disputes with U.S. leaders - as evidenced by Israeli acquiescence to American pressure to end the Ramallah siege without the handover of terrorist suspects inside.
But that precedent may put Israel at the mercy of Hezbollah, which Israeli officials fear may try to provoke Israel in order to disrupt U.S. plans against Iraq.
According to Israeli intelligence, Hezbollah's arsenal now contains close to 10,000 Katyusha rockets with a range of about 12 miles, enough to terrorize Israeli communities in the Upper Galilee. Hezbollah also has received several hundred longer-range systems from Iran, which can hit targets 25 miles to 45 miles away.
In coming weeks, Hezbollah could try to provoke Israel into a counterattack - disrupting U.S. moves against Iraq or fragmenting an anti-Iraq coalition - or at least to bloody Israel when the Jewish state does not feel free to respond, Israeli officials fear.
The wild card in the equation is Damascus, which is the main power broker in Lebanon and is believed to pull Hezbollah's strings.
In the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Syria was part of the anti-Saddam coalition; this time Syria, like most of the Arab world, is part of the anti-war coalition. Will Syria give Hezbollah the green light to open another Middle East front?
Despite the fears, some experts, like Eyal Zisser of Tel Aviv University's Dayan Center, believe Syria and Hezbollah are unlikely to take advantage of the Iraq crisis to push for a confrontation with Israel.
"It will not necessarily happen for two reasons: They do not have an interest in helping the Iraqis and they fear that they will be next on the American list," Zisser told JTA.
Therefore, he said, Syria and Hezbollah are likely to keep a low profile.
Hezbollah also will need to take into account internal Lebanese politics.
The government publicly supports Hezbollah's militancy, but it has urged Hezbollah to refrain from escalating the situation to a point that would trigger massive Israeli retaliation.
Signs for a possible escalation still exist. According to Israeli intelligence reports, Syria, which in the past served as a transit point for Iranian rockets bound for Hezbollah, recently began supplying Hezbollah with rockets as well.
Another indication that Hezbollah and the Syrians are willing to raise the stakes is Lebanon's determination to go ahead with a project to pump water from the Wazzani River, a tributary of the Hatzbani River, which is a source of the Jordan River. That flows into the Sea of Galilee, Israel's main water reservoir.
Israel at first responded angrily, saying the water diversion was a potential cause for war. It soon toned down its rhetoric, and Zisser believes all the parties involved are trying to de-escalate the situation.
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