Gen. Amos Gilboa, head of the Israeli military team that has been negotiating with the Lebanese at Nakura for security arrangements to allow the Israel Defense Force to withdraw from south Lebanon, predicted utter chaos if the talks fail and the IDF is pulled out unilaterally.
According to Gilboa, the situation would degenerate rapidly into bloody combai between rivai factions in Lebanon, worse even than the civil war that has torn the country for nearly 10 years. His remarks, on Israel Radio Friday, were punctuated by new outbursts of violence in Lebanon involving Druze and Christians, and fresh attacks on the IDF.
Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir, also interviewed on radio Friday, said failure of the Nakura talks would require Israel to thin out its forces in south Lebanon. Shamir and his Likud party are firmly opposed to a unilateral withdrawal of the IDF while their Labor partners in the unity government do not rule it out.
Gilboa spoke after the Nakura talks adjourned for a two week Christmas recess. They are due to resume on January 7. But Gilboa said, following the 12th fruitless meeting of the negotiating teams last Thursday, that unless the Lebanese respond positively to Israel’s proposals, Israel would have to reconsider the utility of the talks.
SEES SYRIA FILLING THE VOID
If the IDF were to be pulled out without any agreement on security, the Syrians would be forced to step in to try to maintain order. But. Damascus would do nothing that could lead to political advantage for Israel and thereby ties its own hands, Gilboa said.
He predicted that with the IDF out, the Druze would try to seize control of the Christian areas in south Lebanon just below their Kharoub mountains stronghold and probably attempt to take the port of Sidon. At the same time, the Shiite Moslem militia, Amal, would launch its own drive to control south Lebanon and that could lead to fighting among the various Shiite factions.
In the resulting chaos, the Palestine Liberation Organization might try to return to the zone abutting Israel’s northern borders, Gilboa said.
He was pessimistic that the Syrians, even if they tried, could succeed in using the two-week recess in the Nakura talks to bring about a semblence of stability to Lebanon. But the United Nations may also step in. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar reportedly told Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Binyamin Netanyahu, that he would try to use the year-end recess to persuade the Lebanese government to get the Nakura talks back on track.
Netanyahu reportedly replied that if the talks failed, the IDF would have to effect a redeployment in south Lebanon.
MASSIVE CAR BOMB EXPLOSION
A massive car bomb exploded Friday in the courtyard of a school in the Lebanese Druze village of Ras Al-Mattan east of Beirut, killing or wounding more than 25 people, including children. The Druze radio said the booby-trapped car contained about 450 pounds of explosives.
Immediately after the bombing, Druze gunners shelled the Christian suburbs in east Beirut causing several casualties. There were also two attacks on the IDF and its ally, the South Lebanon Army (SLA) Friday, neither causing casualties.
A Katyusha rocket fired at an IDF position near the Zaharani River, exploded harmlessly in a field. An SLA post south of the river came under small arms fire.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
