Ministers Discuss Plans to Redeploy IDF in Lebanon

Plans for a redeployment of the Israel Defense Force in Lebanon were reviewed by the Ministerial Defense Committee this morning. The meeting, chaired by Premier Menachem Begin, was attended by senior IDF officers. There was an examination of maps, logistics matters and various alternative redeployment lines submitted by the General Staff.

The meeting was held only hours before the arrival here of Secretary of State George Shultz who was in Damascus today meeting with President Hafez Assad of Syria. There have been no indications up to now that Syria will budge from its refusal to pull its own troops out of Lebanon, thereby allowing Israel and Lebanon to implement their own withdrawal agreement signed last May 17.

The U.S. has reiterated its commitment to the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Lebanon. It is therefore opposed to a unilateral pullback by Israeli troops to shorter lines on grounds that such a move would establish the permanent partition of Lebanon. This matter will doubtlessly be discussed with Shultz who will meet separately with Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir and Defense Minister Moshe Arens.

If the government makes a firm decision to redeploy the IDF, the new line is expected to run along the Awali river to the Lebanese coast just north of Sidon, about 40 kilometers north of the Israeli border. But no redeployment orders will be issued before Begin’s meeting with President Reagan in Washington July 27. When Begin leaves for the U.S. it probably will be with a “decision in principle” by the Cabinet to redeploy in Lebanon but with authority to be flexible over the implementation of that decision.