The View from Jerusalem: First Round of Lebanese Reconciliation Talks Seen As ‘not a Bad Balance She

Israel feels the first round of the Lebanese national reconciliation talks in Geneva ended fairly well from its point of view.

The May 17 Lebanon-Israel agreement is still intact despite strenuous Syrian efforts to have it abrogated, government sources noted after today’s Cabinet meeting here. They added that Syria’s desire to replace Lebanese Prime Minister Shafik Wazzan with a more malleable politician was also thwarted.

“Not a bad balance sheet so far,” the Israeli sources said. They cautioned, though, that Lebanese politics are notoriously difficult to predict — especially given the precarious security situation in various parts of the country. The second round of the Geneva talks, scheduled to resume November 14, could yet deal a mortal blow to the May 17 agreement.

The first round of the talks ended last Friday with the conference mandating President Amin Gemayel to launch a new diplomatic effort to bring about Israeli withdrawal. The President is also to negotiate “on international levels to assure the total and absolute sovereignty of Lebanon over its entire territory.”

Syrian efforts, through Damascus’ Lebanese client-factions, to have the May 17 agreement abrogated failed against the solid resistance of Gemayel and some of the pro-government factions. A subsequent move to declare the agreement “frozen” was discarded in favor of the more vague formula empowering Gemayel to negotiate on Lebanon’s behalf and report back to another round of the talks scheduled for Mid-November.

The Israeli sources said that this mandate to Gemayel meant that the President had emerged from the conference with his standing enhanced. The Syrian-backed opposition factions had hoped for a diametrically opposite outcome.