Shebaa Farms: Ground Zero For a Regional War?

by Major Robert E. Friedenberg, USA, 48G

Since the end of September, we have all seen a great deal of news about the ongoing crisis in the Middle East. Cable news channels regularly show footage of children throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers who respond with rubber (and live) bullets and tear gas. Palestinians have also used firearms in the conflict. Most of the reports have come from Gaza and the West Bank, and grim faced analysts declare that this new surge of violence may escalate into another Arab Israeli war. The violence is certainly not decreasing, and there is a serious danger of escalation.

The election of Ariel Sharon has inflamed the situation in the short term. Sharon, a former army general who was the architect of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, has denounced most of the proposals that the Barak government offered to the Palestinians, and said that the Oslo Peace accords are no longer valid. He has outlined his own proposals that fall well short of anything former Prime Minister Barak offered. PA President Yasir Arafat has stated Sharon's victory would be a disaster. Violence between Palestinians and Israelis has increased. The trigger, however, for a regional crisis may not be in Gaza or the West Bank, but in a hundred or so square miles north of the Golan Heights called the Shebaa Farms. This area, little known outside of the Middle East, could be the match that ignites another Arab Israeli war. This article will address that possibility.

The Shebaa Farms are in a small strip of land between the Golan Heights and the Lebanese border. Israel occupies the land, having taken it from Syria after the 1967 War. The Lebanese and Syrian governments, and the leaders of Hizballah, claim it is part of Lebanon. The confusion as to whether the land is part of Syria or Lebanon dates to the beginning of the 20^th Century. Prior to World War One, both Syria and Lebanon were part of the Ottoman Empire in the sanjak, or district, of Syria. After the war, France took control of the area. According to one Israeli geographer, Shebaa Farms was put under Lebanese control by the French in the 1920's but was taken over by Syria in the 1950's. ¹

Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 in order to drive out the Palestinian Liberation Organization and secure its northern border from terrorist attacks. What was supposed to have been a quick operation turned into a quagmire, and after being caught up in bitter internecine Lebanese rivalries, Israeli troops pulled back from most of Lebanon in 1985. However, Israeli troops remained, however, in a 10-km wide security zone inside Lebanese territory. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), has attempted to keep the peace in the south since 1978 (after an initial Israeli foray into south Lebanon) with a mandate to secure the border and separate the warring parties. It has had mixed success.

Syria also invaded Lebanon in 1975 in order to stabilize it during Lebanon's long and bloody civil war. Syria has continued a military presence with the consent of the Lebanese Government. With 25,000-30,000 troops in Lebanon, Syria greatly influences Lebanese domestic policy, and controls Lebanese foreign policy. After Israel became entangled in southern Lebanon, Syrian President Hafiz al-Asad saw a chance to regain lost territory and overcome a humiliating defeat. He had been Syria's Defense Minister in 1967, when Israel took the Golan Heights from Syria. Still stinging from that defeat, Asad insisted on total Israeli withdrawal from the Golan before he would negotiate a peace treaty with the Jewish state. Israeli troops were in Lebanon to secure the border and the only card Asad had left to play was to ensure that the Israeli-Lebanese border was not secure. Asad therefore relied upon Hizballah, the Party of God, to be his proxy fighters.

Hizballah began after the 1982 Israeli invasion as a Shi'a guerrilla group dedicated to driving Israel out of Lebanon. Supported by Iran and given tacit approval by Syria, Hizballah evolved from an organization that practiced rudimentary suicide bombings to one capable of sophisticated stand-off attacks and ambushes against Israeli Defense Force (IDF) soldiers and their South Lebanese Army (SLA) militia allies. After becoming Hizballah Secretary General in 1992, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah began to transform Hizballah from a purely military organization into a political force. Hizballah party members currently hold 12 of the 128 seats in the Lebanese parliament. ²

In April 1996 Israel launched Operation Grapes of Wrath, in retaliation for Hizballah attacks into Israeli territory. During this operation, Hizballah launched 600 Katyusha rockets into Israel, and Israel retaliated with 25, 000 artillery shells into Lebanon. ³ After a month of back and forth retaliation, Hizballah and Israel reached an understanding that Israel would not target civilians and Hizballah would not attack targets inside Israeli territory. This agreement, called the "April Understanding," has formed the basis for rules of engagement on both sides since that date. Both sides have violated the agreement, and both sides have retaliated for transgressions. If Israel attacked civilian targets in Lebanon, Hizballah would answer with a Katyusha barrage inside the Israeli border, and vice versa. Violence continued after the understanding, but did not escalate beyond skirmishes, and escalation to regional war seemed remote. ⁴

After 18 years of a war of attrition Israel lost well over 500 soldiers to Hizballah attacks. ⁵ When Ehud Barak was elected Israeli Prime Minister in 1999, he promised to make a final peace with the Arabs his main priority. When talks with the aging Asad failed due to a land dispute, Barak decided to seize the initiative. In May 2000, he ordered the IDF to unilaterally withdraw from south Lebanon. The withdrawal was orderly, although many South Lebanese Army soldiers were abandoned by the IDF to the tender mercies of Hizballah. The much-feared reprisal massacre of former SLA members never came, but many have been tried and sentenced in Lebanese courts for treason because of their cooperation with Israel during its occupation. By 23 June, two days after the Israeli withdrawal began, 2200 southerners were arrested by the Lebanese government. Many were tried and sentences ranged from one week to 15 years. ⁶ Hizballah has still not ruled out meting out its own form of punishment against those it considers traitors. The Lebanese government had no coherent policy, except to state that it would refuse to put its troops on the border with Israel until the UN had certified that Israel had completely withdrawn from Lebanon.

Many Israelis believed the May withdrawal from Lebanon would simply give Hizballah a better position with which to attack Israeli towns across the border. To the surprise of many analysts, Hizballah did not immediately continue the conflict and launch the much-feared Katyusha rocket barrages into northern Israel. Hizballah, taking credit for ejecting the IDF and enjoying its surging popularity in the Arab World as a result, did not pressure the Israelis across the border and did not launch any terrorist operations. But though Hizballah was not acting militarily, it did not cease its rhetoric.

Following Israel's pullout from Lebanon in May of 2000, the government in Beirut demanded that Israel also pull out of Shebaa Farms. Israel refused, saying that was a matter to be resolved in the Syrian-Israeli peace talks. Lebanon has since officially accepted the UN demarcated border, but Hizballah continues to demand Israeli withdrawal from the area and considers military operations in the Shebaa Farms area to be justified. In early December 2000, Sheikh Nai'im Qasim, Hizballah deputy secretary general, reiterated in an interview that Hizballah would continue to fight for the Shebaa Farms even if the rest of the world did not accept that it belonged to Lebanon. ⁷

The Lebanese government, despite having agreed to the UN demarcation, has also supported military resistance in order to regain Shebaa. Just after the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon, Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri stated that Lebanon would reserve the right to use all "diplomatic and non diplomatic means" to regain the territory it believed Israel still occupied, including Shebaa Farms. ⁸&n bsp The current intifada has given Hizballah the chance to renew its military struggle with Israel and fight for what it considers to be the rest of occupied Lebanon. Since the Israeli/Palestinian violence, Hizballah has captured three Israeli soldiers and killed two in the vicinity of Shebaa Farms. The last one died in an ambush in April. These events and the seizure of an IDF reserve colonel have set events on a potentially perilous course.

At this point, it is worth mentioning two relatively new players in the region whose actions will affect the situation. Bashar al-Asad, son of President Hafiz al-Asad, took his father's place in June, 2000. He has not significantly changed his father's policy in Lebanon, except to allow more open debate in the Lebanese press about continued Syrian presence in the country. He certainly has not softened his father's demand for unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights prior to concluding an Israeli-Syrian peace treaty. Bashar has kept many of his father's advisors in their places, and is presumably still following the policy that the Hizballah threat can pressure Israel to come to the negotiating table. While the current crisis is ongoing, Bashar is moderating his country's military activity in order to avoid provoking Israel, but Syria's statements supporting Hizballah activity in Shebaa Farms continue to exacerbate the situation. ⁹

King Abdullah II of Jordan assumed the throne after the death of his father Hussein in March, 1999. Abdullah has yet to establish the regional influence his father had. Perhaps Hussein's peacemaking credentials could have helped to lessen the tensions and alleviate the violence in the current crisis. But Abdullah has not done much more than meet with Arafat and publicly denounce Israeli actions against Palestinian protestors. He does not yet have the ability to help find a resolution to the Israeli- Palestinian crisis, or influence Syria to stop Hizballah activity in Shebaa Farms.

Hizballah and its hard-line backers in Iran have a stake in seeing any peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians derailed. A peace treaty signed by Palestinian Authority President Arafat would further legitimize Israel, something hard- liners in Iran so not want to see. If it appears an agreement is likely, more operations in the "occupied area" of Shebaa will probably occur. Even if an agreement fails, Hizballah may decide to launch an attack to force the Israeli government on the defensive.

Before he left office, Barak publicly stated that he held Syria responsible for Hizballah activity in Shebaa Farms, and would retaliate accordingly if Israel was attacked again. Hizballah could consider a further strike at Israeli soldiers in the Shebaa as a chance to continue pressure on Israel while it is preoccupied with the Palestinian intifada. Though Sharon has denied that he would do anything to escalate the crisis, he will be under great pressure from the Israeli public to improve the security situation in Israel. He may be tempted to retaliate against Syria should a major Hizballah attack on the Israeli border occur. Israeli warplanes struck a Syrian position in Lebanon after one Israeli soldier died in a Hizballah attack in April. A more severe Hizballah may cause a more severe Israeli response.

A terrorist strike or incident in Shebaa Farms that causes more Israeli casualties could begin a further cycle of retaliations, and the situation could quickly escalate. Iran recently stated that Israeli attacks on Syria or Lebanon would lead to "astounding and unexpected retaliation." ¹⁰ Attacks on Lebanon may not immediately escalate the situation, but if Sharon decides to bring the conflict to Syria, the chances of regional war will become very real. Bashar al-Asad, still trying to shore up his support in Syria, may feel pressure to answer an Israeli attack, even though he knows he cannot defeat Israel militarily. Syria has SCUD-C missiles that can range Israel, and also has the capability to put chemical weapons in its missiles. Iraq's Saddam Hussein, always looking for a way to influence events, may decide to come to Syria's assistance with ground forces. In the context of a regional conflict, the "April Understanding" rules that kept the violence at manageable levels will no longer apply.

In the face of a regional war, King Abdullah of Jordan would face a serious crisis. Currently trying to balance the significant anti-Israeli sentiment within Jordan and his continued diplomatic relations with Israel, he may be forced to tear up the peace treaty he signed in 1994 or face the overthrow of his government. Egypt, the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel, may also be forced to support Syria diplomatically, if not militarily. An Israeli attack on Syria would force other Arab governments who are under popular pressure to resist any Israeli aggression, to take military actions or posture in risky ways that would cause Israeli leaders, also under popular pressure to look decisive, and further escalate the conflict.

Is this scenario inevitable? Fortunately, no. The government leaders will surely try to avoid a war. Sharon, despite his reputation as a hawk, used measured retaliation in the death of the Israeli soldier in April. Bashar al-Asad seems to be doing everything he can to avoid conflict with Israel during these tense times. He wants to improve his country's economic condition, and will try to avoid a war that would only bring more economic hardship to his country.

Shebaa is a small area, and obscure outside of the Middle East. The area seems to be the subject of a simple territorial dispute. However it is located in a volatile region, with a history of conflict. The Shebaa Farms remain a legitimate target in Hizballah eyes. If Hizballah decides to conduct another operation, and if Israel retaliates by launching an attack into Syria, events could spin out of control. Despite the fact that political leaders don't want war, the danger of escalation is very real.

Endnotes

^1. Baltimore Sun Times, May 11, 2000, BACK

^2. By law the Shi'a population is allotted 27 of the 128 total seats in the Lebanese Parliament.BACK

^3. Augustus Richard Norton, "Hizballah and the Israeli Withdrawal from Southern Lebanon", Journal of Palestine Studies, Autumn, 2000, p. 29.BACK

^4. Ibid.BACK

^5. Bickerton and Klausner, A Concise History of the Arab Israeli Conflict, p. 222. BACK

^6. "Did Israel Betray its Lebanese Allies?" Middle East Quarterly, Dec 2000 p 36.BACK

^7. al-Safir (Lebanese newspaper), 9 Dec 2000, FBIS translation BACK

^8. The Daily Star (Lebanese newspaper), 8 June, 2000 BACK

^9. Ha'aretz 24 Dec 2000.BACK

^10. Washington Post, December 31, 2000BACK

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