Lebanon confident of Arab-Israeli peace agreement

Peace between the Arabs and Israel will be achieved before the November elections in the US. This is the surprisingly upbeat assessment of the Lebanese political elite. Israel will begin withdrawing from occupied Lebanese and Syrian territory and settle with the Palestinians, Dr Nawaf Salam, a source close to the Prime Minister, Dr Selim Hoss, told The Irish Times yesterday. President Clinton "will hold a grand signing ceremony and win the Nobel Prize. He will go down in history as a peacemaker."

Others who have met the Lebanese President, Gen Emile Lahoud, in the past few days are equally optimistic. Dr Salam said: "Peace is to the benefit of everyone". He described the ups and downs of the process and the manoeuvrings of the parties as a "peace symphony" rather than a "peace plot" or "peace conspiracy".

The fact that Israel did not bomb Lebanon's infrastructure in retaliation for the killing of three Israeli soldiers and two members of Israel's client militia this week is seen as proof positive that the parties are committed to peace. Last June Israel took out electricity transformers and bridges to punish Lebanon for attacks against Israeli forces based in the southern occupation zone.

Israel did not launch destructive retaliatory raids because "escalating to that point would have put the peace process in jeopardy", said Dr Salam, a member of a leading political family. "Both sides are really committed to the peace process. Both would like to see a breakthrough soon. The Israelis want a deal with Syria before July 2000," when the Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak, has pledged to leave Lebanon.

"But Israel will not get the benefits of withdrawal without a deal with Syria," he added. Only Damascus is in a position to tackle Hizbullah and "rejectionist" Palestinian groups and impose quiet along the border. Israel and the US want Syrian troops to maintain stability in Lebanon for at least two years after a peace agreement is signed.

On the Palestinian front, Israel "will pull out of 60 per cent of the West Bank, annexe 10-15 per cent where the settlements are located and there will be a grey zone of 25 per cent," Dr Salam said.

A former PLO official agreed with this assessment, then remarked: "We will have a settlement, but not a just peace."

Reuters adds: Israel's South Lebanon Army militia said yesterday it had abandoned a mountain-top outpost in south Lebanon that came under heavy Hizbullah attack.

Hizbullah hailed the SLA withdrawal from the fortified Soujoud post as a victory.

Israel has provoked a "serious crisis" in the peace process, said an official Palestinian statement last night after a meeting of the Palestinian leadership chaired by Mr Yasser Arafat, the day after an Israeli-Palestinian summit broke up in failure.

The Palestinian Authority said it was considering halting talks with Israel because it was reneging on signed peace accords. "The Israeli government has ignored all the agreements that have been reached and emptied the negotiations of their sense," said the statement.