Yesterday marked two years since the Israeli withdrawal from the southern Lebanon security zone under Prime Minister Ehud Barak. The families of now-defunct South Lebanese Army (SLA) members living in Israel held a gathering to mark the occasion. A spokesman for the organizers of the event told Arutz-7 that approximately 3,000 SLA soldiers and family members remain in Israel, most of them in the north of the country. He said that the date of the withdrawal is a painful one, as it marks the end of a 25-year alliance with the Israelis. The SLA had hoped to maintain South Lebanon as a free entity at peace with its southern neighbor, Israel, but had to find refuge in Israel in the face of advancing Hizbullah terrorists following the IDF withdrawal. Mayors, MKs, ministers, military officers and others were invited to the gathering, the spokesman said, but \"I don\'t expect most of them to show up.\" He noted that the people of Israel have shown great respect and support for the SLA families.
The SLA spokesman said that the IDF withdrawal was a mistake because of the way in which it was carried out, and because it ended in the elimination of the only entity in Lebanon that could have assisted Israel. \"In the end,\" he said, \"even peace was not achieved. You have to know that in the Middle East, you cannot achieve peace by projecting weakness. Strength projects the ability to make peace.\"
Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, meanwhile, relating the lessons of Lebanon to today, said that the Arabs would perceive a unilateral withdrawal from Judea, Samaria and Gaza in the same way as Israel’s flight from southern Lebanon. He was speaking at a conference of Kibbutz leaders. His comments are perceived as a direct criticism of the unilateral withdrawal idea of Labor leader Chaim Ramon, a rival of Ben-Eliezer.