Lebanese on border afraid of pullout

METULLA, Israel -- Every morning before sunrise, Ehud Neustadt travels from northern Israel to pick up eight workers waiting at the Lebanese border.

Those workers, who live in southern Lebanon, are an indispensable part of operations at Neustadt's apple orchard just outside of Metulla, a small town at one of Israel's northernmost points, .

"I am very dependent on them," the 58-year-old Neustadt said. "It will be difficult to replace them."

There is good reason why Neustadt has to consider the possibility of finding replacements: Talk of withdrawal is reaching a fever pitch in Israel, following 14 long years of patrolling the security zone.

Neustadt is concerned about maintaining his farm. But the debate within Israel has his workers gravely concerned about their own future.

Workers on Neustadt's farm, like so many of those who live within the security zone but who toil in Israel, consider themselves proud citizens of Lebanon.

Yet the last thing they want to see is an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.

"Israel has been there for me ever since I can remember," said one of Neustadt's workers, who, like most of the Lebanese interviewed, preferred to remain anonymous.

"I cannot imagine a situation without Israel."

The workers know full well that in the event of a withdrawal they may have to pay a painful price, possibly their lives.

Having linked their fate to the Israeli enemy, they are considered traitors by many of their fellow Lebanese.

Indeed, the workers' views contrast strongly with the official view of the Lebanese government, which has called for an unconditional Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon.

The Iranian-backed militant Hezbollah has gone further, launching a war of attrition against Israeli targets in the region.

Some 2,500 Lebanese make their living in Israel, about 1,000 of them in Metulla and neighboring Israeli settlements in the Upper Galilee.

Without work in Israel, they say, they would starve. As a result, they ignore the warnings from Beirut not to cooperate with the Israelis.

Talk of survival seems incongruous here in Metulla, one of the most beautiful spots in Israel. The picturesque town lies on a hill overlooking Lebanon to the north and Israel's fertile Hula Valley and the Sea of Galilee to the south.

The town has two main streets and a few sides streets. A mixture of antiquated homes and modern villas, the town is surrounded by fertile fields and orchards.

The town even has a huge sports arena with an ice-skating rink and an Olympic-size swimming pool contributed by Canadian Jews.

Indeed, Metulla is a peaceful town -- except for the Israeli army trucks and soldiers who occasionally make their way through here to what is Israel's last active battlefront.

Residents such as Neustadt, who was born and raised here, are concerned an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon may turn this lovely spot into a fortified border town.

He is also concerned for the fate of his workers and their families.

"I hate to think what will happen to them if we withdraw. It will be a second Sabra and Shatilla," he said, referring to the two refugee camps in Beirut that were the target of a massacre by Christian militias during the Lebanon War.

Israel created the 9-mile-deep buffer zone in southern Lebanon in 1985, when most Israeli troops withdrew at the end of that three-year war.

About 55 percent of the buffer zone's 200,000 residents are Shi'ite Muslims, 25 percent Christians and 10 percent Druze, a sect that is an offshoot of Islam.

Israel has received the majority of its support from the Christian population, which forms the backbone of the South Lebanon Army, a militia in the region and an ally to the Jewish state. Its membership is estimated at 2,500.

The buffer zone was created to protect Israel's northern communities from attacks by Hezbollah gunmen. But the continually rising death toll of Israeli soldiers, coupled with periodic Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israeli communities, has repeatedly prompted the question of whether -- and how -- to end Israel's involvement in Lebanon.

Intimately linked to the debate is the question of how to deal with Syria, which is the undisputed power broker there with tens of thousands of soldiers in Lebanon.

Last year, Israel approved in principle U.N. Security Council Resolution 425, which calls for an Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon.

Now, Prime Minister-elect Ehud Barak will inherit the situation. He has said he would seek an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon within a year after his election. The SLA itself began withdrawing from some of its positions this week.

As the internal Israeli debate rages, Lebanese workers continue to worry.

"I am very concerned about the future," said a woman from the Christian village of Kleiah, a few miles north of the Israel-Lebanon border. "Nothing can happen without the approval of Syria. I can only hope for peace with Syria."

The woman, who has worked for the past 12 years as a maid in a Metulla home, has no doubt about what she wants to do if Israeli soldiers leave the region.

"If the Israelis decide on withdrawal, we go out with the soldiers," she said.

Labor Knesset member Yossi Beilin, perhaps the most outspoken champion of a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, has suggested Israel give safe haven to SLA members until a full peace is reached between the two countries.

Beilin also believes Israel will have to care for many in southern Lebanon's general population.

"The most moral thing I can say is to let them stay with us," said Beilin. "But it is certainly immoral for us to continue staying there because of them."

Neustadt's orchard worker said he would certainly seek to cross the border with withdrawing Israeli troops.

He dreams of marrying a Druze woman from an Arab town near Haifa and of becoming an Israeli citizen. He doesn't want to contemplate the fate that may await him in his native land in the aftermath of an Israeli withdrawal.

He just wants to live.