Q. What is the significance for Israel and the US of last week's fighting in northern Lebanon?

A. The battles between the Lebanese Army and the Fateh al-Islam group in Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp near Tripoli reflect a number of dynamics of great relevance to both Washington and Jerusalem.

First and foremost, the fighting demonstrated the weakness of the Lebanese Army. It suffered considerably more losses than the Islamists (of 69 reported dead, 30 were army troops and 19 were militants), it required immediate re-supply from the US after no more than a clash with a group of dissidents, and it apparently proved incapable of advancing very far into the refugee camp. This is the same Lebanese Army that has been charged by the Siniora government with patrolling southern Lebanon and ensuring, together with UNIFIL, that Hezbollah does not return there.

Second, while the hasty American supply effort is commendable, it appears to be little more than a drop in the bucket. The Lebanese Ministry of Defense has been asking the US for more modern equipment since last summer's Israel-Hezbollah war. Once again, as with Iraq and Palestine, there appears to be a gap between American intentions of beefing up anti-Islamist forces, on the one hand, and, on the other, capabilities--not only US real-time supply and training capabilities but also the capacity of the anti-Islamist forces to absorb and exploit new equipment and training, and their reliability.

The Islamist rebels in northern Lebanon also appear to represent a broader regional dynamic: the movement of jihadi forces out of Iraq and into neighboring countries, where they pursue their cause. Reportedly, only 50 of the Fateh al-Islam group are Palestinians. The remaining 200 or so hail from Saudi Arabia (between 50 and 80), followed by Syrians, other Gulf Arab nationalities, North Africans and Afghans. Their leader, the Palestinian-Jordanian Shaker al-Absi, is a suspect in the assassination of an American diplomat in Amman in 2002.

The Islamist Fateh al-Islam is reportedly an offshoot of Fateh Intifada, a secular group backed by Syria. Various reports put it close to al-Qaeda. That its members could infiltrate Lebanon so easily points not only to Tripoli as a Sunni Islamist center in Lebanon but also, once again, to the problematic and porous nature of the Syrian-Lebanese border--the main entry point for Iranian weaponry bound for Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, as well. Syria, which (this time) rather convincingly denies having fomented the unrest in northern Lebanon, even pointing out that it had held the head of Fateh al-Islam in jail for six years, nonetheless appears uninterested in maintaining a real sovereign border with Lebanon, whose sovereignty, after all, it does not recognize. (An alternative route for the Fateh al-Islam fighters from the Gulf states to have entered Lebanon is via Beirut International Airport, where they are not required to produce visas.)

Then there is the internal-Lebanese Palestinian aspect. UNRWA lists over 300,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, nearly all of whom live in camps established after 1948. Lebanon, uniquely among Arab states that host the Palestinians, refuses them citizenship, the right to live among Lebanese and the right to work in many professions. As a consequence of this draconian approach, as many as two-thirds of the Palestinians may actually have left Lebanon for Europe and elsewhere, though their names remain on the anachronistic UNRWA rolls. The camps, where Palestinian organizations are allowed to bear arms, are considered out-of-bounds for the Lebanese Army. This arrangement seeks to guarantee that the Sunni Palestinians remain outside the tenuous Lebanese ethno-religious balance until, eventually, they "return" to Israel/Palestine. Accordingly, it is instrumental in perpetuating the Palestinian refugee problem and delaying a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Interestingly, the Nahr al-Bared fighting pitted a largely Sunni unit of the Lebanese Army against the Sunnis of Fateh al-Islam. But the army in fact comprises all of Lebanon's main sects and religions: Sunnis, Shi'ites, Maronites and other Christians, and Druze.

There is an external Palestinian aspect as well. Both Sunni al-Qaeda and Shi'ite Iran and its Hezbollah proxy are trying to infiltrate and influence the Palestinian national movement, not only in Lebanon but in Gaza and the West Bank as well. As Jordanian analyst Urayb ar-Rintawi wrote in ad-Dustour last Thursday, May 24, "What is happening in Lebanon's camps is . . . not a strictly Lebanese phenomenon. Rather, it represents a 'prototype' of the fate and destination that the Palestinian Diaspora refugee camps are heading towards. This is especially true of the camps in the Gaza Strip, whose allegiance has been redirected from the PLO to Hamas, and perhaps--at a later stage--to stricter 'interpretations' of Palestinian political Islam."

Against this backdrop, it is significant that the Nahr al-Bared camp near Tripoli became the refuge for an Islamist group that comprises many non-Palestinians. It is also significant that the Siniora government ordered the army to enter the camp, with its 30,000 residents. In this regard the government has the backing of UNSC resolutions 1559 and 1701, which call for the disarming of all non-governmental armed groups in the country.

Yet the Siniora government in Beirut is far too weak to contemplate disarming the Palestinians. Indeed, the crisis in northern Lebanon, where at the time of writing a tense stalemate and ceasefire prevailed, could further destabilize the beleaguered government. This, after all, was the worst internal violence experienced by the country since the 1975-1990 civil war.

Then as now, the impression of outsider meddling was furthered by terrorist bomb attacks elsewhere in Lebanon last week, producing heavy casualties. This fairly familiar pattern is why the finger has been pointed at Syria, which by destabilizing Lebanon seeks to thwart Lebanese/American/French efforts to form an international tribunal that would almost certainly focus on Syrian regime involvement in the assassination in 2005 of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri.

Yet not only does Syria pointedly deny involvement--it is, after all, on track toward at least slightly improved relations with the US--but so does its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah. The latter is not likely to back Sunni Islamists, and has gone out of its way to support the army, though without condoning entry into the camps where at least some of the Palestinian groups are friendly with the Shi'ite Islamist organization. Hezbollah, by the way, pressured the previous government in Beirut into giving it a status that ostensibly exempts it from the UN demand that it be disarmed.

Q. Ehud Barak's plurality in the first round of the Labor party leadership primaries on May 28 appears to give him a surprising advantage going into the second round on June 13. What's likely to happen?

A. Barak led the first round with 35.6 percent, ahead of Ami Ayalon's 30.6 percent but below the 40 percent threshold need to win in the first round. This was a surprising result insofar as the pre-election polls gave Ayalon a slight advantage. Amir Peretz also registered a surprisingly high result: 22.4 percent. Ophir Pines predictably trailed with 8 percent and Danny Yatom with 2.7 percent.

Barak and Peretz appear to have done better than anticipated, and Ayalon worse, for a combination of two reasons. First, in Israeli elections and particularly in primaries, good organization on election day produces good results by ensuring that voters get to polling stations. Peretz is known for his network of Histadrut-based activists. Barak clearly invested heavily in election-day logistics.

Secondly, Barak and Peretz projected more penetrating "messages" than Ayalon. Barak campaigned as if this were a national election, presenting himself as the most experienced potential minister of defense to wage Israel's wars and as the man most capable of defeating Binyamin Netanyahu for leadership of the country. Peretz had the advantage of the incumbent in the defense slot, with a lot of free media exposure; it didn't hurt his cause that Israel's military response to the Qassam rockets fired at Sderot (Peretz's home town) appeared relatively successful in recent days.

Ayalon, on the other hand, was hurt not only by his lack of ministerial experience--a telling drawback in these post-Winograd, post Second Lebanon War days--but by his message, which advocated Labor leaving the governing coalition unless Olmert stepped down. That would almost certainly mean new national elections, with Labor led to defeat by yet another inexperienced leader (following Mitzna and Peretz). Barak, in contrast, obfuscated his position on Olmert, indicating he would join the Kadima-led government as minister of defense as long as Olmert agreed to new national elections in about a year. Barak also benefited from the public perception that in an era of bad leadership, even a very experienced candidate like himself whose premiership (1999-2001) was considered a failure was preferable to a political novice like Ayalon.

Now, if Ayalon wants to win the runoff, he needs to hold onto his own voters and win over another 20 percent of those who voted Peretz, Pines and Yatom; Barak needs only 15 percent. True, polling over the past few weeks showed that most of this pool of voters would support Ayalon--but the polls also inaccurately predicted an Ayalon plurality in yesterday's round. This gives Peretz considerable bargaining power with both Barak and Ayalon in terms of which candidate to recommend to his followers. Peretz reportedly wants a commitment to wrest the Ministry of Finance away from Olmert and give it to him--a tall order, requiring a major revision in the coalition and a major concession from Olmert.

To win, Ayalon also presumably has to find a more convincing campaign theme than precipitating new elections. And he needs a more efficient election-day machine. That's a tall order. Barak appears to have found the right formula for making good on his political comeback and will stick with it. He now has to be considered the front runner to lead the Labor party.