Israeli leader who pulled out of Lebanon warns against getting stuck again

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak talks with an Israeli soldier who just pulled out of Lebanon on May 24, 2000. Barak met soldiers in the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona, just across the border from Lebanon. The withdrawal ended an 18-year occupation that was a source of major debate in Israel. Today, Israeli troops are again in southern Lebanon fighting Hezbollah. Israeli Government Press Office via Getty Images/Alfi Ben Yaakov hide caption

TEL AVIV -- As prime minister, Ehud Barak withdrew Israeli troops from Lebanon in 2000, ending a protracted occupation that lasted nearly two decades and was a source of fierce debate inside Israel.

In an interview with NPR, Barak said he knew it was the right decision many years earlier when he was still a soldier who had experienced fighting in Lebanon.

"I'm sometimes asked, 'Why did you pull out the soldiers from the (Lebanon) security zone in 2000?' I say the right question is not why I did it in 2000, why was it not done 15 years earlier," Barak, now 84, said at his home in a Tel Aviv high-rise with a commanding view of the Mediterranean.

"For me, it was a stretched-out tragedy that had no explanation in a rational way as to why we were there," he said.

Today, a large Israeli military force is once again in southern Lebanon as part of its most expansive operation since the pullout 26 years ago. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israeli troops are there to quell Hezbollah fire on Israeli civilians in northern Israel.

"We will not allow fire to be directed at our territory," Netanyahu told his Cabinet this week. "We are striking them very forcefully, and we know that Hezbollah is in retreat."

The Hezbollah attacks began in early March as a show of support for its patron, Iran, which had just come under a joint attack from the United States and Israel.