NEWS ANALYSIS : Israel Must Balance Its Security, Peace Efforts : Mideast: New attacks on soldiers create dilemma. But Rabin insists halting talks would only reward extremists.

JERUSALEM — The deaths of nine Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon thrust the government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin deep into a quandary this weekend over how to fight Iranian-backed guerrillas there without endangering the Middle East peace talks.

Rabin asserted again Saturday that while Israeli security remains his foremost concern, ultimately it must come from peace agreements with the country’s Arab neighbors. He added that, even now, Syria is better able to check the pro-Iranian, fundamentalist Hezbollah (Party of God) in Lebanon.

“If no settlement is reached within two or three years and if (radical, Iranian-style Islam) continues to grow in the Arab world, Israel might face Iranians in Lebanon,” Rabin warned, portraying Hezbollah as the advance guard of an Iranian-led Islamic coalition whose growth could endanger the Jewish state.

To halt the peace talks now, even with the loss of nine soldiers in Lebanon last week, would only increase Iranian influence in the Arab world, Rabin argued, and it would reward extremism.

But Benjamin Netanyahu, chairman of the opposition Likud Party, dismissed Rabin’s approach as based on delusions and called for aggressive new Israeli tactics against Hezbollah guerrillas and a standstill in the peace negotiations until Syria helps Israel in that struggle.

“Syria must be told that the first and only item on the agenda of the peace talks as long as things stand as they are is the cessation of Hezbollah terrorism as supported by Syria,” Netanyahu said.

“That is the only subject worth negotiating right now--otherwise, we are making a mockery of the idea of peace talks and peace itself. Israel cannot sustain such devastating blows and pretend they did not happen.”

Netanyahu called for a campaign of commando-style “special operations” against Hezbollah targets throughout Lebanon.

“It is about time we made clear that no one can attack us with impunity,” Netanyahu declared, taking the offensive in what he sees as a moment of serious political vulnerability for Rabin.

Such a rancorous debate on security issues is rare in Israel; partisan politics are normally put aside following battlefield setbacks like that suffered last week when Hezbollah guerrillas ambushed Israeli units twice in the same day in virtually the same place, less than a mile from the Israeli border.

Netanyahu’s criticism, in fact, had less to do with Israeli tactics in southern Lebanon than with its negotiations with Syria.

“The prime minister should accept that he has made a big mistake in signaling repeatedly to Syria . . . that it would be rewarded with a big prize, the Golan Heights, under a peace treaty,” Netanyahu said. “Right now, there is no point in the prime minister even pretending there is a peace process under way.”

Uri Lubrani, Israel’s chief negotiator with Lebanon in the Arab-Israeli peace talks, agreed that Syria, as the paramount power in Lebanon, could control Hezbollah if it chose but said the matter is more complex.

“The activity of Hezbollah, even though its source is in Tehran, serves as a card in the hands of Syria, of (Syrian President Hafez) Assad,” Lubrani said. “It is important for him because he thinks it will help him achieve something on the Israeli-Syrian track (of the peace talks).”

Rabin’s dilemma in all this is as plain as it is painful:

Israel needs, and quickly, a new military approach to counter guerrillas belonging to Hezbollah; without that, Rabin will not be able to maintain the current consensus he has for peace.

But big military operations, like the weeklong air, artillery and naval bombardment that Israel carried out last month in Lebanon, would endanger the negotiations he is conducting.

“What’s the alternative?” Rabin responded plaintively when asked by a radio listener about calls for a major counterattack against Hezbollah and a suspension in the peace talks with Syria.

Large-scale offensives, such as those Israel undertook first in 1978 and then in 1982 when its troops drove all the way to Beirut, not only failed to improve Israeli security, he said, but involved Israel in the quagmire of the long and bloody Lebanese civil war.

Even an expansion of Israel’s self-proclaimed “security zone,” a strip about nine miles wide in southern Lebanon along the Israeli border, would require a major commitment of forces--and increase Israel’s exposure in the war of attrition Hezbollah is conducting.

Israel’s only real option, Rabin argued, is to hold to its strategic commitment to peace with its immediate neighbors, and also to improve its tactics in fighting Hezbollah.

The slowness of Israeli forces in responding to Hezbollah, which numbers about 3,000 guerrillas and no more than 5,000 men altogether, is embarrassing for Rabin, who was the creator, in 1985, of the security zone.

Originally intended to halt infiltration into northern Israel and to prevent the firing of rockets from hilltops in southern Lebanon across the border at Israeli towns and farms, the security zone is regarded increasingly by many military observers as more a liability than an asset.

Israel must maintain an extended defense perimeter through hostile territory, exposing its troops to attacks as they maintain the zone, according to these analysts.

What has proved particularly difficult to overcome, however, is the static character of the security zone and the routine nature of duty there for Israeli forces. Despite the evident daily danger, Israeli soldiers have after eight years of patrolling the zone grown complacent, according to Israeli reservists with long experience in Lebanon.

Ran Cohen, a member of Parliament from the dovish Meretz Party and a former senior officer in Israel’s elite paratroop brigade, called Saturday for a complete rethinking of operations in the security zone to counter Hezbollah.

“We should try to attack them everywhere, even beyond the zone, and hit them as hard as possible,” Cohen said, echoing Netanyahu’s call for “special operations” against Hezbollah.

“But we have to continue the negotiations with Syria and Lebanon,” Cohen continued, “because in the end only they can really stop Hezbollah.”