By Lin Noueihed  BEIRUT, July 29 (Reuters) – Victims of war and occupation or traitors who betrayed their country to work with an enemy state?  A spat over the fate of Lebanese former militiamen living in Israel is threatening to reopen old wounds in Lebanon, with Christian leaders demanding they receive an official amnesty and Muslim leaders insisting “collaborators” are punished. Fearing reprisals or heavy punishment if they stayed in Lebanon, some 6,000 members of Israel’s defunct proxy militia, the South Lebanon Army (SLA), took their families and fled to the Jewish state with withdrawing Israeli troops in 2000.  Though over half have returned in recent years, many remain in Israel. Parliament passed an amnesty bill this month that freed Christian warlord Samir Geagea and hundreds of Sunni Muslims suspected of links to a failed Islamist uprising in 2000. Christian deputies in the new parliament now want to extend a similar amnesty to those Lebanese who worked with Israeli troops during their 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon. But the proposal has received a frosty reception among many, especially Shi’ite Muslim Hizbollah whose guerrilla attacks were instrumental in ending the Israeli occupation.Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun told parliament on Thursday it was time for those who fled to the Jewish state to come home so Lebanon can turn the page on its troubled past. “Why can’t we bring back the thousands of Lebanese refugees in Israel? This issue can only be ended through a parliamentary, judicial inquiry,” Aoun said, adding that many had little choice but to work with the Israelis during the occupation. “The people of Jezzine and the border strip paid the price and are now considered collaborators.” Some Lebanese who joined the SLA fought against their own country and ran a notorious jail.

But others did clerical, menial or agricultural jobs for the Israelis during the occupation, when the Lebanese state had virtually no presence in the south. Many of those who stayed or returned have received relatively light sentences — sometimes under a year for rank and file militiamen deemed collaborators by Lebanese courts.

Reprisals have been rare, but Lebanese who resisted the Israelis do not want those they consider traitors to go unpunished. Hizbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah rejected on Friday any plan to pardon Lebanese who worked with Israel.

“This is a major insult to the sacrifices of the Lebanese people and the struggle of the resistance, and an assault on the families of the martyrs, the wounded and the detainees who suffered and continue to suffer from the crimes committed by the enemy,” Nasrallah told the left-leaning As-Safir newspaper.

“It is odd at a time when the security situation in Lebanon is shaky to hear calls for the return of thousands of collaborators who served the enemy … We believe the proposed amnesty is a clear threat to Lebanese national security.”