THE PLAN IS TO FAN THIS SPARK INTO A FLAME1

TOPIC: What did Israel hope to gain from the invasion of Lebanon: Which of its goals did it achieve,
which not? Was the outbreak of the Intifada connected to Israels invasion of Lebanon? Explain.

1 Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton, My Shot, song, performed by Original Broadway Cast of

Hamilton (2015; New York City: Avatar Studios).
The Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which followed closely on the heels of the outbreak of the

Lebanese Civil War, was a desperate attempt by a systematically-oppressed people to finally gain

a homeland. By invading Lebanon, the predominantly-Jewish Israel hoped to finally change the

pattern of history, and get ahead of their historically-recurring subjugation. Their goal was to

obliterate the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and push all Palestinians across Lebanon

and all the way to Jordan. They hoped that they could finally complete the mission of Zionism

and create a permanent Jewish state as a home for Jewish people around the world. Though

ultimately the uprising changed little in the overall scheme of Israels place in the Middle East, it

was one of the few times in history in which Israel was able to win. Of course, this victory was

fleeting, and their triumph was soon shattered into disorganized fragments. The aftermath of

Israels defeat was a disjointed state and subsequent increased fighting between Israelis and

Palestinians, which escalated and contributed to the rise of the Intifada.

The events that led up to this invasion could take up volumes of books, so this paper will

focus on those that directly influenced it, and the three main players involved: the United States,

Israel, and Lebanon. The United States, like a toddler who took one bite out of every apple and

then left them to turn brown, had its web all across the globe. Supposedly, their patriotic goal

was to prevent the spread of communism and, more specifically, the Soviet Union. Of course, it

just so happened that the places where the United States went to stop communism also had

valuable resources and economic benefits.

The 1981 switch from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan, from a Democrat to a

Republican, meant a shift in attitudes toward the Israel-Palestine argument. Under the Palestine-

friendly Carter presidency, the Camp David Accords had been signed, during the process of

which Carter advocated for a two-state solution. Reagan, seeing the opportunity to snatch the
Jewish vote in the election, used the fire of Zionism to boost him along his campaign trail. This

proved to be a good strategy, as Israel presented itself as a regional power that was ideologically

congenial, as well as militarily dependable and capable, able to offer a strategic base from which

core U.S. interests could be protected and further Soviet inroads could be prevented.2

Meanwhile, Israel was still riding the wave of confidence that had resulted from their victories

against Jordan, Egypt, and Syria during the Six-Day War of 1967. During this short conflict,

Israel, led by Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, had taken back influential lands including the Gaza

Strip and the West Bank. Years after the war, there was a rearrangement of power, and

Menachem Begin won the 1977 election for Prime Minister. In a revamping of his cabinet, he

decided to bring on Ariel Sharon as his defense minister and Yitzhak Shamir as his foreign

minister.

Over in Lebanon, two abstract forces were at work, creating tinder that only needed a

spark to ignite it: Arabism (or Arab Nationalism, as it is commonly called) and Lebanism.

Arabism was spearheaded by Arabs, naturally, who lived in Lebanon but whose loyalty lay with

other Arabs, independent of borders. This was seen as dangerous for proponents of Lebanism,

who considered Lebanon its own country, its own nation. These people, many of them Christian

Maronites, saw the Arabs as a threat to Lebanon, and therefore took every opportunity to keep

Arabs as a lower class. Adding to these issues, after September 1970, 350,000 Palestinians

moved to Lebanon. This upset not only the balance between Christians and Muslims but also

within the Muslim community.3 Therefore there were strains not only between supporters of

2 Lawrence Freedman, A Choice of Enemies: America Confronts the Middle East (New York
City: PublicAffairs, 2008), 122.

3 Ibid., 126.
Arabism and Lebanism, but also along religious lines. These tensions are summed up by Kamal

Salibi:

Each force, at the internal level, claimed to represent a principle and ideal involving a
special concept of nationality; yet in each case one had to look behind the articulated
argument to discover the real nature of the quarrel. True, there were individuals in
Lebanon who sincerely believed in the historical and political validity of Lebanism, and
others who were committed to Arabism with equal sincerity. But it was certainly no
accident that the original proponents of Lebanism in the country were almost exclusively
Christians, and for the most part Maronites, while the most unbending proponents of
Arabism, as a community, were the Muslims.4

Before discussing the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, it is important to first consider the

state of Middle Eastern politics as a whole. Nobody living today can remember a time when the

Middle East was not being meddled with by numerous exterior forces. With its route to India, a

huge plethora of oil, and, of course, the holy city of Jerusalem, perhaps it is unsurprising that so

many hands are constantly grabbing for a piece of the Middle Easts metaphorical pie. Despite all

this interfering, the Middle East has maintained several political traditions, which are essential to

understand when studying the situation between Israel and Lebanon.

Thomas Friedman groups these unwritten political traditions into three groups, which he called

the Hama Rules, named after the disastrous Hama Massacre in 1982. The first rule is that of

the tribe: individuals are loyal to a group. Members are all bound together by a tribe-like spirit

of solidarity, a total obligation to one another, and a mutual loyalty that takes precedence over

allegiances to the wider national community or nation-state.5 The second rule is that of

authoritarianism, of which there are two types: the softer Ottoman approach and the more

4 Kamal Salibi, A House of Many Mansions: The History of Lebanon Reconsidered (London:
I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 1993), http://almashriq.hiof.no/lebanon/900/902/Kamal-Salibi/#salibi.

5 Thomas L. Friedman, From Beirut to Jerusalem (New York City: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux,
1989), 87.
brutal, un-Islamicvariety.6 Finally, there is the most chilling of the rules, and the one which is

closely tied to this conflict; this final tradition is the unnatural boundaries and restrictions put

into place by foreign powers that still put the balance of the Middle East off-kilter today.

And so, the stage was set, the actors in their places, and all that was needed now was for the

curtain to rise. Someone had to pull the rope. The curtain rose on June 3, 1972, when an attempt

was made on the life of the Israeli ambassador on his way to London. Although Menachem

Begin was quite aware that the group involved was not actually associated with the Palestine

Liberation Organization any longer, he nevertheless seized it as an opportunity to move into

action. Begin and Sharon had already formulated a plan that technically would not go against

anything set by their treaties with the United States or regulations set by the UN. This invasion

was titled somewhat ironically as Operation Peace for Galilee. Though it was described by the

government as merely a way to get the PLO out of their lands, subsequent events indicated that

at least some Israeli military leaders Ariel Sharon, the defense minister, for one had more

ambitious aims, notably the annihilation of the PLO in Lebanon and the expulsion of Syrian

forces from that country.7

There were two fatal flaws in the Israeli plan, however: they put their faith in the Lebanese

Christians to rise to their aid, and they counted on the United States turning a blind eye. Begin

and Sharon had placed their bets on the Christians of Lebanon to spring into action and assist

them once they had pushed through Lebanon and began expelling the PLO. Sharon gambled that

the Christians would feel a kinship with them, since they were both fighting against what he saw

as the common enemy: Muslims. The Christians, however, turned their backs, leaving the Israelis

6 Ibid., 95.

7 H.W. Brands, Into the Labyrinth: The U.S. and the Middle East 1945-1993 (New York City:
McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 1993), 174.
to fight alone. US Secretary of State Alexander Haig provided Begin and Sharon the blind eye

they had gambled on, but only for a while. Due to his political fumbles and failing relations with

President Reagan and the rest of the administration, Haig submitted his resignation in June of

1982. However, less than a month later, George Schulz stepped in, and it was the beginning of

the end for Israel.

In mid-1982, a somber Ronald Reagan telephoned Begin and proclaimed, Menachem,

this is a holocaust.8 Realizing that they could not win the war without the assistance of the

United States and the United Nations, Israel, now led by Shimon Peres following Begins

resignation, grudgingly agreed to an uneasy peace. By 1985, most of the Israeli troops had

withdrawn from Lebanese lands, except for a small strip of land known as a security zone. The

United States and United Nations had both shifted their focus to the growing threat of terrorism,

and Israel was forced to take a backseat once again.

After all that, it seemed that Israel was back to square one. So, was it worth it? The answer is not

black and white. In the case of Palestine and Israel, there is no clean solution, nor is it likely that

there ever will be. While it is true that the Jewish people have been through more than any

population should ever have to go through, it does not seem fair to do the same thing to another

people. As a devoted pacifist, I personally would condemn the invasion of Lebanon simply

because it is an invasion. However, if I were to look at it from a more objective position, though

it would still be questionable morally, I can see how one could make an argument for its purpose,

especially if it had succeeded.

However, the fact of the matter is that it did not succeed, and Israel was left in almost the

same predicament as before. Politically, it shattered into two opposing parties, who worked

8 Lawrence Freedman, A Choice of Enemies, 131.

uneasily side by side. The first was the Labor Party, who favored territorial compromise, i.e.,

sacrificing land in order to gain other things, such as peace or stability.9 On the other hand, the

Likud party was adamantly opposed to relinquishing any portion of the Gaza Strip or the West

Bank.10 In 1986, the Likud Partys Yitzhak Shamir, who had served as foreign minister under

Begin, came into power as the prime minister. He began what I believe to be a shameful

persecution of the Palestinians under his control:

They were required to carry identity cards and pay special taxes, they had to overcome a
maze of bureaucratic obstacles and security checks to obtain the most basic licenses and
business permits, and the Israeli authorities arrested, imprisoned, and sometimes tortured
them for the slightest suspicion of political activism.11

As often happens when a group is persecuted, the Palestinians rose up. A movement known as

Intifada began among the Palestinians. Though its roots had begun beforehand, the day that

many regard as the true beginning of the Intifada is December 9, 1987, when four Palestinians

were killed in a collision with an Israeli army vehicle. At first, the movement was no more than

scattered protests and riots here and there, but it began to pick up speed and followers, and soon

the Unified National Leadership (UNL) was formed to guide the growing group. However, the

movement was not a peaceful one, and [b]y the end of 1990, the uprising had cost the lives of

an estimated 1,025 Palestinians, as well as 56 Israelis. More than 37,000 Arabs had been

wounded and between 35,000 and 40,000 arrested.12

9 William L. Cleveland and Martin Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th Ed.
(Boulder: Westview Press, 2016), 542.

10 Ibid., 542.

11 Ibid., 542.

12 Ibid., 454
I believe that the Intifada would have occurred with or without the Israeli invasion of Lebanon,

though the invasion certainly sped things up. The sad truth is that Israeli-Pakistani relations were

and still are miserable. Even if they had not been further strained by Israels assault, I think

that the movement would still have happened, though more slowly and perhaps with less

violence.

These tense relations have continued to this day, and still no win-win resolution has

appeared. While it once seemed possible that a two-state solution could begin to mend the huge

divide, it may be that the window of opportunity has already shut. Palestinian Dr. Mustafa

Barghouti says of this proposal:

While my heart still wants to believe that the two-state solution is possible, my brain
keeps telling me the opposite because of what I see in terms of the building of
settlements. So, these settlers are destroying the potential peace for both people that
would have been created if we had a two-state solution My heart is deeply broken, and
I am very worried that what Israel has done [the invasion of Gaza] has furthered us much
further from the possibility of [a] two-state solution.13

The fracture between Palestinians and Israelis has been deepened over the years, contributed to

greatly by the influence of outside forces. It is impossible to predict what the future will hold

between these two peoples; however, homeostasis is impossible to maintain with such

politically- and emotionally-charged topics as religion, homelands, and rights. Though there is

currently no outright war between the two, there have been sparks flying constantly, which will

only continue to grow in frequency, and, if left unattended for too long, could result in another

disastrous war.

13 CBS, Time Running Out For A Two-State Solution? 60 Minutes: Growing Number Of
Israelis, Palestinians Say Two-State Solution Is No Longer Possible (2009), television show.
 Bibliography

Brands, H.W. Into the Labyrinth: The U.S. and the Middle East 1945-1993. New York City:
McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 1993.

CBS, Time Running Out For A Two-State Solution? 60 Minutes: Growing Number Of Israelis,
Palestinians Say Two-State Solution Is No Longer Possible. 2009. Television show.

Cleveland, William L. and Martin Bunton. A History of the Modern Middle East, 6th Ed. Boulder:
Westview Press, 2016.

Freedman, Lawrence. A Choice of Enemies: America Confronts the Middle East. New York City:
PublicAffairs, 2008.

Friedman, Thomas L. From Beirut to Jerusalem. New York City: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux,
1989.

Miranda, Lin-Manuel. Hamilton. My Shot. Song. Performed by Original Broadway Cast of

Hamilton. 2015. New York City: Avatar Studios.

Salibi, Kamal. A House of Many Mansions: The History of Lebanon Reconsidered. London: I.B.
Tauris & Co Ltd, 1993. http://almashriq.hiof.no/lebanon/900/902/Kamal-Salibi/#salibi.