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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Israel
Index
The precarious sectarian balance prevailing in Lebanon has
presented Israeli policy makers with opportunities and risks.
Lebanon's Christian Maronites, who under French tutelage occupied
the most important political and economic posts in the country,
were, like Israeli Jews, a minority among the region's Muslim
majority. As early as 1954, Ben-Gurion had proposed that Israel
support the establishment in part of Lebanon of a Maronite-
dominated Christian ministate that would ally itself with Israel.
During the Lebanese Civil War (1975-76), then Prime Minister Rabin
reportedly invested US$150 million in equipping and training the
Maronite Phalange Party's militia.
The instability of Lebanon's sectarian balance, however,
enabled hostile states or groups to use Lebanon as a staging ground
for attacks against Israel. The PLO, following its expulsion from
Jordan in September 1970, set up its major base of operations in
southern Lebanon from which it attacked northern Israel. The number
and size of PLO operations in the south accelerated throughout the
late 1970s as central authority deteriorated and Lebanon became a
battleground of warring militias. In March 1978, following a
fedayeen attack, originating in Lebanon, on the Tel Aviv-Haifa road
that killed thirty-seven people, Israel launched Operation Litani,
a massive military offensive that resulted in Israeli occupation of
southern Lebanon up to the Litani River. By June Prime Minister
Begin, under intense American pressure, withdrew Israeli forces,
which were replaced by a UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). The
withdrawal of Israeli troops without having removed the PLO from
its bases in southern Lebanon became a major embarrassment to the
Begin government.
By the spring of 1981, Bashir Jumayyil (also cited as Gemayel)
emerged as the Maronite strong man and major Israeli ally in
Lebanon. Having ruthlessly eliminated his Maronite rivals, he was
attempting to extend his authority to other Lebanese Christian
sects. In late 1980 and early 1981, he extended the protection of
his Maronite militia to the Greek Orthodox inhabitants of Zahlah,
in eastern Lebanon. Syrian president Hafiz al Assad considered
Zahlah, which was located near the Beirut-Damascus road, a
stronghold that was strategically important to Syria. In April
1981, Syrian forces bombed and besieged Zahlah, ousting the
Phalangists, the Maronite group loyal to Jumayyil, from the city.
In response to the defeat of its major Lebanese ally, Israeli
aircraft destroyed two Syrian helicopters over Lebanon, prompting
Assad to move Soviet-made SAMs into Lebanon. Israel threatened to
destroy the missiles but was dissuaded from doing so by the
administration of President Ronald Reagan. In the end, the Zahlah
crisis, like the Litani Operation, badly tarnished the image of the
Begin government, which had come to power in 1977 espousing a hard-
line security policy.
In June 1981, Israel held Knesset elections that focused on the
Likud's failure to stop the PLO buildup in southern Lebanon or to
remove Syrian missile batteries from the Biqa (Bekaa) Valley in
eastern Lebanon. To remove a potential nuclear threat and also to
bolster its public image, the IDF launched a successful attack on
the French-built Iraqi Osiraq (acronym for Osiris-Iraq) nuclear
reactor three weeks before the elections. Begin interpreted
widespread public approval of the attack as a mandate for a more
aggressive policy in Lebanon. The Likud also rallied a large number
of undecided voters by reducing import duties on luxury goods,
enabling Israeli consumers to go on an unprecedented buying spree
that would later result in spiraling inflation. Although Labor
regained an additional fifteen seats over its poor showing in 1977
when it won only thirty-two seats, it was unable to prevail over
Likud.
Begin's perception that the Israeli public supported a more
active defense posture influenced the composition of his 1981
postelection cabinet. His new minister of defense, Ariel Sharon,
was unquestionably an Israeli war hero of longstanding; he had
played an important role in the 1956, 1967, and 1973 wars and was
widely respected as a brilliant military tactician. Sharon,
however, was also feared as a military man with political
ambitions, one who was ignorant of political protocol and who was
known to make precipitous moves. Aligned with Sharon was chief of
staff General Rafael Eytan who also advocated an aggressive Israeli
defense posture. Because Begin was not a military man, Israel's
defense policy was increasingly decided by the minister of defense
and the chief of staff. The combination of wide discretionary
powers granted Sharon and Eytan over Israeli military strategy, the
PLO's menacing growth in southern Lebanon, and the existence of
Syrian SAMs in the Biqa Valley pointed to imminent Syrian-PLO-
Israeli hostilities.
In July 1981, Israel responded to PLO rocket attacks on
northern Israeli settlements by bombing PLO encampments in southern
Lebanon. United States envoy Philip Habib eventually negotiated a
shaky cease-fire that was monitored by UNIFIL.
Another factor that influenced Israel's decision to take action
in Lebanon was the disarray of the Arab world throughout the early
1980s. The unanimity shown by the Arab states in Baghdad in
condemning Sadat's separate peace with Israel soon dissipated. The
1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution, the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War
in September 1980, and the December 1980 Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan badly divided the Arab world. The hard-line countries,
Syria and Libya, supported Iran, and the moderate countries,
Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf states, supported Iraq.
Moreover, Syrian president Assad's regime, dominated by the
minority Alawi Muslim sect, was confronted with growing domestic
opposition from the Muslim Brotherhood, which Assad violently
quelled in February 1982 by besieging the city of Hamah. Finally,
early United States opposition to an invasion of Lebanon appeared
to have weakened, following Israel's final withdrawal from Sinai in
May 1982.
Israel's incursion into Lebanon, called Operation Peace for
Galilee, was launched in early June 1982. After an attack on
Israel's ambassador in London carried out by the Abu Nidal group
but blamed on the PLO, Israeli troops marched into southern
Lebanon. On the afternoon of June 4 the Israeli air force bombed a
sports stadium in Beirut, said to be used for ammunition storage by
the PLO. The PLO responded by shelling Israeli towns in Galilee. On
June 5, the government of Israel formally accused the PLO of
breaking the cease-fire. At 11 A.M. on June 6, Israeli ground
forces crossed the border into Lebanon. The stated goals of the
operation were to free northern Israel from PLO rocket attacks by
creating a forty-kilometer-wide security zone in southern Lebanon
and by signing a peace treaty with Lebanon (see
1982 Invasion of Lebanon, ch. 5).
The June 1982 invasion of Lebanon was the first war fought by
the IDF without a domestic consensus. Unlike the 1948, 1967, and
1973 wars, the Israeli public did not view Operation Peace for
Galilee as essential to the survival of the Jewish state. By the
early 1980s--less than forty years after its establishment--Israel
had attained a military prowess unmatched in the region. The
architects of the 1982 invasion, Ariel Sharon and Rafael Eitan,
sought to use Israel's military strength to create a more favorable
regional political setting. This strategy included weakening the
PLO and supporting the rise to power in Lebanon of Israel's
Christian allies. The attempt to impose a military solution to the
intractable Palestinian problem and to force political change in
Lebanon failed. The PLO, although defeated militarily, remained an
important political force, and Bashir Jumayyil, Israel's major ally
in Lebanon, was killed shortly after becoming president. Inside
Israel, a mounting death toll caused sharp criticism by a war-weary
public of the war of and of the Likud government.
* * *
The literature on the cultural, political, and religious
history of Israel is immense. The works noted here and those listed
in the bibliography include easily available English-language
materials that are valuable futher reading not only for the serious
student but also for the interested layperson.
For a comprehensive and very detailed view of Jewish history
see the eighteen-volume work by Salo W. Baron and A History of
the Jewish People, edited by H.H. Ben Sasson. Another valuable
source covering all aspects of Jewish history is the
Encyclopaedia Judaica; a condensed history of the Jews is
contained in the sixteen volumes of the Israel Pocket Library. Paul
Johnson's A History of the Jews provides a more recent
overview.
A valuable summary of the origins of Zionism is set forth in
Arthur Hertzberg's introduction to The Zionist Idea: A
Historical Analysis and Reader. David Vital's books, The
Origins of Zionism and Zionism: The Formative Years,
offer scholarly accounts of the history of Zionism. More recent
works on Zionism include Shlomo Avineri's The Making of Modern
Zionism and Bernard Avishai's The Tragedy of Zionism.
The most comprehensive history of the modern State of Israel is
Howard Morley Sachar's two-volume A History of Israel. Two
other reliable general histories of Israel are Noah Lucas's The
Modern History of Israel and The Siege by Connor Cruise
O'Brien. A solid account of Israel's wars is provided by Chaim
Herzog's The Arab-Israeli Wars.
Five classics covering the pre-state era are Neville Mandel's
The Arabs and Zionism Before World War I, J.C. Hurewitz's
The Struggle for Palestine, Christopher Sykes's
Crossroads to Israel,George Antonius's The Arab
Awakening, and Michael J. Cohen's Palestine: Retreat from
the Mandate: The Making of British Policy 1936-1945. New
Revisionist accounts of the crucial years 1948-49 are contained in
Tom Segev's 1949: The First Israelis, Simha Flapan's The
Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities, and Benny Morris's The
Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem.
The most authoritative source on Israel's settlement policy in
the occupied territories is Meron Benvenisti's The West Bank and
Gaza Data Project. Two seminal works on Arabs in Israel are
Sammy Smooha's Israel: Pluralism and Conflict and Sabri
Jiryis's The Arabs in Israel. The best accounts of Israel's
incursion into Lebanon are Itamar Rabinovich's The War for
Lebanon, 1970-1983 and Zeev Schiff and Ehud Yaari's Israel's
War in Lebanon. (For further information and complete
citations,
see
Bibliography.)
Data as of December 1988
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