Lebanese Civil War: Encyclopedia II - Lebanese Civil War - Second phase of the war 1977-82

Lebanese Civil War - Second phase of the war 1977-82

Lebanese Civil War - Israel intervenes in South Lebanon 1978

Israel Defense Forces entered South Lebanon with the declared purpose "to wipe out PLO terrorist bases"[1] after a number of attacks against Israeli civilians launched by PLO from southern Lebanon. In the latest of those attacks on 11 March 1978, eleven Fatah militants landed on a beach in northern Israel and proceeded to hijack two buses full of passengers on Haifa - Tel-Aviv road, shooting at vehicles passing by. They killed 37 and wounded 76 Israelis before being killed in the firefight with the Israeli forces. [2]

Israel invaded Lebanon four days later in Operation Litani. The Israeli Army occupied most of the area south of the Litani River, resulting in the evacuation of at least 100,000 Lebanese (Smith, op. cit., 356), as well as approximately 2,000 deaths (Newsweek, 27 March 1978; Time, 3 April 1978; cited in Chomsky, Towards a New Cold War, p. 485 n115). The UN Security Council passed Resolution 425 calling for immediate Israeli withdrawal and creating the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), charged with maintaining peace.

Israeli forces withdrew later in 1978, but retained control of the southern region by managing a 12-mile wide "Security Zone" along the border. To hold these positions, Israel installed the South Lebanon Army (SLA), a Christian-Shi'a proxy militia under the leadership of Major Saad Haddad. Israel liberally supplied the SLA with arms and resources, and posted "advisors" to strengthen and direct the militia. The hard-line Israeli Prime Minister, Likud's Menachem Begin, compared the plight of the Christian minority in southern Lebanon (then about 5% of the population in SLA territory) to that of European Jews during World War II (Smith, op. cit., 355.).

Violent exchanges resumed between the PLO, Israel, and the SLA, with the PLO attacking SLA positions and firing rockets into northern Israel, Israel conducting air raids against PLO positions, and the SLA continuing its efforts to consolidate power in the border region.

Lebanese Civil War - Syria vs. the Phalange

Syria, meanwhile, clashed with the Phalange, a Maronite militia led by Bashir Gemayel, whose increasingly aggressive actions - such as his April 1981 attempt to capture the strategic city of Zahle in central Lebanon - were designed to thwart the Syrian goal of brushing aside Gemayel and installing Suleiman Frangieh as president. Consequently, the de facto alliance between Israel and Gemayel strengthened considerably: in the April 1981 fighting in Zahle, for example, Gemayel called for Israeli assistance, and Begin responded by sending Israeli fighter jets to the scene, which shot down two Syrian helicopters. (Smith, op. cit., p. 373.) This led to the decision by Syrian President Hafiz al-Assad to place ground-to-air missiles on the hilly perimeter of Zahle.

Lebanese Civil War - Influence of the PLO

In July 1981, Israeli forces attacked Palestinian positions in Lebanon, provoking retaliatory shelling by the PLO; the Israeli response to this shelling culminated in the aerial bombardment of a West Beirut suburb where Fatah's headquarters were located, killing 200 and wounding 600, most of whom were civilians (Smith, op. cit., p. 376). The PLO rejoinder was a rocket attack on towns and villages in northern Israel, leaving six civilians dead and wounding 59 (Ibid.). These exchanges prompted diplomatic intervention by the United States, in the person of US diplomat Philip Habib who was dispatched to the region to head off further escalation, which he successfully did via an agreement concluded in May.

On July 24, 1981, Habib brokered a cease-fire agreement with the PLO and Israel: the two sides agreed to cease hostilities in Lebanon proper and along the Israeli border with Lebanon.

Lebanese Civil War - Israel plans for attack

In August, Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin was re-elected, and in September, Begin and his defense minister Ariel Sharon began to lay plans for a second invasion of Lebanon for the purpose of driving out the PLO. Sharon's intention was to "destroy the PLO military infrastructure and, if possible, the PLO leadership itself; this would mean attacking West Beirut, where the PLO headquarters and command bunkers were located" (Smith, op. cit., p. 377).

Sharon also wanted to "ensure the presidency of Bashir Gemayel, to be elected under Israeli auspices....As a payment for Israeli assistance, Sharon expected Gemayel, once installed as president, to sign a peace treaty with Israel, presumably stabilizing forever Israel's northern border" (Ibid.). Begin brought Sharon's plan before the Knesset in December 1981; however, after strong objections were raised, Begin felt compelled to set the plan aside. But Sharon continued to press the issue. In January 1982, Sharon met with Gemayel on an Israeli vessel off the coast of Lebanon and discussed a plan "that would bring Israeli forces as far north as the edge of Beirut International Airport" (Time, 15 February 1982, cited in Chomsky, op. cit., 195). In February, with Begin's input, Yehoshua Seguy, the chief of military intelligence, was sent to Washington to discuss the issue of Lebanon with Secretary of State Alexander Haig. In the meeting, Haig "stressed that there could be no assault without a major provocation from Lebanon" (Smith, op. cit., p. 378).

Thus far, there had not been such a provocation; in fact, during the entire effective period of the cease-fire, August 1981 to May 1982, there was a total of one PLO rocket attack from Lebanese territory, in May. The attack was a retaliation for Israel's 9 May bombing of PLO positions in Lebanon, which was itself a retaliation for the PLO bombing of a Jerusalem bus. (Chomsky, op. cit., p. 196-7.) This particular exchange points up a central problem with the cease-fire from the Israeli perspective: it applied only to the border with Lebanon, meaning that PLO attacks from other locations, such as Jordan and the West Bank, could (and did) continue unabated, while an Israeli response directed against the PLO in Lebanon would technically be a violation of the cease-fire.

Arafat, for his part, refused to condemn attacks occurring outside of Lebanon, on the grounds that the cease-fire was only relevant to the Lebanese theater. (Smith, op. cit., p. 376). Arafat's interpretation underscored the fact that the cease-fire agreement did nothing to address ongoing violence between the PLO and Israel in other theaters. Israel thus continued to weather PLO attacks throughout the cease-fire period; at the same time, it violated the terms of the cease-fire by committing "2125 violations of Lebanese airspace and 652 violations of Lebanese territorial waters" from August 1981 to May 1982, including the abovementioned 9 May bombing and the 21 April bombing of coastal PLO targets south of Beirut (Chomsky, op. cit., p. 195; the figures on territorial violations are cited by Alexander Cockburn & James Ridgeway, Village Voice, 22 June 1982, quoting UN records).

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Second phase of the war 1977-82", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki