Learning from history

In June of 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon, and the world was confronted with a new crisis in the Middle East. Here in the U.S., George Shultz had just been nominated by President Reagan to replace Alexander Haig as Secretary of State. Shultz recalls the events of 1982 in Turmoil and Triumph, an extraordinary memoir of his six years as Secretary of State. Here is an excerpt from Chapter 4, entitled "The Siege of Beirut":

In my confirmation hearings, I had told the Senate that the crisis in Lebanon made painfully clear the urgent need to resolve the problems of the Palestinian people. The peace process had collapsed, and a war process continued to gather momentum. Now the Israeli army was laying siege to the capital of an Arab land: they were poised on the southern edge of Beirut. Palestinian fighters ran raids against their front lines and lobbed mortars in their rear areas; the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) pounded back at the city with artillery, tank forays, and air strikes.

The United States was caught in the middle. The Arab world blamed us, as Israel's great ally and financial supporter, for all of Israel's deeds and looked to us to end the fighting in a responsible way. The Lebanese government particularly relied on us to save them from outside predators and to help them restore Lebanese central authority over their country. The Israelis took our material support for granted while defying any criticism of their chosen course of action; yet they also clearly wanted the United States to negotiate an end to the war that would keep the IDF out of inevitably bloody street-to-street fighting in Beirut.

The problems to be faced had been around for a long time. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), expelled by Jordan after bloody battles back in the late 1970's, had established its headquarters in Beirut and based its fighters in Lebanon. Their cross-border attacks on northern Israel and Israeli retaliatory strikes led to a cease-fire negotiated on July 24, 1981, after long efforts by [U.S. diplomat] Phil Habib. The border had been generally quiet for eleven months, although the sense of mutual antagonism was intense. The PLO wanted to disrupt Israeli society, and the Israelis could not bear their enemy in a sanctuary so close to their border.

With the fighting across the Lebanese-Israeli border greatly reduced, PLO terrorism beyone the Middle East increased. The cease-fire applied only to the border area; the Israelis screamed "foul" as the PLO hit elsewhere. On June 3, the Israeli ambassador to Britain, Shlomo Argov, was shot and critically wounded in London. The Israelis bombed PLO targets in Lebanon in retaliation, killing 45 people and wounding more than 150, according to the Lebanese government. The PLO responded with artillery attacks on northern Israel. On June 5, the UN Security Council, meeting at Lebanon's request, issued a unanimous call for a cease-fire. On June 6, massed Israeli tanks and infantry crossed into Lebanon, supported by air strikes and sea landings. This was war, and not only between Israelis and Palestinians: the Israeli forces were taking on the army and air force of Soviet-backed Syria as well. Initially announced by Prime Minister Begin as an operation to clear out terrorists from a zone forty kilometers deep into southern Lebanon, the invasion kept rolling northward until, by June 9, Israeli forces were within sight of Beirut. Israel's real objective was the destruction of the PLO and its leadership of the Palestinian movement.

The U.S. response and objectives evolved rapidly: attain a cease-fire between Israeli and Syrian forces; use the Israeli presence and threat as a means to negotiate the evacuation of the PLO from Beirut, and in turn use that prospect to keep Israeli forces out of that Arab capital; lay the groundwork for putting in place an international peacekeeping force, as the Lebanese were requesting; work for a diplomatic arrangement that would get all foreign forces out of Lebanon; and use the opportunity to help Lebanon get back on its feet, assert its national identity, and, if possible, develop some sort of stable relationship with Israel.

I just thought that was interesting, particularly in light of the current crisis. To find out how the story ended, either make good use of Google, or read Secretary Shultz's book. (Here are a few of the major events that followed: The PLO did evacuate Beirut, PLO leader Yassir Arafat was escorted by the U.S. Sixth Fleet to Tunisia, and a multinational force - including troops from the United States - entered Lebanon to keep the peace. The U.S. marine barracks in Beirut was attacked by Hezbollah terrorists in October of 1983, killing 241 Marines and precipitating the U.S. withdrawal from Lebanon.)