Personal Whim or Strategic Imperative?: The Israeli Invasion of Lebanon

Key takeaways

content: "@yanivPersonalWhimStrategic1983" -file:@yanivPersonalWhimStrategic1983

Reading notes

• Israel, then, has followed a long and tortuous path from 1968, when it began reprisals in Lebanon, to its decision to invade in 1982. The experience sug- gests characteristic Israeli patterns of response, not merely to the PLO in Lebanon, but toward other neighboring states. Since Israel achieved state- hood in 1948, it has encountered constant threats which in many ways paralleled the PLO challenge in Lebanon. This was particularly evident in the period 1953-1956 vis-a-vis Egypt and 1957-1967 in regard to Syria. In both periods, as later in Lebanon between 1968 and 1982, Israel could choose a policy of passivity, limited reprisals, or large-scale action.
• Inevitably, it led to an escalating pattern of action, reaction, and counteraction, which would ultimately be resolved by full-scale war. In the first of the two earlier major cases (Egypt), the eventual result was peace. In the second (Syria), it may yet take a long time to resolve the conflict through a peace agreement. Indeed, the probability of a major flare-up between Syria and Israel in the foreseeable future is very high. Nonetheless, from the perspective of 35 years, it appears that a major struc- tural change in Israeli-Syrian relations has taken place: instead of continuous small-scale friction, the emerging pattern is of increasingly infrequent major conflagrations, separated by long periods of armed stability.
• The PLO in its present configuration, however, presents a problem which does not fit into either of these alternatives: while the Israeli invasion of Lebanon may have dealt effectively with an immediate security challenge, it remains to be seen whether or not the outcome will lead to stabilization or, ultimately, to peace. At the moment, neither outcome seems likely, though in the longer term neither should be too readily dismissed. Yet, even had Israeli policymakers assumed the more pessimistic scenario-and they may well have-the weight of the analysis presented here is that strategic imper- atives left them little alternative in their decision to act. To be sure, they may have stretched the strategic logic too far
• Conceivably, they could have stopped at the Awali line and thus avoided the carnage of Beirut, cut short the war, denied Syria a virtual veto over a Lebanese settlement, and possibly reduced the IDF's subsequent casualties from guerrilla attacks. But, as the postwar debate in Israel reveals, even the Government's strongest critics do not argue that the invasion could have been avoided altogether. In the end, strategic logic rather than mere personal whim made a major Israeli operation in southern Lebanon virtually inevitable.