THE ISRAELI INVASION OF LEBANON, 1982 term paper

Lebanon, “the Switzerland of the Middle East,” with its beautiful capital at Beirut, was a favorite holiday spa in the region. After 1949, however, Lebanon’s reputation for tolerance and cultural pluralism was severely tested due to an influx of more than 100,000 Palestinians who had fled Israel. Because of its distinctive cultural and commercial traditions, Lebanon sought neutrality in the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflicts.

Starting in 1968, however, Palestinian commandos residing in south Lebanon launched attacks against Israel. By 1970 Yasir Arafat, leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), had taken up residence in Beirut. The influx of Palestinian refugees upset the delicate political and economic balance among Lebanese Christians, Muslims, and Druze, a religious community native to Lebanon. Although many Lebanese Muslims supported the PLO attacks on Israel, Lebanese Christians and the Lebanese government did not, and severe tensions between the PLO and Lebanese developed. In 1975 fighting between Palestinians and Lebanese Christian militia erupted in Beirut. Soon Beirut became a city under siege, where thousands of civilians were killed in a deadly and complicated power struggle among the PLO, Muslim, and Christian militias. Quickly this fighting spread, and Lebanon dissolved into a civil war that mirrored the tortured politics of the Middle East. Syria was quick to take advantage of the chaos by invading northern Lebanon, and Israel increasingly struck PLO targets in southern Lebanon. Determined to drive the PLO out of Lebanon, on 6 June 1982 Israel mounted a full-scale invasion. Within a week Israeli forces had crossed the Litani River and entered Beirut and had inflicted high casualties on Syrian forces in northern Lebanon. Once in Beirut the Israelis, along with Lebanese Christian Phalange militias, began a street-by-street removal of PLO forces. On 21 August 1982 a multinational force of British, Italian, French, and U.S. soldiers entered Beirut to supervise the withdrawal of all remaining PLO forces to Tunis. On 14 September, before they could do so, Bashir Gemayel, president of Lebanon, was assassinated; in retaliation for this, Phalange militiamen killed hundreds of Palestinians in the Beirut slums of Sabra and Shatila. On 23 October 1983, 241 U.S. Marines and 58 French soldiers, members of the multinational peacekeeping force, were killed in bomb attacks on their barracks. The international force left Lebanon in 1984; Israeli and Syrian forces began a phased withdrawal from Lebanon in 1985, but in 1999 elements of both forces still remained in Lebanon.
Suggestions for Term Papers
1. Although Christians and Muslims play a large role in Lebanese society, the Druze play a critical role as well. Who are the Druze? Why has this religious minority been so powerful in Lebanon’s history?
2. Why were Yasir Arafat and the PLO permitted to establish their headquarters in Beirut in 1970? What role did Egypt and Jordan have in this decision?
3. Investigate the massacre of Palestinians in the slums of Sabra and Shatila in September 1982. Could it have been prevented?
4. Women played very important roles in this war. Read Miriam Cooke’s War’s Other Voices (see Suggested Sources) and write a paper on the ways in which women reporters viewed the war.
5. Evaluate the effectiveness of the multinational force sent into Beirut to escort the PLO forces to Tunis. Did this force accomplish its mission?
6. How could the suicide bomber penetrate the security of the U.S. Marine barracks and kill 241 Marines? Assess the response of the Reagan administration to the massacre.

Research Suggestions

In addition to the boldfaced items, look under the entries for “The Establishment of the State of Israel, 1948” (#43), “Gamal Abdel Nasser and the Suez Crisis, 1956” (#52), “The Six-Day War, 1967” (#66), “OPEC and the Oil Price Shock, 1973” (#75), and “Terrorism in the 1970s” (#78). Search under Camille Chamoun, Ariel Sharon, and Operation Peace of Galilee.

SUGGESTED SOURCES

Primary Sources

Weir, Ben, and Carol Weir. Hostage Bound: Hostage Free. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1987. Poignant account of two missionaries captured in Beirut during the Lebanese civil war.

Yermiya, Dov. My War Diary: Lebanon June 5–July 1, 1982. Translated by Daniel Amit. Boston: South End Press, 1983. Candid and disturbing views of the Israeli security coordinator, who was shocked by the violence of the invasion.

Secondary Sources

Alin, Erika G. The United States and the 1958 Lebanon Crisis: American Intervention in the Middle East. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1994. An overview of why the United States intervened in the earlier crisis.

Avi-Ran, R. The Syrian Involvement in Lebanon since 1975. Translated by David Maisel. Boulder: Westview Press, 1991. An Israeli scholar’s views on Syria’s Lebanese policies.

Cobban, Helena. The Making of Modern Lebanon. London: Hutchinson Education, 1985. The best starting point for Lebanon’s history.

Cooke, Miriam. War’s Other Voices: Women Writers on the Lebanese Civil War. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Powerful evocation of the effects of war on Lebanese society.

Dupuy, Trevor, and Paul Martell. Flawed Victory: The Israeli Conflict and the 1982 War in Lebanon. Fairfax, Va.: Hero Books, 1986. A solid military history of the conflict with a good bibliography.

Evron, Yair. War and Intervention in Lebanon: The Israeli-Syrian Deterrence Dialogue. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987. Chapter 4 is a good overview of the 1982 war.

Hiro, Dilip. Lebanon: Fire and Embers: A History of the Lebanese Civil War. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993. A clear analysis of the complicated struggle.

Jansen, Michael. The Battle of Beirut: Why Israel Invaded Lebanon. Boston: South End Press, 1983. A good introduction including maps, time lines, and pictures.

Khalide, Rashid. Under Siege: P.L.O. Decisionmaking During the 1982 War. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986. Straightforward account of why the PLO elected to leave Beirut in 1982.

O’Ballance, Edgar. Civil War in Lebanon, 1975–92. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998. Shows the long-term effects of the intervention.