The Israel-PLO War 1982

by Howard Adelman

operation Peace in the Calilee andthe Beirut Siege constitute the first\l'ar Israel has fought agalllst the PLO.The Yarn Kippur War, the Six DayWar, the '1956 Suez War and eventhe War of Independence werefought against Arab states. This doesnot mean that the PLO (bd notparticipate in previous battles, butonlv that the pnnClpal military forces\\'e(e those of Arab states not ident­ified as PLO Nor does it mean thatthis war v\'as fought exclusively againstthe PLO; we are all aware of thebaltles fought with the Syrians inthe Bekail Valley, the reported 80Syrian jets destroyed versus oneIsraeli jet lost, and the capture of theBeirut-Damascus highway from theSyrians. cutting off the supply linesof the PLO (and Syrians) in westBeirut. But in the public mind -- andin reality -- the war was foughtagainst the military forces of the PLO.Israel fought and won a war against a'"nation" which does not have a state.

The war was unique in a numberof other respects. This was the firstwar in vvhich Israel's militalY objectivewas not simply the defeat of itsenemy in battle_ The goal was much

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larger - the destruction of theenemy's capacity to fight. This militaryaim did not apply to the Syrianshowever; for them Israel sought thewithdrawal of their military presencefrom Lebanon, But the ousting of theSyrians was not undertaken by mili­tary means, at least until now, In anycase it is clear that Israel's objectivewith respect to the Syrians is not thedestruction of their military capability.That goal is confined to the PLOoperation, and notwithstanding thislimitation, it still constitutes a tallorder.

To accomplish the destruction ofan enemy's military capability, themilitary might of the enemy must beso shattered, its alliances with itssuppliers and supporters must besevered, internal cohesiveness andmorale must be broken, so that theidea of rebuilding or recreating amilitary force capable of attackingIsrael is universally perceived to beone of Don Quixote's impossibledreams. These tasks are all extremelydifficult endeavours, yet they arenevertheless insufficient in them­selves to destroy an enemy's capacityto fight. For the enemy must not onlybe thoroughly defeated and routedin the field, but the field must beeliminated on which the enemy canwage a military battle. The Romansdid this to the Jews in the Bar Kochbarebellion in 132 AD.; Israel's capacityto fight was destroyed for almost2,GOO years.

The political objectives of thewar were also different, for not onlywas the war intended to destroy themilitaly capacity of the PLO, it wasalso designed to liquidate the PLO'sinfrastructure in Lebanon. The PLOwas to be eliminated as a political

force in Lebanese politics.Palestinians arrived in Lebanon

as refugees of the 1948 war. Later asmall number of Palestinian refugeescame after the 1967 war. A muchlarger number of militants arrivedfollowing King Hussein's suppressionof the PLO in Jordan during BlackSeptember in 1970, after 20,000 oftheir number had been killed. By1975 they had become an economicand social force in Lebanese politics.In the civil war of 1975-76 theyestablished themselves as the mostpotent militaly force among all thefeuding factions in Lebanon. Fromdespised refugees, the PLO hadbecome the effective rulers ofsignifica~t sectors of the Lebanesemosaic. And from that base theireconomic and social infrastructuregrew exponentially. Never beforehad the Israelis waged war to elimin­ate the political infrastructure of theirenemy even from territory which theycaptured and some hoped to annex.And Lebanon was a territory overwhich they had no claims whatso­ever.

The war had a second uniquepolitical aim. This was the first timeIsrael set as its objective the detenni­nation of the political character of anadjacent political state - the estab­lishment of a strong central govern­ment in Beirut. Previous wars hadbeen fought as clear exercises in self­defence when Israel was attacked oras pre-emptive battles to preventIsrael from being attacked. They weredefensive military wars in which theIsrael Defense Forces (I D F) was clear­ly that, a citizen army of defense.Although a case can be made forOperation Calilee as a defensive war,(Israel's life was not at stake, but the

peace and quiet and morale of itsnorthern settlements in Israel were),the Beirut siege could not be said tobe self-defensive. The PLO presencein Beirut could pose no significantimmediate military threat to Israel.The destruction of the PLO in Beirutwas required to meet a larger militaryobjective, i.e. the destruction of thePLO's capacity to fight, as well as apolitical objective involving theestablishment of a strong centralLebanese government whichrequired the elimination of thePLO infrastructure. Clearly, these arenot objectives of an underdog. Theyare the goals of a state which is wellestablished as a regional power,willing to use the military as analternative means of practicing poli­tics.

If the objectives differed fromprevious walS, the context did aswell. This is generally acknowledgedas the first Israeli warfought without anational consensus of support. Nodoubt a majority -- perhaps even alarge one -- backed Begin's war. Infact, the support for OperationGalilee could be said to be over­whelming. But even that fell far shortof the traditional consensus. Moreimportantly, the Labour Party ob­jected to the invasion of West Beirut,which Begin was clearly committedto undertake if diplomacy failed torout the PLO. One of Israel's young­est and most distinquished militarycommanders resigned from thearmed services rather than be facedwith refusing a command to lead histroops into Beirut, an unprecedentedmove. Rallies of close to ., 00,000opposing the war took place in Tel­Aviv, while Israeli soldiers were dyingin the field.

While Israelis were far fromunited in supporting the war, worldopinion was almost uniform in vilify­ing Israel's conduct of the war. Thecalumnies were bad enough -­700,000 refugees produced by theIsraeli invasion of south Lebanon and40,000 civilian casualties when, infact, there were less than 50,000homeless Palestinians and Lebaneseresulting from the initial operationand less than 4,000 casualties accord­ing to the official account of themunicipal authorities. Yet at least tworabbis, I. F. Stone, Stude Terkel, andnumerous other celebrities allowedtheir names to be put under aprotesting advertisement. (No sub-

sequent correction appeared to myknowledge.) And what is worse thanthe lies - for that is what such grossdistortion of fact must be labelled ­is the fact that they were widelybelieved. Large numbers of NorthAmericans and Europeans were pre­pared to believe the worst libelsabout Israel while, at the same time,Palestinians in south Lebanon, whowere available for interviews andwhom I later indeed did interview,acknowledged that through the warthey had learned the realities aboutthe Israelis. They were neither mon­sters, on the one hand, as they hadbeen led to believe, nor supermenon the other hand, as they feared.Rather, they were a sloppily dressed ifeffective military force, who by andlarge acted to avoid civilian casualtiesin Operation Galilee. In spite ofthese facts, which did not even needto be verified to be doubted since allof south Lebanon contained lessthan 700/000 inhabitants/ largenumbers of individuals were pre­pared to cast Israel beyond the paleof civilization just as they were onceready to believe blood libels againstJews in Eastern Europe. Whatshocked Israelis is not that such lieswere told, but that they were be­lieved. And the rhetoric used againstIsrael included charges of "exter­mination", a "final solution", "geno­cide" -- the language of the holo­caust now thrust at Jews themselves.

When the evidence "vas clearlyavailable for everyone to know thetruth, it was largely ignored, asattention shifted to Beirut. Israel wasdepicted as wantonly slaughteringcivilians, hitting schools and bomb­ing hospitals. It may be that while Ivvas in Lebanon and Beirut somearticles did appear in newspapersand magazines accusing the PLO ofholding civilians as hostages to savesome remnant of their power andprestige. But the "moral" outrageseemed to be overwhelmingly anduniformly directed at Israel.

All this happened while Americanpolicy was never more dearly con­gruent with Israeli political and mili­tary goals, though diverging ontactics. One reason for the lack ofIsraeli consensus supporting the warand overvvhelming outrage aimed atIsrael was yet another unique charac­teristic of this war. For the conduct ofthe war was also radicallv different, aswere the objectives and the context.

This was Israel's first urban war. Itis true that in previous wars, Port Suezin Egypt and Kuneitra in Syria hadbeen levelled. But this was the firstwar in which the primary targets werethe PLO military installations en­sconsed in the urban landscapes ofTyre, Sidon, and Beirut. The targetswere cities and the ultimate targetwas a capital city. Civilian casualtieswere regrettable, yes, but an ineVi­table consequence of such a warhowever hard one tried to avoidthem. Traditional Israeli compassionwhich had made the Israelis thehighest contributors per capita to theplight of Cambodians following theVietnamese invasion of that haplesscountry, that truly deep-felt sympathyfor all loss of human life was, in thiswar, subsumed under military andpolitical objectives of a radicallydifferent order.

The first days of the war pro­duced a hero, Yekutiel (K:lti) Adam,who led the capture ot BeaufortCastle. As a member of Shelli, (theIsraeli party opposed to all aspects ofthe war), he was the highest rankingofficer to die in the war and the onlyone perceived as a true war hero.Every other Israeli war produced agalaxy of heroes. An Israeli soldierstated his feelings most revealinglyon an Israeli Friday evening lVbroadcast - 'in this war we don/tfeel like heroes'; and this, in spiteof the fact that manv Israelisdied trying to avoid killing civilians.Branded on Western media as civ­ilian killers with pictures of injuredand maimed individuals beingrushed into West Beirut hospitals,presumably destroyed by Israelishells, at the same time dubious ofthe validity of the extensiveness ofthe war, and fighting an enemy thedestructive character of which clearlyposed no real threat to Israel'sexistence though it threatened Israelilife and property, Israelis couldacknowledge the results and evencheer the superior military skill of theIsraeli pilots and their brilliantlyexecuted battles against the Syrians,but for manv it was difficult to feelheroic:. Thou'gh the war was foughtwith political intelligence and excep­tional technical skill, this was a war ofone of the best equipped and besttrained armies against a smaller anddivided militaly force noted for itsenormous stores of arms and am­munitions, signs of conspicuOUS

nsumption and striving for statuscOthCl' than any evidence of the PLO's~ h . Ibility to use suc armaments Inte-~gentlY dn,d..effectively in the vast(uanutws ell-cumulated.I But the conduct of the war

differed in a much more important'espect. For the first time in Israel's:listo IV, the initiative was in the hands~f the nlilitary rather than in those ofthe politicians. It is widely believed;hat ShJron tricked the hawkish Israelicabinet into going beyond the orig­inal 40 km goal of the war. On June8th, Begin clearly assured Israelis that"the fighting will cease after Israelreaches 4() km." But Sharon plungedon to the borders of Beirut, then tothe Damascus··Beirut highway, on tothe airport and the Palestinian campsin the south of West Beirut, and thento the museum and Hippodrome atthe museum checkpoint at theentrance to the Champs Elysee ofWest Beirut. Though the cabinetprobably sanctioned the lalter movesin principle, evidence seems to bethat even the cdbinet and perhapsBegin himself were surprised by theearlier moves on Beirut. And finally,by mid-August, Begin and thecabinet hJd to publiciy rein in Sharonfollowing a sustained bombardmentof Beirut.

If the nature of the war differed,if its objectives were so qualitativelyat acids with previous wars, if dom­estic dissent and international publicopinion distinquished the contE-~xt ofthis war from all other Israeli wars, ifthe conduct and control of initiativeshad shifted to the military, howwoulcl all of this be reflected in termsof consequences? Repeatedly, newscomments on the war reiterated therefrain that though a complete mili­tary victory, the war was politicallylIseless. Israeli commentators did notgo so far. They frequently dis­tinquished between the results ofOperation Galilee and the siege ofBeirut. For example, Abba Ebandeclared that "the war in Beirut. .. hasIlot brought Israel a single gain thatwas not in our hands when the firstphase was ended in mid-June."(Jerusa/em Post, Aug. 6, 1982).

Whether or not one agrees withthe siege of Beirut. it did bringConscquences that went well beyondthe results of Operation Calilee;[whether one considers them gainsOr not depends on one's perspec­tives!. In the first phase of the war, the

Syrians were severely mauled. In thesecond they were made politicallyimpotent in Lebanon after the cap­ture of the Beirut-Damascus highway,and the capital was freed from thepressure of the Syrian military pres­ence. More importantly, the PLO wasdestroyed as a military force. Whethertheir military potential was alsodestroyed depends on develop­ments in the West Bank and Caza,but certainly their capacity to useLebanon as a military base waseliminated. Operation Calilee beganthe process; the siege of Beirutfinished it.

The PLO as an economic powerwas also dealt a severe blow. Thevarious factions of the PLO controlledindustries, financial institutions, realestate interests, as well as the ports ofTyre, Si don, and Beirut, dominatingthem far more effectively than theInternational L.ongshoremen's Unionever controlled the east coast ports ofthe United States. The PLO-directedSidon steel works Uv1a'assase al­Mechanikiya al-Hadithl, whichmonopolized the Lebanese market,has since been expropriated by theIsraelis as enemy property. The ArabBank, more popularly known as theFatah Bank, has had its humanfoundations torn away. It is unlikelyhowever, that the extensive realestate interests will be affected unlessthe new Lebanese governmentdecides to expropriate them. InAabda, just north of Sidon, where aLebanese official living in the areatold me that 75% of the apartmentbuildings are owned by Palestinians,it will be hard to distinquish betvveenthose owned by PLO and thoserepresenting the investments of thehard-earned savings of Palestiniansreturning from Abu Dhabi or Kuwait.

However, the capitalist powersof the PLO did not compare to itscontrol of labour, evidenced by thefact that the port workers wereovelwhelmingly Palestinian. ThroughPLO control of the ports, not onlywere arms and imports effectivelymanaged, but also duties were leviedto put competitors out of businessand to give the PLO an economicmonopoly in one economic ~ector

after another.But if the PLO military power was

destroyed and PLO economic powerwas severely damJged, its socialpower remains largely intact. For thebase of the PLO social services is the

UNWRA-funded schools, clinics andwelfare services. The PLO not onlyprevented UNWRA from keepingtrack of refugees in the camps, buteffectively determined the curricu­lum and staffing of the schools andclinics and how the rations weredistributed. As one senior PalestinianUNWRA official said to me in Sidon,I'we will carrv on and will not dealwith the Israe'lis as long as our leadersare penned up in West Beirut",(where they still were at that time).UNWRA is the American HEW(Health, Education and WelfareAgency) of the Palestinians, but onefinanced by the international com­munity rather than domestic taxes.The PLO was thereby free to investthe monies from the Arab Gulf States,Iran and Libya into a surfeit of militarysupplies and reasonably well run ifwell protected business enterprises.

The war has not only affected themilitary and economic structures ofPalestinian life in L.ebanon, it hasfreed the Lebanese from PLOdomination. More importantly, how­ever, it frees Palestinians from PLOcontrol. For those anti-PLO Palestinians,who arrived in Lebanon in 1948 andsuffered with repressed rage at theJohnny-come-Iatelys of 1967 and1970, were subjected to a forcewhich controlled their lives. As onesaid to me, he was ready to speakout publicly against the PL.O as soonas the Israelis had destroyed .- notremoved -- the militants in Beirut.Why not earlier? He did not want tofeel thev could sneak back into theregion ~nd assassinate him as theyhad once killed his brother. The PLOexodus from Beirut does allowPalestinian to disagree with Palestinianon the use of force, and does free theLebanese from PLO control - bothof which would never have beenpossible if Israeli military action hadbeen restricted to 40 km. AndLebanese freedom from PLO controlrefers not onlv to the Christians. Twomonths before the Israeli invasion,the Shiites led bv AMAL, turnedagainst their former allies, the PLO.Some Lebanese and Palestinians arewilling to sacrifice the last drop ofIsraeli blood to get rid. of theswaggering domination of the PL.O.

The psychological effects of thewar on the PLO is even moresign ificant. The '1948 Palestin ianrefugees in Lebanon, who almost allcame from the villages and cities

\·vhich are now part of northern Israel,retained the dream of returning totheir village plots and old homes. ThePl.O military seemed to make thereal ization of that dream feasible.Israel's complete military victory hasnow destroyed this illusion. In daysahead, if extensive family visits arepermitted between Palestinians inLebanon and Arab Israelis, even theillusion that this is a desirable goalmay disappear. For in the last 25years, their Palestinian cousins inIsrael have become more Israeli, justas they have become more Lebanese.

:viany Palestinians in Lebanonalready know that they would notwant to settle in an independentPalestinian state in the West Bankand Gaza, let alone a partially auton­OIllOUS one, because they recognizethat they would be regarded asoutsiders. Citizenship status inLC'banon is thus preferable if it can be,lttained. They are Lebanese in manyof their attitudes and habits and havelearned to benefit from the MiltonFriedman-world of Lebanese econ­omic life. The potential thus exists fora severe fracturing of the PLO, not onits traditional ideological lines (thoughthat may also happen), but onterritorial ones. For, once the goal ofeliminating Israel as a state is clearlyseen to be unrealizable, then theLebanese Palestinians can go theirown way - provided there is a realway to go -- while the Palestinians ofGaza and the West Bank can trulyseck national self-determination in areasonably clearly defined territorywithout needing to retain the objec­tive of eliminating Israel. Oneimportant consequence then of theIsraeli-PLO war of '1982 is thesevere damaging of the structuralunderpinnings of PLO ideology.

There are, of course, significantshifts in the politics of the region. ItIllay be true that on the one handthe PLO resents the Arab states forabandoning them when they weretrapped. However, on the other hand,the Arab oil states can now feel freefrom PLO military blackmail, thoughperhaps not moral blackmail. TheSoviet Union has shown itself to be apaper tiger, while the United Stateshas revealed its character as a tooth­less lion unable to limit the actions ofits ally, Israel. What Israel has lost inprestige as a moral power in inter­national eyes, it has gained in statusas a military power in the region. And

in an area which gives obeisance tothe man with the gun, this is animportant factor.

It remains an open questionwhether Syrian forces will withdrawentirely from Lebanon or whetherLebanon will be able to form a strongcentral government. Bashir Gemayel'sordering of a draft for all l8-year oldMaronite youth points to a Christiandam inated state in Lebanon to paral­lel the Jewish dominated state ofIsrael. Even if a plausible futurescenario can be drawn from directconsequences of the war, one can atbest only speculate about indirectresults. The most relevant scenario isthe loss of the West Bank and Gaza aspart of Israel. In spite of all theenormous gains Begin has made as aresult of the war, and in face of themoral superego attacks of the ex­treme doves and the helpless thrash­ing about of the moderate ones,Begin may have sown the seeds forthe loss of his most cherished ideal ­the effective annexation and integra­tion of the West Bank Uudea and'Samaria) and Gaza into Israel.

The reasons are simple. Theideology of the PLO is dominated bythose who needed to prove that theycould sOlve all Palestinians by satisfy­ing the dream of return for eventhose who came from Wh,lt is nowIsrael. ~ow with the shattering of themilitary forces of the PLO, differentgroups of Palestinians in differentterritories are free to pursue their ownparticular interests. LebanesePalestinians, who have not yet beenable to get Lebanese citizenship canclearly seek that objective. Theabsolute loyalty of Jordanian Pales­tinians to Jordan will be less suspect.At the same time, the Gaza and WestBank Arabs can begin to seek theirown interests without the debilitatingweakness of the claims of the PLOcovenant requ iring the destruction ofIsrael.

At the present time, depressionis rampant among West Bank andGaza Arabs. Their helplessness astheir brothers in Lebanon wereseverelv beaten is a cause for wide­spread' guilt. They did not evenmanage to organize any significantstrikes or demonstrations to at leastexpress their support, which mayhave perhaps drawn away some ofthe military resources of Israel. Thevare resented by some, and, som~resent in turn, the military fiction of

the PLO for leading them dOwn agarden path to a wasteland.

However, they are now in aposi~io.r~, .if they are clever ab?ut theirpOSSibIlities and do not cdntlllue theself-destructive illusions of theirtwentieth century history, to developa position politically stronger thanever before. For along with thedestruction of the PLO has alsocl issolved Israel's argu ment regardingpressing consideration for her securityneeds, WhICh, though With de­creasing effect, still tended to Over­shadow the Palestinian demands forself-determination in the West Bankand Gaza.

The combination of the particu­larization of Palestinian interests withthe loss of credibility of the Israelisecurity argument can become themost powerful of political argumentsin the international community andwithin Israeli public opinion, if andonly if the means chosen to pursuethe goal of self-determination isconsistent with real Palestinianinterests and a non-threatening standtowards Israel. If the Palestinians onthe West Bank show that they aredetermining their own destinies andare not being led by goals andmethods which are counterpro­ductive to their own interests, if theyuse peaceful means to give witnessto this will to self-determination, thenin spite of the enormous gains of theBegin and Sharon audacious siege ofBeirut, the long term goals of annex­ation may in fact be lost, as thetoothless lion and the paper tiger jointogether with other members of theinternational community to increasethe pressure to allow re'al autonomyfor West Bank and Caza Palestinians.

The reduction of the Palestiniansto a minority of inferior status withinan enlarged Israel is nevertheless alsopossible. If the Palestinians opt to tryto create a new field of battle in theWest Bank and Gaza, one canimagine the expulsion of Arabs just asthe Jews WE~re expelled by theRomans from the same territoriesabout 2,000 years ago. However,with a change of strategy, the Pales­tinians can turn a military defeat intoa political victory. The Israel-PLO warof '1982 might prove to be one of themost important turning points inIsrael's history for reasons quitedifferent than the immediate objec­tives of the war.