Silje Gill Andby Solvang

Coiled: Israel’s Invasion of Lebanon in 1978

MES4590 Master Thesis in Middle East Studies

Hebrew & Semitic Studies

30 Credits

Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages (IKOS)

University of Oslo

Fall 2019

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Coiled: Israel’s Invasion of Lebanon in 1978

In the end, it bites like a snake; It spits like a basilisk1

Contents Preface ............................................................................................................. iv

Chapter 1: Introduction ..................................................................................... 1

Chapter 2: Complicated Territory .................................................................. 12

Chapter 3: Increased Israeli Support and Diminishing American Support .... 21

Chapter 4: Litani ............................................................................................. 31

Chapter 5: Conclusion .................................................................................... 43

Appendix A: Map of southern Lebanon ......................................................... 48

Appendix B: UN Resolutions 425 and 426 .................................................... 49

Primary Sources .............................................................................................. 50

Bibliography ................................................................................................... 52

1 Proverbs 23:32.

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Preface The road towards this thesis has been full of challenges, bumps, turns and detours. However,

one thing has remained constant: Operation Litani, and the Litani River. As the operation was

launched, it was named Operation Stone of Wisdom, however it was later renamed Operation

Litani, after the Litani River which is located about 20 kilometres from the Israeli-Lebanese

border. I guess as a side effect of being a language student, I became curious about the

etymology of the name Litani. As it turns out, the Litani River is named after the mythical

monster Lotan, which name is derived from the Ugarit root L-T-N, but is probably also

related to the root L-W-Y (or L-W-H), which can be found in Hebrew. It can be translated to

twist or wreath.2

In Ugaritic literature, Lotan has been described as a fleeing, coiling or twisting

serpent.3 Historian Wilfred G. Lambert has argued that there is a direct link between Lotan

and the sea monster Leviathan (also from L-W-H) described in Isaiah 27:1.4 Because the root

L-W-H can be translated to twist or wreath, Leviathan has often been pictured as a coiling

snakelike figure.5 That is when Proverbs 23 came to my mind. Proverbs 23 is plea to the

reader to abstain from temptations and not give into greed. The reader should not be tempted

by fancy foods or sparkling drinks; in the end it will sting. I immediately associated Proverbs

23:10 with Israel’s invasion in 1978, as verse 10 reads:

א י ב ים אל־ת תומ י י ד ם ובש בול עול ג ג ס :אל־ת

10 Do not remove ancient boundary stones; Do not encroach upon the fields of the

fatherless;6

Can this be a plea not to move boundaries, or borders, to expand personal property? Prior to

1978, the Israelis had stayed on the side-line of the conflict in Lebanon. However, in 1978,

something changed. They entered into a territory that did not belong to them, an expanded the

2 Christoph Uehlinger, “Leviathan,” in Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (DDD), ed. Karel van der

Toorn, Bob Becking, Pieter W. van der Horst. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995), 956; Francis Brown, S. R. Driver and

Charles A. Briggs, The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (Massachusetts: Hendrickson

Publishers, 2014), 531. 3 William D. Barker, Isaiah's Kingship Polemic: An Exegetical Study in Isaiah 24-27 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck,

2014), 151. 4 Barker, Isaiah's Kingship Polemic, 151. 5 Uehlinger, “Leviathan,” 956. However, Leviathan in the Bible is not solely described as a snake, but more of a

sea-monster, and can also be imagined to be a whale, crocodile or a dragon. Brown et.al., The Brown-Driver-

Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, 531; William L. Holladay, A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the

Old Testament (Leiden, the Netherlands: E. J. Brills, 1988), 174. 6 English translation from the Jewish Publication Society’s Hebrew-English Tanakh, 1999.

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de facto border. But everything comes with a cost. They took a sip of a wine they shouldn’t

have, and in the end, it bit like a snake, it spit like a basilisk.

ך; לב ש יש נח רש אחריתו, כ ני יפ ע צפ וכ

Proverbs 23:32 In the end, it bites like a snake; It spits like a basilisk.

I have held on to this story during the writing process, and I have therefore chosen to give my

thesis the title Coiled: Israel’s Invasion of Lebanon in 1978. The snake coiled, ready to

attack, and Israel ended up in its grip.

As the only Hebrew student in my class, this road has also sometimes been lonely.

Luckily, I have been fortunate to get advice from two exceptionally knowledgeable

supervisors; professor of Middle East Studies Brynjar Lia and professor of History Hilde

Henriksen Waage. I would like to thank Brynjar Lia for all his helpful comments, for sharing

of his knowledge, and for making time for me. I would also like to thank Hilde Henriksen

Waage for her guidance, constructive comments, and for good advice; on research, writing,

and life in general. I would also like to thank Espen Arnesen, my first moreh, for providing

me with a rock-solid foundation for my Hebrew as I went on, and for being the madrich who

opened the door to this extraordinary language. I also want to thank professor of Arabic and

Semitic Languages at University of Erlangen-Nürnberg Lutz Eberhard Edzard, for sharing of

his enormous expertise, and for letting me take part in so many educational and inspirational

events, making me feel included in something even when I constituted an entire Hebrew class

all by myself. And I would like to thank Masterseminaret, for letting me tag along, which

made me feel less alone.

Lastly, I would like to thank my friends and family for their support and

encouragement. I want to thank Meichen for the company. I want to thank Aina for always

listening, and for reading through all the terrible first drafts, and for always having my back.

And I would like to thank my partner Jonathan, for lifting me up every time I fell down.

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Chapter 1

Introduction

In March 1978, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) crossed Israel’s northern border into

southern Lebanon, in an operation called Operation Litani.7 Lebanon had been torn apart by

civil war since 1975, a war that was particularly chaotic and confusing. The Lebanese

government’s lack of control had given the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) an

opportunity to establish their presence and headquarters in southern Lebanon. Over the past

years the PLO had been launching numerous attacks over the border into Israeli territory.8 On

11 March 1978, a group of Palestinian fighters, or fedayeen, hijacked two Israeli buses on

the Haifa-Tel Aviv road, a terror act in which 37 Israelis were killed, and 76 were injured.9 It

was in the aftermath of this event that Israel let their troops cross the border.10

The situation in Lebanon was bewildering and complex. The political system had for

centuries been dominated by a sectarian structure, based on religious and ethnic divisions,

with an underlying class component. When the civil war broke out, the Lebanese government

found itself unable to control the different groups and militias. In an attempt to calm down

the fighting and reassert its influence over the country, Syria deployed military forces in

Lebanon in 1976.11 The Syrian intervention in Lebanon was considered a serious potential

threat in Israel, especially since it was a possibility Syria could use Lebanon as a base to

attack Israeli territory.12 Syria had many reasons for its anti-Israeli belligerence. After all, the

7 Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “135 Israel Defence Forces statement on the operation in Lebanon, 15

March 1978,” accessed 31 October 2018,

http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/MFADocuments/Yearbook3/Pages/135%20Israel%20Defence%20Forces

%20statement%20on%20the%20operati.aspx; William E. Farrell, “Raid Is Retaliatory,” The New York Times,

March 15, 1978. 8 Avi Shlaim, The Iron Wall – Israel and the Arab World (London: Penguin Books, 2014), 347; Yair Evron,

War and Intervention in Lebanon – Israeli-Syrian Deterrence Dialogue (London: Croom Helm, 1978), 29. 9 Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “133 Statement to the press by Prime Minister Begin on the massacre of

Israelis on the Haifa-Tel Aviv Road- 12 March 1978,” accessed 31 October 2018,

http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/MFADocuments/Yearbook3/Pages/133%20Statement%20to%20the%20p

ress%20by%20Prime%20Minister%20Begin.aspx; Walid Khalidi, Conflict and Violence in Lebanon:

Confrontation in the Middle East (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Center for International Affairs, Harvard

University, 1979), 129. Fedayeen is a term commonly used to describe member of Palestinian armed groups

since the 1960s. Originally an Arabic term meaning “those who sacrifice themselves.” The Israel Project,

“Middle East Glossary,” accessed 21 November 2019,

https://web.archive.org/web/20120427125233/http://www.theisraelproject.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=hsJP

K0PIJpH&b=886017&ct=1181593. 10 Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “135 Israel Defence Forces statement on the operation in Lebanon”;

William E. Farrell, “Raid Is Retaliatory,” The New York Times, March 15, 1978. 11 Hilde Henriksen Waage and Geir Huse Bergersen, “A Careful Minuet: The United States, Israel, Syria and the

Lebanese Civil War, 1975–76”, The International History Review (2019),

DOI:10.1080/07075332.2019.1678507. 12 Laurie Zittrain Eisenberg, “From benign to malign: Israeli-Lebanese relations, 1948-78,” in Israel and

Hizbollah: An asymmetric conflict in historical and comparative perspective, ed. Clive Jones and Sergio

Catignani (London and New York: Routledge, 2010), 21.

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conflict between the two countries over the Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria in

the 1967 War, remained unresolved.13

For the United States, the main concern with the Lebanese civil war was its possible

effects on the peace negotiations between Israel and Egypt (the peace talks eventually

culminated with the signing of the Camp David accords on 17 September 1978). The

Americans were concerned that a Syrian intervention in Lebanon would provoke an Israeli

counter-invasion, and that this in turn would affect the U.S. peace initiative in the region.14

However, as the conflict in Lebanon progressed, the Israelis understood that an external actor

was needed to stop the fighting. They were not interested in getting dragged too deeply into

the Lebanese civil war themselves and eventually accepted that a Syrian intervention might

be a tolerable action.15 Eager to reduce the tensions in Lebanon, the U.S. took no

countermeasures to prevent Syrian forces to intervene, despite the fact that Syrian troops

were financed and trained by the Soviet Union.16 Thus, the Israelis tacitly agreed to let Syrian

forces enter Lebanon.17

Even though there was a very real chance of the Israeli invasion in March 1978

affecting the peace talks, the Israelis nevertheless decided to move forward with their

operation in southern Lebanon. Why did Israel invade southern Lebanon in 1978? Were the

Israelis motivated by fear of the PLO or a desire to avenge the terrorist attack? Was the

invasion an attempt to gain leverage over Syria? Or were the Israelis motivated by territorial

ambitions? Based on extensive research in Israel State Archive documents, this thesis aims to

answer these questions.

Perspectives on the Cold War

World politics in the seventies were heavily influenced by the Cold War. The United States

and the Soviet Union both had interests and ambitions to expand their spheres of influence

around the world – including in the Middle East.18 The Soviet Union sought influence by

offering support to anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist forces as well as groups advocating

13 Ehud Eilam, Israel’s Way of War: A Strategic and Operational Analysis, 1948 – 2014 (Jefferson, North

Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2016), 15. 14 Waage and Bergersen, “A Careful Minuet,” 12. 15 Waage and Bergersen, “A Careful Minuet,” 7-8. 16 Hilde Henriksen Waage, Konflikt og stormaktspolitikk i Midtøsten (Kristiansand: Cappelen Damm AS, 2013),

230. 17 Evron, War and Intervention in Lebanon, 81; Waage and Bergersen, “A Careful Minuet,” 3. 18 Yezid Sayigh and Avi Shlaim, “Introduction,” in The Cold War and the Middle East, ed. Yezin Sayigh and

Avi Shlaim (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 1; Fred Halliday, “The Middle East, the Great Powers,

and the Cold War,” in Sayigh, Yezid, & Shlaim, Avi (Red.), The cold war and the Middle East (New York:

Oxford University Press, 2003), 6.

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anti-western positions. Worried about the possible expansion of Soviet influence in both the

Middle East and elsewhere, the United States offered military and economic support to

anyone that fought against communism, something the Eisenhower doctrine back in 1958 had

been an example of.19

The super-powers were determined to prevent the other from gaining more influence,

and this could easily be exploited.20 By framing a domestic conflict in a larger Cold War

scheme, actors in the Middle East (and elsewhere) were able to make the super-powers

provide support to their cause (whatever it was).21 In the case of the Soviet Union, however,

despite the Soviets’ efforts to expand their influence in the Middle East and their generous

military support to several Arab countries, the influence of the Soviet Union remained

limited. With Syria, however, the Soviet Union did succeed in forming a close, long-term

relationship, albeit Syria never became a pliant Soviet satellite state.22

For Israel, the 1970s had started off with a disaster. Egyptian and Syrian forces had

attacked Israel on Yom Kippur 6 October 1973, an attack which had taken the Israelis

completely by surprise.23 In the initial phase of the war, Egypt had the clear upper hand, but

the Israelis managed to turn things around, although with substantial military aid from the

U.S.24 The Israelis had almost lost a war for the first time in their history.25

In the following years, Israel signed several ceasefire agreements with her neighbors.

The powerful United States National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger started an intense

shuttle diplomacy, and facilitated disengagement agreements between Egypt and Israel on 18

January 1974, Syria and Israel on 29 May 1974, and a second agreement with Egypt, often

referred to as the Sinai II Agreement, on 4 September 1975.26 With the Sinai agreements,

19 Halliday, “The Middle East, the Great Powers, and the Cold War,” 6, 8-9. 20 Sayigh and Shlaim, “Introduction,” 3. 21 An example of this is former Lebanese President Chamoun, who used this rhetoric to receive military aid

from the United Sates during the crisis in 1958. Euguene Rogan, Araberne - Historien om det arabiske folk

(Oslo: Gyldendal, 2011), 365; Fawas A. Gerges, “Lebanon,” in The Cold War and the Middle East, ed. Yezin

Sayigh and Avi Shlaim (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 88-89; Waage, Konflikt og stormaktspolitikk,

223. Israel’s first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, also took advantage of the U.S.’ fear of the Soviet Union

by framing the Arab-Israeli conflict in a Cold War frame to get military supplies from the U.S. in the late 1950s.

Shlaim, The Iron Wall, 200-203. 22 Halliday, “The Middle East, the Great Powers, and the Cold War,” 16-17; Patrick Seale, “Syria,” in The Cold

War and the Middle East, ed. Yezin Sayigh and Avi Shlaim (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 49, 59. 23 Shlaim, The Iron Wall, 322-323. Waage, Konflikt og stormaktspolitikk, 388-389. 24 Adeed Dawisha, “Egypt,” in The Cold War and the Middle East, ed. Yezin Sayigh and Avi Shlaim (Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 2003), 39; Ian J. Bickerton and Carla L. Klausner, A History of the Arab-Israeli

Conflict (New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc., 2007), 168; Seth Anziska, Preventing Palestine – A Political

History From Camp David to Oslo (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018), 10; Shlaim, The Iron Wall,

322-323; Waage, Konflikt og stormaktspolitikk, 384, 388-391. 25 Bickerton and Klausner, A History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 170; Shlaim, The Iron Wall, 328-329. 26 Rogan, Araberne, 429; Shlaim, The Iron Wall, 326-327, 349; Waage, Konflikt og stormaktspolitikk, 398-399.

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Egypt and Israel had both committed to withdraw their military forces from the borders and

create a buffer zone between the two states. Egypt also promised to reduce its military army

on the west bank of the channel.27 However, Egypt had still not recognized Israel as a

sovereign state.

Theoretical perspectives

There are several things that must be considered when a country makes a foreign policy

decision. Professors of political science Alex Mintz and Karl DeRouen point to four

determinants that affect foreign policy decision: the decision environment, psychological

factors, international factors and domestic factors.28 Political scientist Lewis Brownstein has

argued that Israel’s foreign policy decisions from Israel’s creation in 1948 to 1980 was

characterized by four prominent elements: domination of a small elite, lack of planning,

underdeveloped in-house research and a “resistance to the utilization of outside expertise in

foreign policy making.”29

According to Brownstein, Israel’s foreign affairs and foreign policy decisions in this

period had typically been controlled by a small group of people, where the prime minster

always had central position. 30 Political scientists Jonathan Monten and Andrew Bennet

highlight how a crisis can make the president, and his circle of confidants, more dominant in

a decision-making process.31 A crisis demands the president’s, or the prime minister’s in

Israel’s case, full attention.32 Had Israel been in a constant state of crisis?

Historian Avi Shlaim and political scientist Avner Yaniv have argued that Israel’s

foreign policy between her creation in 1948 and 1980 can be described as reactive in

character.33 They have argued that Israel’s foreign policy to a large extent was shaped by the

perception that Israel was a small country surrounded by hostile countries, and that her

foreign policies generally were responses to her enemies’ “hostile initiatives.”34 Brownstein

has described Israeli foreign politics in similar ways, and claims that Israeli foreign policies

27 Bickerton and Klausner, A History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 179-181; Rogan, Araberne, 429; Shlaim, The

Iron Wall, 326-327, 349; Waage, Konflikt og stormaktspolitikk, 398-399. 28 Alex Mintz and Karl DeRouen Jr., Understanding Foreign Policy Decision Making (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2010), 3-4. 29 Lewis Brownstein, “Decision Making in Israeli Foreign Policy: An Unplanned Process,” Political Science

Quarterly 92, 2 (1977): 260, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2148353. 30 Brownstein, “Decision Making in Israeli Foreign Policy: An Unplanned Process,” 261. 31 Jonathan Monten and Andrew Bennett, “Models of Crisis Decision Making

and the 1990–91 Gulf War,” Security Studies 19, 3 (2010): 491, doi: 10.1080/09636412.2010.505129 32 Monten and Bennett, “Models of Crisis Decision Making,” 488, 491. 33 Avi Shlaim and Avner Yaniv, “Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy in Israel,” International Affairs 56, 2

(1980): 242, 247, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2615407. 34 Avi Shlaim and Avner Yaniv, “Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy in Israel,” 242, 247.

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was largely focused on Israel’s situation vis-à-vis her Arab neighbors.35 In addition to being

reactive, Shlaim, Yaniv and Brownstein have described Israeli foreign policy as

unsystematic, personalized and ad hoc.36 Brownstein even compared Israel’s foreign policies

to a “fire brigade,” responding to other’s actions, with no long-term planning.37

The crisis-modus of Israeli foreign policy was in no small part a result of geography.

Israel is a small country, covering approximately 20,000 square kilometres, which presents

the Israelis with a problem: Israel lacks “strategic depth.” This is a military term, denoting the

critical importance of sufficient geographical distance between the (assumed) front lines and

key civilian and industrial areas in a country.38 Short distance between highly populated areas

within a country and the border makes that particular state vulnerable for attacks. Minister of

Foreign Affairs under Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin (1974-1977) Yigal Allon has argued

that there is asymmetry between Israel’s and her Arab neighbours’ borders. In his analysis he

described the Arab territory as one unit rather than separate states (he used the Arab

League39). He claimed that defeat in a war means loss in both human lives, destruction of

equipment as well as humiliation for an Arab state, but it would never pose a threat to the

states’ existence. However, in Allon’s analysis, defeat for Israel would lead to “the physical

extinction of a large part of its population and the political elimination of the Jewish state”.40

This line of thinking was largely accepted by Israeli government, and Israeli leaders adjusted

their military strategy to deal with this asymmetry.41

The Israeli-Lebanese border is located just over 100 kilometres from Tel Aviv, and

the distance between the border and Haifa is not even 40 kilometres. Rockets launched from

the border could easily hit highly populated areas within Israel. Not only was this a concern

regarding the PLO, it also applied to Syria. Especially after Syria entered Lebanon in 1976,

35 Brownstein, “Decision Making in Israeli Foreign Policy: An Unplanned Process,” 260. 36 Brownstein, “Decision Making in Israeli Foreign Policy: An Unplanned Process,” 260; Shlaim and Yaniv,

“Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy in Israel,” 242. 37 Brownstein, “Decision Making in Israeli Foreign Policy: An Unplanned Process,” 265. 38 For the application of the term, see e.g. Alexander Murinson, "The Strategic Depth Doctrine of Turkish

Foreign Policy," Middle Eastern Studies 42, 6 (2006): 945-964, doi:10.1080/00263200600923526. 39 When he wrote his analysis, the Arab League had 21 members: Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq,

Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Palestine, Sudan,

Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. 40 Yigal Allon, “Israel: the case for defensible borders,” Foreign Affairs vol. 55 (1976), 38-39,

doi:10.2307/20039626 41 Avraham Sela, “Civil Society, the Military, and National Security: The Case of Israel's Security Zone in

South Lebanon,” Israel Studies 12, 1 (2007): 58, https://www.jstor.org/stable/30245807; Eilam, Israel’s Way of

War, 3.

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there was a possibility that the Syrians could use Lebanon as a launching pad for attacking

Israel.42 The strategic depth was, and still is, a crucial factor in Israel’s security assessment.

However, territorial asymmetry war not the only asymmetry Israel had to worry about.

Israel’s war with the PLO was, in many respects, very different from wars Israel had fought

after independence. The 1956, 1967 and 1973 wars had been wars between states, but the

PLO was not a state. In a conventional war, there is a clear distinction between soldiers and

civilians, but the PLO did not have a conventional army; their “soldiers” were more akin to

guerrilla warriors, clandestine militants, and at times terrorists. Guerrilla warfare is

characterized by smaller groups, who use sabotage, surprise attacks and acts of terrorism,

against more traditional military units.

However, a state is not a prerequisite for a justifiable fight. A guerrilla group may

have an equally legitimate cause to fight for. In PLO’s case, their fight was for an

independent state. Due to the asymmetry, however, the guerrilla groups do not fight within

traditional rules of war, and the war can be just as much about winning the hearts and mind of

the people, as it is about winning the actual fight. In many cases, the goal is not even

necessarily to gain the support of citizens in the area, rather the goal is to gain international

support.43

The guerrillas also differentiate themselves from a traditional soldier in their

appearance. Traditional soldiers wear a uniform, which makes them easy to spot. The

guerrillas have the opportunity to hide among the people, and rather than regarding

themselves as single units, they often regard themselves as the people itself.44 This makes it

difficult for the traditional army to fight them without the risk of harming civilians.45 The

guerrilla groups can take advantage of this, by arguing that if the state does not want to harm

civilians, it should not be fighting at all. If the international community accepts this claim, the

guerrilla group can gain their support.46 However, if the international community suspect

that the guerrilla group actively uses this as a strategy to gain support, they may regard their

attempt to hide among civilians as if they invite their enemies to harm civilians.47

The risk of asymmetric warfare, in which Israel’s conventional supremacy no longer

would be a guarantee for victory, was a recurrent challenge for Israel as they contemplated an

42 Eilam, Israel’s Way of War, 16-17. 43 Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars – A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (New York: Basic

Books, 2015), xix. 44 Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, 180. 45 Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, 178-180. 46 Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, xix, 180. 47 Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, 178-180.

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invasion of Lebanon. The risk of civilian casualties was high, which in turn could result in

international condemnation. The Israelis had to determine whether the increased strategic

depth could outweigh the cost of international reactions.

Using Mintz and DeRouen’s factors, one should expect Israel’s foreign policy

decision making process prior to and during the 1978 invasion to be as follows: The decision

environment was characterized by a small elite and lack of planning, and the leaders’

personal opinions and believes had much impact on the decisions. Hence, in 1978, Begin’s

Zionist background probably had significant influence on his approach to any policy, also

foreign policy. Furthermore, Israel’s security problem had both domestic and international

consequences. The Israelis were forced to address very concrete security challenges along

Israel’s borders. At the same time, retaliatory military actions, let alone a full-scale invasion

could easily incur international condemnation.

Literature

As the smaller of the two Israeli invasions in Lebanon, the Litani operation in 1978 has

attracted limited attention in the scholarly literature compared to the subsequent intervention

in 1982, called Operation Peace for Galilee. The latter was much larger than the first in most

aspects. While the Litani operation engaged almost 25,000 troops, Operation Peace for

Galilee employed about four times as many: more than 100,000 troops.48 Nevertheless, it was

Operation Litani that triggered the creation of the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon

(UNIFIL), a peacekeeping force that is still present in Lebanon in 2019. The 1978 operation

has also attracted less attention because another great event happened that same year: the

signing of the Camp David Accords, a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt.

Although few works have been written with the Litani operation as its main focus,

many authors have touched on the subject in their discussions about Israel’s involvement in

the Lebanese civil war. Benny Morris’ Righteous Victims, William B. Quandt’s Camp David

- Peacemaking and Politics, Seth Anziska’s Preventing Palestine all briefly mentions the

operation, however, none of them discuss the event in detail. Walid Khalidi offers a

comprehensive overview of the civil war in Lebanon in his book Conflict and Violence in

48 Farrell, “Raid Is Retaliatory,” The New York Times, March 15, 1978; Javier Gil Guerrero, “Overshadowed

Crisis: The Carter Administration and the Conflict in Southern Lebanon,” Middle East Critique 25, 4 (2016):

410, doi:10.1080/19436149.2016.1211611; Waage, Konflikt og Stormaktspolitikk, 236.

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Lebanon: Confrontation in the Middle East, and he discusses Operation Litani as a part of his

analysis of Israel’s involvement in Lebanon during the civil war.49

Israel’s strategy in the First Lebanon War (1982), and its prelude, is discussed in

Avner Yaniv’s Dilemmas of Security: Politics, Strategy, and the Israeli Experience in

Lebanon. The invasion in 1978 is also examined. He identifies several criteria to evaluate the

success of the Litani operation and concludes that the invasions should for the most part be

considered as unsuccessful, at least in a long-term perspective.50 Yaniv argues that the

operation would have to have been brief and result in few Israeli casualties, and a high

number of PLO casualties, to be considered successful. Israel should also have been able to

gain control over the occupied area south of Litani for a longer period, without resulting in a

confrontation with Syria, or damage the prospects of peace between Israel and Egypt. The

operation also ought to have received endorsement from the United States to be regarded as a

success. While some of these criteria were met, Israel failed to secure the area, and the

operation brought tension to the Israel-U.S. relations.51

On a more general note, Avi Shlaim’s The Iron Wall, has provided a solid base for

understanding Israel’s modern history. Hilde Henriksen Waage’s Konflikt og

stormaktspolitikk i Midtøsten, which offers a comprehensive account of modern history in the

Middle East, has also been extremely useful in this sense.52 I have also had great use of Ilan

Peleg’s Begin’s Foreign Policy 1977-1983 – Israel’s Move to the Right as a source of

insights to Begin’s Zionist views and background.

Although this thesis will not contain a philosophical discussion of what makes a war

just, I have had great use of reading Michael Walzer’s Just and Unjust Wars – A Moral

Argument with Historical Illustrations. Walzer presents many possible prerequisites as to

how one can justify a war. One of these is war as an act of self-defense.53 I will not make any

attempts to justify Operation Litani in this thesis, just merely note that this notion was clearly

present in Israeli Prime Minister Begin’s rhetoric as he announced the operation. Walzer’s

discussion about asymmetry and proportionality of the actions could also have served as a

49 Walid Khalidi, Conflict and Violence in Lebanon: Confrontation in the Middle East (Cambridge,

Massachusetts, United States of America: Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, 1979). 50 Avner Yaniv, Dilemmas of Security – Politics, Strategy, and the Israeli Experience in Lebanon. (New York:

Oxford Universuty Press, 1987). 51 Yaniv, Dilemmas of Security, 72-73. 52 Avi Shlaim, The Iron Wall– Israel and the Arab World (London: Penguin Books, 2014). Hilde Henriksen

Waage, Konflikt og stormaktspolitikk i Midtøsten (Kristiansand: Cappelen Damm AS, 2013). 53 Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars – A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (New York: Basic

Books, 2015).

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basis for an assessment of the justness of the Litani operation. However interesting, nor will

this question be discussed here.

Sources

To shed light on the context of the Litani operation, I have utilized documents from the

Israeli State Archive (ISA). The documents are retrieved from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

(MFA) and the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). The majority of the documents are telegrams

sent between Israel’s embassy in the United States and the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The documents also include transcripts from meetings between the Israeli foreign office

representatives and U.S. counterparts, as well as press statements, newspaper articles, and

transcripts of radio or TV-show interviews given by different actors, mainly in the United

States and Syria. Documents sent to the Prime Minister’s Office are simply addressed to “the

Office.”

For this thesis, I have examined roughly 250 documents, averaging 4-5 pages per

document. In the document files, there is a mixture of documents written in Hebrew and

English. For this thesis I have used both. I have also found many documents where parts of

the information are written in Hebrew, and other parts written in English. I have indicated

this by marking the specific reference with [Hebrew], [English] or [Hebrew/English].

The State of Israel has a very liberal state archive policy, in compliance with the

Archive Law of 1955.54 This law stipulates that all documents should be available and open

to the public.55 However, since 2012, the archive has been undergoing a digitalization

process, which has triggered a debate in Israel regarding archives and transparency.56 The

main argument in favor of this process is that the transition from physical to digital archive

will make the data more accessible to the general public. Many Israeli historians claim,

54 The Archive Law 1955 (The State of Israel: 27.01.1955), http://www.archives.gov.il/wp-

content/uploads/2016/03/1955-הראכיונים-חוק.pdf 55 The Archive Law 1955:

אדם רשאי לעיין בחומר הארכיוני המופקד בגנזך. . עיון הקהל: )א( כל10

There are some exceptions. The Archives Decree of 2010 provides a general rule of declassification time.

According to this decree, most documents will be available to the public after a period of 15 years, while some

may remain sealed for 25-30. In some cases, however, some files will remain sealed for up to 70 years, or even

longer. The Decree provides a set of guidelines for declassification. A special committee of Cabinet minister can

decide it best for a file to remain classified, if this is thought to be best in regards to the protection of the

security of the state, or to protect individuals. The Israeli State Archive, “Still Classified Files,” accessed 21

November 2019, http://www.archives.gov.il/en/still-classified-files/. 56 Robinson Meyer, ”How the State of Israel Is Bringing Its Analog History to the Web,” The Atlantic, last

modified 4 July 2012, https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/07/how-the-state-of-israel-is-

bringing-its-analog-history-to-the-web/259415/; Yair Rosenberg, ”Shaking Up Israel’s National Archives,”

Tablet, last modified 28 June 2012, http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/105050/shaking-up-israels-national-

archives.

10

however, that Israel uses this process as an opportunity to remove or reseal certain files,

which previously have been declassified. During the digitalization process, the building has

been closed for visitors, and the documents are being evaluated for a second time in an

approval committee. As the committee reviews the documents, they might find that some

documents may be regarded as unfit for the website, as the archive has less control over who

accesses the content online. Therefore, the archive has the prerogative to withhold certain

documents. The result is that some documents which previously were accessible to the

public, no longer are available.57

This may of course have had an impact on my research. I can only speculate whether

or not documents relevant for this thesis have been “removed” or “retracted” in the wake of

this process. Few of the documents used in this thesis were already uploaded to the website

when I started my research. Almost all files used in this thesis were requested through a

request form on the website.58

State archive documents offer a distinct kind of information. The documents provide a

direct indicator of what government officials told each other, and what kind of information

they were in possession of. State archive documents are therefore excellent sources of

information if the goal is to describe the perceived situation of its time.59 However, its content

should be compared to data from other sources of information from that period, as well as

scholarly literature, in order to understand the information in its historical in context.

General outline

In this thesis, four aspects of Israel’s decision to enter Lebanon are particularly relevant:

firstly, the territorial aspect, related to Israel’s religious claim to the territory; secondly, the

security aspect, which covers Israel’s fear of PLO terrorist attacks, made possible by the

Lebanese civil war and the weak Lebanese government; thirdly, the humanitarian aspect,

which deals with the relationship between the Zionist movement and the Maronites in

57 Akevot, “Israel State Archives end access to paper records; Archive users protest the move,” published 11

April 2016, https://akevot.org.il/en/news-item/state-archive-ends-access-to-paper/; Jonathan Cook, “Why Israel

is blocking access to its archives,” Al-Jazeera, last modified 10 June 2016,

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/06/israel-blocking-access-archives-160609054341909.html; Ofer Aderet,

“Historians Struggle as Israel State Archives Deadlocked by legal Restrictions,” Haaretz, last modified Aug 01,

2017, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.804409. 58 A quick search on the Israel State Archive website, preformed on 2 October 2019, reveals that many of the

files I have requested, and indeed received, are still not available on the website. Examples of this: 8443/1-חצ,

8440/12 -חצ , 8325/7 2חלק -חצ , 4338/6 -א , 7376/3 .חלק1 -א59 Vernon K. Dibble, “Four Types of Inference from Documents to Events,” History and Theory 3, 2 (1963):

215-216, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2504279.

11

Lebanon and a potential desire to assist in Lebanon; and lastly, the threat from Syria. How

much did each of these aspects influence Israel’s decision to invade Lebanon in 1978?

Chapter two will give a brief background to each of these aspects. I will account for

relevant events in 1977-1978 in chapter three and four. Chapter three mainly focus on 1977,

and the aftermaths of Likud’s victory in the 1977 election. Chapter four deals with the

terrorist attack, the following invasion, discussions of withdrawal and the subsequent

deployment of UNIFIL. In chapter five, I will return to the four aspects to conclude why

Israel invaded southern Lebanon in 1978.

12

Chapter 2:

Complicated Territory

The borders of the modern Middle East were mapped out by Great Britain and France just

before World War I. Once part of the Ottoman Empire, modern Lebanon and Syria were

created after the first world war, and Israel was born after the second. However, as opposed

to the straight lines drawn on the map by the French and the Britons, the histories of modern

Israel, Syria and Lebanon are everything but straight-forward.60

Eretz Israel

Israel can refer to two different geographical concepts. The Land of Israel and the State of

Israel. The Land of Israel, Eretz Israel61, refers to the land God promised to Abraham in

Genesis,62 but the term Eretz Israel is first found in the Tanakh I Samuel 13:19.63 The land

was given to Jacob, and divided between his twelve sons. Judah got the southern part of the

land, which included large parts of Sinai. Reuben, Gad and Manasseh got the eastern parts,

which included areas on the eastern border of the Jordan River, the Golan Heights and

southwestern parts of modern-day Syria. Asher and Naphtali got the northern parts, reaching

all the way up till the Litani River in modern Lebanon.64 The Jews lived in this area for

centuries, but they were forced to leave several times. The destruction of the Second Temple

in 70 AD marks the beginning of the Jewish diaspora, the scattering of the Jewish people.65

The Jews were spread around the world, especially in Europe and the Middle East. However,

while in the diaspora, the Jews continued to pray for and dream of their return to Zion.66

60 David Blair, “A century on, don't blame Sykes-Picot for the Middle East's troubles” The Telegraph, 14 May

2016, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/14/a-century-on-dont-blame-sykes-picot-for-the-middle-easts-

trouble/; Tarek Osman, “Why border lines drawn with a ruler in WW1 still rock the Middle East,” BBC News,

12 December 2013, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-25299553. ארץ ישראל 6162 Gen. 12:7 “And the LORD appeared Abram and said, ‘I will assign this land to your offspring.’ And he built

an alter there to the LORD who had appeared to him.”

בןבראשית יב: את וי רץ הז א ן את־ה עך את ר ז אמר ל ם וי ר ה אל־אב ו ה א י יו ויר ל ה א א ו ה הנר יה ח ל ב ם מז :ש63 Tanakh is the name of the Hebrew Bible.

I Samuel 13:19 “No smith was to be found in all the land of Israel, for the Philistines were afraid that the

Hebrews would make swords or spears.”

ח רושמואל א יג: ו מ י־א ל כ א ר רץ יש ל א כ א ב צ א ימ ש ל ( ר ר מ ים )א ת לש ית פ ו חנ רב א ים ח ר עב ו ה :פן יעש 64 Jewish Virtual Library, “Ancient Jewish History: The Twelve Tribes of Israel,” accessed 27 September 2019,

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-twelve-tribes-of-israel. 65 Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Israel (New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2003), 15-16; Waage, Konflikt

og stormaktspolitikk, 20-23. 66 Zion is one of the terms used for Jerusalem. Aron Moss, “Next Year in Jerusalem…Really!”, Chabad.org,

accessed 4 December 2017, http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/274826/jewish/Next-Year-in-

Jerusalem.html; Leslie J. Hoppe, The Holy City: Jerusalem in the Theology of the Old Testament (Collegeville,

Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 2000): 1-3.

13

The State of Israel was born in the aftermath of the Second World War. There was no

coincidence that the modern State of Israel was created at this specific point in time. Three

factors in particular were important: Zionism and immigration, two separate pledges made by

the British; the Balfour declaration and the Sykes-Picot agreement; and the war. After several

hundred years in the diaspora, Jews began to return to the area now called Palestine. In 1880,

about 35,000 Jews lived in Palestine, which made up about 7 percent of the population. By

1917, the number had increased to 56,000, which meant that the Jewish share of the

population had risen to about 10 percent.67 The Jewish Agency, operating as a Jewish

government-like organization in Palestine, facilitated and bought land.68

The immigration in the late ninetieth and early twentieth century were a direct

consequence of the increasingly deteriorating situation for the European Jews.69 The Austro-

Hungarian journalist Theodor Herzl observed the situation with concern and wrote a

pamphlet with a solution. His pamphlet The Jewish State, written in 1896, suggested the

creation of a Jewish state in Palestine.70 Herzl was convinced that the situation for the

European Jews could not be resolved in Europe, and therefore the only solution for the

Jewish people was to leave Europe behind.71 Herzl himself had two suggestions as to where

to establish the Jewish State: Palestine or Argentina. He settled on Palestine because of the

historical links between this area and the Jewish people: “Palestine is our ever-memorable

historic home.”72 Herzl’s pamphlet became one of the foundations of modern-day Zionism.

Zionist movements grew from the Jewish ghettos in Europe, and with their help, the Jewish

immigration to Palestine continued. In 1923 there were 90,000 Jews living in Palestine.

Between the years 1924-1926, another 50,000 Jews settled. 170,000 Jews left Europe for

Palestine between the years 1933-1936. By 1941, approximately half a million Jews lived in

Palestine.73

The creation of the State of Israel depended upon two different promises made by the

British: an agreement with France and a promise to the Zionist movement in Britain. The

Sykes-Picot agreement was made between Great Britain and France in May 1916. This

67 Waage, Konflikt og stormaktspolitikk, 32. 68 Laura Zittrain Eisenberg, My Enemy’s Enemy – Lebanon in the Early Zionist Imagination, 1900-1948

(Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1994), 22. 69 Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ”Herzl and Zionism,” accessed 15 May 2018,

http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFA-Archive/2004/Pages/Herzl%20and%20Zionism.aspx; Shlaim, The Iron Wall,

2-3; Waage, Konflikt og stormaktspolitikk, 18. 70 Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State (London: Penguin Books, 2010), 1, 18, 25. 71 Herzl, The Jewish State, 1. 72 Herzl, The Jewish State, 29-30. 73 Waage, Konflikt og stormaktspolitikk, 36, 79, 107.

14

agreement stipulated how the two countries would divide the Middle East between

themselves after the First World War.74 Although the war was admittedly not won until 31

October 1918, when they did win, the division plan was ready. According to the agreement,

Great Britain would gain control over Iraq, Transjordan and Palestine, while France would

take control over Lebanon and Syria.75 In 1917, the British made a promise to the Zionist

movement. In the Balfour Declaration, the British government pledged support for the

establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine.76

The Holocaust had killed one third of the global Jewish population, but the dream of a

Jewish national home was stronger than ever. On 29 November 1947, the United Nations

adopted resolution 181, a resolution which divided Mandatory Palestine, and promoted the

establishment of two separate states; one Jewish and one Arab. According to the partition

plan, the Gaza Strip, the western part of the Galilee and central parts of the West Bank would

constitute the Arab state, while the Jewish state would consist of eastern Galilee, the Negev

and large parts of the coastal line. Jerusalem was to be controlled by the UN. This meant that

the Jewish state would constitute 56 per cent of the British Mandate, even though the Arab

population in the area was undeniably very much larger than its Jewish counterpart. The

Jewish leaders accepted this partition plan, and on 14 May 1948, David Ben-Gurion, standing

under a picture of Theodor Herzl, proclaimed the State of Israel.77

The White Mountains

After the First World War, and according to the Sykes-Picot agreement, France took control

over the Syrian-Lebanese area, an area which they split in two: Syria and Lebanon. Lebanon

had been a patchwork of different religious and ethnic groups for centuries. One of these

groups, the Christian Maronites, had been living in the mountain range called Jabal Lubnān,

or the White Mountains, since the sixth century.78 It is this mountain range that has given

Lebanon its modern name. Muslim groups settled in the area in the seventh century, as well

74 Bickerton and Klausner, A History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 37-38; Waage, Konflikt og stormaktspolitikk,

216. 75 Bickerton and Klausner, A History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 207; Kjetil Selvik and Stig Stenslie,

Stabilitetens pris: Stat og politikk i Midtøsten (Bergen: Fagbokforlaget, 2007), 36. 76 UNISPAL, “The Balfour Declaration November 2nd 1917,” accessed 23 April 2019,

https://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/E210CA73E38D9E1D052565FA00705C61; Waage, Konflikt og

stormaktspolitikk, 32-33. 77 Bickerton Klausner, A History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 97; Shlaim, The Iron Wall, 34-35; Waage, Konflikt

og stormaktspolitikk, 102-104, 112. 78 Knut S. Vikør, Ei verd bygd på Islam (Oslo: Det Norske Samlaget 2004), 259; Rogan, Araberne, 45.

15

as Druze, settling slightly south of the Christian zone, around 1000 AD.79 The Maronites

established a relationship with the Roman Catholics in Europe and were integrated in the

Catholic Church in 1182.80

When the French took control over the area, they had two objectives in particular in

mind: they wanted to make it as easy as possible to remain in control, and they wanted to

secure a stable Christian state in the Middle East. By dividing the territory into smaller units,

they made it more difficult for one single group to gain control in the area, and they made the

groups more dependent on the support from France.81 In Lebanon, they found the Maronites

as a natural collaborator.82 The French expanded the area traditionally held by the Christians,

and gave them access to the sea. They also made sure to draw the border between Lebanon

and Syria in such a way that the Christians would constitute a majority in Lebanon. They

called the newly created area “Le Gran Leban.”83

However, there were still various Muslim groups living in the new Lebanon. In the

Bekaa Valley and the southern parts of Lebanon, the majority were Shiite Muslims, while the

areas around Sadia, southern parts of the Bekaa Valley and some areas north of Tripoli had a

Sunni majority. The Maronites had the majority in the Mount Lebanon area, while the area

between Sadia and Beirut housed many Druze.84 However, many Muslims felt separated from

their peers in Syria, and they were particularly discontent with the notion of living in a

“Christian state.”85 The Christian majority in Lebanon, with its French patron, secured

powerful positions and privileges to the Christian groups, and the Maronites in particular.86

Lebanon became an independent state in 1941, and the first presidential election was

held in 1943. The leaders decided to maintain the sectarian structure which would dominate

Lebanon until today. Seats in parliament and political positions were distributed according to

religious and ethnic lines, according to the National Pact of 1943. According to the pact, the

president should be a Christian Maronite, the prime minister should be a Sunni Muslim, the

speaker of parliament should be a Shiite Muslim, and the head of defense should be Druze.

79 Waage, Konflikt og stormaktspolitikk, 44, 212 80 Rogan, Araberne, 45. Waage, Konflikt og stormaktspolitikk, 210. 81 M. E. Yapp, The Near East since the First World War (London: Longman Group UK Limited, 1991), 88-89. 82 Yapp, The Near East since the First World War, 89. 83 Evron, War and Intervention in Lebanon, 1; Itamar Rabinovich, The War for Lebanon, 1970 – 1983 (Ithaca:

Cornell University Press, 1984), 20-21; Waage, Konflikt og stormaktspolitikk, 216. 84 David Hirst, Beware of Small States – Lebanon, Battleground of the Middle East (London: Faber and Faber:

2010), xiii; Waage, Konflikt og stormaktspolitikk, 211. 85 Vikør, Ei verd bygd på Islam, 259; Waage, Konflikt og stormaktspolitikk, 216-217. 86 Bickerton and Klausner, A History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 207; Eisenberg, “From benign to malign,”11-

12; Evron, War and Intervention in Lebanon, 2; Vikør, Ei verd bygd på Islam, 259-260; Waage, Konflikt og

stormaktspolitikk, 217.

16

The seats of parliament were distributed based on a census produced in 1932. Following this

census, the parliament would have six Christians per five Muslims, to reflect the Christian

majority.87 This rule of distribution, and the census it was based on, would later become one

of the major areas of conflict in the Lebanese Civil War.88

There had not been conducted an official census since 1932, and the distribution of

seats in the Lebanese parliament had remained unchanged.89 However, over the years, the

ratio between the Christian population and the Muslim population changed. The distribution

of seats in parliament was no longer corresponded to the size of the different sectarian groups

constituting the population in Lebanon. The Muslim population grew faster than the Christian

population, and at the same time, another group of Muslims had come to Lebanon: the

Palestinians.90

The 1967 War in Israel had caused many Palestinians to flee from their homes, and

many of them had found their way into southern Lebanon. In the early 1970s, the number of

Palestinian refugees in Lebanon had exceeded 200,000, but was probably closer to 300,000.91

However, no serious efforts were done to integrate the Palestinians into the Lebanese

population, and the Palestinians were not granted citizenship.92 Especially the Christians in

Lebanon did not want to give the Palestinian Lebanese citizenship, as this surely would

confirm a Muslim majority in Lebanon.93

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was founded in 1964, and for many

years, they had their headquarters in Jordan. During the 1960s, they launched an increasing

number of attacks from Jordan towards Israel.94 However, in 1970 King Hussein expelled the

Palestinians from Jordan, and they moved their headquarters to Lebanon, where they

continued their activities and attacks on Israel.95 The Lebanese were divided in their views on

87 Bickerton and Klausner, A History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 207; Vikør, Ei verd bygd på Islam, 260.

Selvik and Stenslie, Stabilitetens pris, 59. 88 Yapp, The Near East since the First World War, 265. 89 Bickerton and Klausner, A History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 208; Rogan, Araberne, 438; Selvik and

Stenslie. Stabilitetens pris, 59. 90 Rogan, Araberne, 438; 91 Rogan, Araberne, 438; Waage, Konflikt og stormaktspolitikk, 225; Yapp, The Near East since the First World

War, 268. 92 Bickerton and Klausner, A History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 208; Gerges, “Lebanon,” 91; Rogan,

Araberne, 438-439; Vikør, Ei verd bygd på Islam, 260; Yapp, The Near East since the First World War, 267. 93 Rabinovich, The War for Lebanon, 40; Yapp, The Near East since the First World War, 267. 94 Avner Yaniv, Dilemmas of Security – Politics, Strategy, and the Israeli Experience in Lebanon. (New York:

Oxford Universuty Press, 1987), 38-40. 95 Asher Kaufman, “From the Litani to Beirut – Israel’s invasions of Lebanon, 1978-85,” in Israel and

Hizbollah: An asymmetric conflict in historical and comparative perspective, ed. Clive Jones and Sergio

Catignani (London and New York: Routledge, 2010), 26; Eisenberg, “From benign to malign,” 10; Evron, War

and Intervention in Lebanon, 29; Khalidi, Conflict and Violence, 42; Rabinovich, The War for Lebanon, 41-42;.

Yapp, The Near East since the First World War, 267.

17

the Palestinian presence in Lebanon, especially the PLO’s increasing attacks on Israel. The

PLO attacks led to retaliatory raids from Israel, which harmed the Lebanese population as

well as the Palestinians.96 The Christians, and the Maronites in particular, wanted to restrain

the Palestinians, but the Muslims, especially the Sunnis, were supportive.97 However, because

of the sectarian system, it was difficult for either the Sunni prime minister or the Christian

president to do anything. This in turn meant that neither Christians nor Muslims were content

with the government’s ability to handle the situation.98 The Palestinian presence contributed

to an increased pressure on the already fragile political system in Lebanon.99

The presence of the Palestinians, and the unproportionally power of the Maronites

brought Lebanon to its breaking point.100 In March 1975, the first fights in the Lebanese civil

war broke out. In the town of Saida, Muslim fishermen protested against a Christian

corporation, which had been granted a monopoly of fishery by the former president Camille

Chamoun (in office 1952-1958). On 6 March 1975, the leader of the city’s Sunni organization

was shot and killed in the riots. 101 The fighting spread across the country. The Lebanese

army had previously managed to maintain the control and serve as a stabilizing force, but this

came to an end.102 The officer corps of the Lebanese army had been primarily Christians,

while the soldiers had been largely Muslim. In 1976, the Muslim soldiers no longer wanted to

obey the Christian officer’s orders, and instead organized their own Arab Army of Lebanon.

The Lebanese army collapsed, and the remaining parts split up into smaller militia fractions.

As a result, the Lebanese state no longer had a military force of its own.103

Maronites and Zionists

Prior to both Israel’s and Lebanon’s births, the Zionists and the Maronites found friendship in

each other, as two non-Arab entities among Arab countries. Already in the 1920s, they made

contact. The Maronites saw the advantage of having a non-Arab Jewish neighbor on their

96 Rex Brynen, “PLO Policy in Lebanon: Legacies and Lessons,” Journal of Palestine Studies 18, 2 (1989): 59,

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2537633; Yapp, The Near East since the First World War, 267-268; Ze’ev Schiff,

“Lebanon: Motivations and Interests in Israel’s Policy,” Middle East Journal 38, 2 (1984): 221,

https://www.jstor.org/stable/4326795. 97 Waage, Konflikt og stormaktspolitikk, 225; Yapp, The Near East since the First World War, 267-268. 98 Waage, Konflikt og stormaktspolitikk, 226; Yapp, The Near East since the First World War, 267-268. 99 Bickerton and Klausner, A History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 208; Brynen, “PLO Policy in Lebanon,” 50;

Gerges, “Lebanon,” 91; Rogan, Araberne, 438-439; Vikør, Ei verd bygd på Islam, 260; Waage, Konflikt og

stormaktspolitikk, 230, 232-233. 100 Yapp, The Near East since the First World War, 269. 101 Waage, Konflikt og stormaktspolitikk, 227-229. 102 Waage, Konflikt og stormaktspolitikk, 227-229. 103 Hirst, Beware of Small States, 112; Yapp, The Near East since the First World War, 270.

18

southern border, and the Zionists felt the same.104 When the French constructed Le Gran

Leban, they made sure to secure a Christian majority in the population. The French had also

given the Christians a territory much larger than their traditional White Mountains. However,

the newly acquired areas were already inhabited by a mainly Muslim population.105 Although

the Christians on paper constituted the demographic majority when Lebanon was established,

and even though they had the support of the French, they knew that there was a very real

chance that the French would eventually leave Lebanon, and the Muslims might outgrow

them in numbers.106 The notion of Lebanon possibly becoming a state with a Muslim

majority was undesirable to the Christians. Maronite leader Emile Eddé had an idea that

might resolve the problem: get rid of the southern territories.107 The French rejected the idea.

Eddé then aired his suggestion to the Zionist leaders in 1946. He proposed that the area south

of the Litani River should be implemented into the soon-to-be Jewish national home.

However, the Zionists turned down his suggestion.108

When the Lebanese civil war broke out in 1975, the Maronites asked their old friends

in Israel for help. The Israelis sympathized with the Maronite-led government, but Israeli

Prime Minister Rabin was worried about getting dragged into a complicated and long-lasting

conflict.109 It was not the civil war in itself that was the main worry for the Israelis, rather

there was a growing concern about the increasing number of Palestinian refugees residing in

southern Lebanon.110 The result was shipments of military equipment sent to the Christians,

with the hope that they would be able to build a strong enough army to apprehend the PLO.

The Israelis’ objective was to help the Maronites help themselves.111

Greater Syria

What was left of the Syrian-Lebanese area after the French carved out their Le Gran Leban

became modern Syria. Prior to this, the Syrian-Lebanese territory had been divided among

several different provinces in the Ottoman Empire.112 Syria and Lebanon had never been

regarded as one single political unit, and the French saw no reason why they should be

104 Eisenberg, “From benign to malign”, 12; Yaniv, Dilemmas of Security, 29. 105 Yapp, The Near East since the First World War, 105. 106 Rabinovich, The War for Lebanon, 21-22. 107 Rabinovich, The War for Lebanon, 22. 108 Rabinovich, The War for Lebanon, 22; Yaniv, Dilemmas of Security, 29. 109 Shlaim, The Iron Wall, 349. 110 Schiff, “Lebanon: Motivations and Interests in Israel’s Policy”, 220; Shlaim, The Iron Wall, 347-348; 111 Schiff, “Lebanon: Motivations and Interests in Israel’s Policy,” 222; Sela, “Civil Society, the Military, and

National Security,” 59. 112 Yapp, The Near East since the First World War, 85.

19

regarded as such now.113 Syria, however, did not share France’s view. Syria never accepted

the division, which they saw as artificial, and they never gave up their claim over Lebanon.114

The French were dependent on local collaborators to maintain control in their newly

acquired areas. In Lebanon, they had found a natural ally in the Maronites, but there was no

equivalent in Syria.115 Syria became difficult to control. Neither did their investments in the

country give the French the economic advantages, trade advantages or extension of influence

in the east they had hoped for. Nor was their hope of finding oil met.116 Syria became an

independent state in 1946.117 However, in its first twenty-five years of independence, Syria

was a relatively weak state, and they were not able to regain any control over the Lebanese

territory, which they still viewed as part of a Greater Syria.118

In the first part of the civil war in Lebanon, Syria had been PLO’s and the radical

Muslims most important patron.119 For a while, the Muslims had a clear upper hand.

However, Syrian President Hafez al-Assad realized that there was a possibility that Lebanon

might be split into two parts: one Muslim and one Christian. Not only would this damage

Syria’s prospect of regaining its influence over the whole of Lebanon, it would also increase

the chances of Israel asserting her control over parts of Lebanon. If this became reality, Syria

would be sandwiched between two enemies: Iraq in the east, and an Israeli dominated

Christian state in the west. Assad decided that a division of Lebanon had to be avoided.120

Therefore, in February 1976 he made an attempt to mediate between the two parts.121 When

this did not bear the fruits Assad had hoped for, he saw only one other option: Syria had to

intervene.

Initially, the Israelis opposed the idea of Assad letting Syrian forces move into

Lebanon. However, they eventually realized that, under the right conditions, Syrian action

could be a better option than themselves getting involved in Lebanon. Thus, Israel tacitly

agreed to let Syrian forces enter Lebanon.122 Neither did the Americans, mostly concerned

113 Yapp, The Near East since the First World War, 88. 114 Eisenberg, “From benign to malign”, 21; Rabinovich, The War for Lebanon, 36. 115 Yapp, The Near East since the First World War, 89. 116 Yapp, The Near East since the First World War, 86, 89. 117 Waage, Konflikt og stormaktspolitikk, 256. 118 Rabinovich, The War for Lebanon, 36. 119 Evron, War and Intervention in Lebanon, 21; Waage, Konflikt og stormaktspolitikk, 229. 120 Evron, War and Intervention in Lebanon, 22; Rabinovich, The War for Lebanon, 47-48; Waage, Konflikt og

stormaktspolitikk, 229. At the time, Iraq and Syria were ruled by two competing branches of the Baath-party. 121 Waage, Konflikt og stormaktspolitikk, 229. 122 Evron, War and Intervention in Lebanon, 81; Kaufman, “From the Litani to Beirut,” 27; Waage and

Bergersen, “A Careful Minuet,” 3, 8.

20

with the conflict’s impact on their peace initiative in the region, oppose to the idea.123 The

unwritten agreement, the so-called red lines, prevented Syria from using its air force and navy

in Lebanon, as well as deploy surface-to-air-missiles. It also barred Syria from using its

military south of the Awali River, which is located about 40 kilometers from the Israeli

border.124 At this point, the Maronites in Lebanon received support from both Syria and

Israel. However, Syria would later change its mind, and in the summer of 1977, Syria

returned to supporting the PLO.125

123 Waage, Konflikt og stormaktspolitikk, 229; Waage and Bergersen, “A Careful Minuet,” 5-6. 124 Kaufman, “From the Litani to Beirut,” 27; Rabinovich, The War for Lebanon, 48-49; Schiff, “Lebanon:

Motivations and Interests in Israel’s Policy,” 222; Shlaim, The Iron Wall, 350; Waage and Bergersen, “A

Careful Minuet,” 2. 125 Kaufman, “From the Litani to Beirut,” 28.

21

Chapter 3:

Increased Israeli Support and Diminishing American Support

1977 brought changes to American and Israeli politics. Jimmy Carter was sworn in as

president of the United States in January, and Menachem Begin won the election in Israel in

May. Both of them were very different from their predecessors, and this would affect U.S.-

Israeli relations to a great extent. The new American government hoped to guide the Middle

East towards peace, while the new Israeli government wanted to limit American interference.

At the same time, the situation in Lebanon became harder for Israel to ignore, but their

involvement was not condoned by the United States. The mismatch between their

expectations put a strain on the U.S.-Israeli relationship.

January 1977: Introducing Carter

Israel and the United States had had a special relationship for years. Israel had especially

gained strong support among the American public after the 1967 War. The American support

for Israel can partly be explained by the influential group of Jewish residents in the United

States, as well as its large Christian population with a firm belief in the New Testament

prophesy of the Jews’ return to the Holy Land. However, it can partly also be explained by a

perception of a similar creation story. The story of how Israel was built by strong individuals,

their fight for freedom, and their victory against all odds resonated with how the Americans

saw themselves, and how they understood the birth of their own nation.126

After January 1977, the Israel-U.S. relationship changed significantly. The newly

elected American president Jimmy Carter entered office, and he had a very different

understanding of the situation in the Middle East.127 President Carter’s position towards the

Israel-Palestine question may have come as a surprise to many Americans, especially

American Jews. Prior to the election, Carter had been relatively unknown to the American

Jews, but his views would soon become widely known, when he was the first American

president to speak openly of a “Palestinian Homeland.”128 Carter attempted to reassure the

American public by insisting that Israel and her security were undeniably important issues,

both to him personally and to the United States. However, one could not ignore Carter’s

strong belief that a lasting peace in the Middle East was dependent on the resolution of the

126 Efraim Karsh, “Israel,” in The Cold War and the Middle East, ed. Yezid Sayigh and Avi Shlaim (Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 1997), 163-164. 127 Anziska, Preventing Palestine, 26; Itamar Rabinovich, Waging Peace: Israel and the Arabs, 1948-2003

(Princeton, New Jersey, the United States of America: Princeton University Press: 2004), 22-23. 128 Anziska, Preventing Palestine, 3, 17; Rabinovich, Waging Peace, 22-23.

22

Palestinian question, and such a resolution would “almost certainly [lead] to a Palestinian

homeland and some form of self-determination.”129

17 May 1977: Israel’s Great Consoler130

The 1977 legislative election in Israel marked a significant shift in Israeli politics. The Labor

party had been in government for almost 30 years, but on 17 May 1977 the right-wing party

Likud won the election, and subsequently ended the Labor era. Israel entered a new phase.131

There were several reasons why the Labor party lost the election. Prime Minister

Yizhak Rabin had become the center of his own personal scandal in April that same year,

when it became known that he and his wife had kept a secret dollar account in the United

States, which was illegal according to Israeli currency law. This led to his resignation.132

Another important event contributed to the shift in Israel. The Egyptian and Syrian surprise

attack on Israel on Yom Kippur, 6 October 1973, had revealed a dreadful political error.

Israeli intelligence had received information about a possible Egyptian and Syrian attack, but

the Israeli government had not acted upon it and had been confident that their neighbors

would not launch an attack. The government had been terribly wrong. The politicians’

negligence had weakened the public’s trust in the Labor politicians, and the Likud emerged

as a viable alternative.133

Israel’s new leader, Menachem Begin, had great ambitions for his country. He was

born in the Russian city of Brest-Litovsk in 1913, in a Europe where the Jews’ situation had

gradually worsened during the course of the past century.134 Begin early got involved with

different Zionist movements.135 At the age of 16, he joined the Revisionist Zionist youth

organization Betar, which was founded by revisionist Zionist ideologue Vladimir (Ze’ev)

Jabotinsky.136 Revisionist Zionism differentiated itself from other Zionist ideologies largely

in its territorial maximalism. This was manifested through the idea of a Greater Israel. The

129 Quoted in Anziska, Preventing Palestine, 23, 17-18; Rabinovich, Waging Peace, 23. 130 Hebrew name מנכם, Menachem, meaning «the consoler» or «the comforter». 131 Shlaim, The Iron Wall, 357; Waage, Konflikt og stormaktspolitikk, 406. Likud Hebrew: הליכוד, transliterated:

HaLikud, translated: The Consolidation. 132 Anziska, Preventing Palestine, 48; Shlaim, The Iron Wall, 357. 133 Gerald M. Steinberg and Ziv Rubinovitz, Menachem Begin and the Israel-Egypt Peace Process – Between

Ideology and Political Realism (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2019), 41, 52; Rabinovich,

Waging Peace, 17; Shlaim, The Iron Wall, 322-323; Shlaim and Yaniv, “Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy

in Israel, 256-257; Waage, Konflikt og stormaktspolitikk, 388-389; William B. Quandt, Camp David -

Peacemaking and Politics (Washington, D. C.: The Bookings Institution, 1986): 64-65. 134 Ilan Peleg, Begin’s Foreign Policy, 1977-1983: Israel’s Move to the Right (Connecticut: Greenwood Press,

1987), 21; Herzl, The Jewish State, 1, 18, 25. 135 Peleg, Begin’s Foreign Policy, 21. 136 Peleg, Begin’s Foreign Policy, 13, 21; Quandt, Camp David: 65; Shlaim, The Iron Wall, 360.

23

Revisionist Zionists used the old biblical name Eretz Israel to emphasize the link between

Greater Israel and the biblical territory of the Land of Israel. This idea would follow Begin

throughout his life.137

Begin arrived in Mandatory Palestine in 1942, after having been imprisoned for his

Zionist activities since 1939.138 He joined Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military Organization,

hereafter referred to as Irgun), a Jewish terror group, and he was quickly appointed leader of

the organization.139 Irgun was properly positioned on the right-wing side of the Zionist

movement, and held the firm view that the only way for Eretz Israel to be established in

Palestine, on both sides of the Jordan River, was by the use of force, including using terrorist

methods to force Britain out of Palestine.140 Irgun organized both anti-Arab and anti-British

campaigns, and because of their violent methods, they became a quite controversial

organization. Begin himself was very critical towards the British, and he regarded them as an

equally dangerous threat to Greater Israel as the Arabs. He believed that the British would

only show “limited” support for the Zionist cause, namely by supporting the division of Eretz

Israel into one Arab and one Jewish state.141 Irgun became famous for the massacre of

Palestinian villagers in Deir Yassin in 1948 and the bombing of the King David Hotel in

Jerusalem on 22 July 1946. The King David hotel housed the British administrative

headquarters in Palestine. More than 90 people were killed in the terrorist attack.142 After the

declaration of the State of Israel on 14 May 1948, the Irgun was integrated into the Israeli

Defence Forces (IDF) on 1 June, and consequently their operations ceased.143

Begin’s government was confirmed on 20 June 1978. In his first speech as Prime

Minister to the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, Begin revealed that he still was a strong advocate

of the ideas from his Zionist youth. He emphasized the Jewish people’s “historic eternal right

to the Land of Israel, the land of our forefathers.”144 He showed his strong and

uncompromising character, as he declared:

137 Peleg, Begin’s Foreign Policy, 1-2; Quandt, Camp David, 65-66. Eretz Israel has become a frequently used,

and highly politicized, term to express support for “Greater Israel,” the vision of the entire historical biblical

area to be a part of the State of Israel. 138 Peleg, Begin’s Foreign Policy, 22; Quandt, Camp David, 65. 139 Peleg, Begin’s Foreign Policy, 22; Quandt, Camp David, 65; Waage, Konflikt og stormaktspolitikk, 406. 140 Menachem Begin, The Revolt (London: W. H. Allen, 1951): 3; Peleg, Begin’s Foreign Policy, 22-23. 141 Begin, The Revolt, 26, 28, 31, 34, 36, 42. 142 Peleg, Begin’s Foreign Policy, 24-25; Quandt, Camp David, 64. 143 Peleg, Begin’s Foreign Policy, 1-2; Quandt, Camp David, 65-66. 144 Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “1 Statement to the Knesset by Prime Minister Begin upon the

presentation of his government- 20 June 1977,” accessed 31 October 2018,

http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/MFADocuments/Yearbook3/Pages/1%20Statement%20to%20the%20%2

0Knesset%20by%20Prime%20Minister%20Begi.aspx; Quandt, Camp David, 66; Shlaim, The Iron Wall, 362.

24

The Government of Israel will not ask any nation, be it near or far, mighty or small,

to recognize our right to exist. The right to exist? [I]t would not enter the mind of

any Briton or Frenchman, Belgian or Dutchman, Hungarian or Bulgarian, Russian

or American, to request for his people recognition of its right to exist. Their

existence per se is their right to exist. The same holds true for Israel.145

July 1977: Meeting Carter

In July 1977, Begin made his first visit to Washington as prime minister. Begin had a very

different manner than his predecessor, and was regarded as a serious, intelligent and harsh

man. However, it took a while before Carter understood just how rigid Begin was on the

subject of the West Bank and Gaza, which Begin constantly referred to as Judea and Samaria

and an everlasting part of Greater Israel.146 Still, Carter preferred to negotiate with Begin over

Rabin. Carter would later describe Begin in his dairy as “quite congenial, dedicated, sincere,

and deeply religious,” as a clear contrast to Rabin, which Carter described as “one of the most

ineffective persons I’ve ever met.”147

Initially, Carter believed that he would be able to persuade Begin to give up some

territory in exchange for peace, and he was determined to facilitate peace negotiations

between Israel and her Arab neighbors.148 However, eventually it became clear to Carter that

Begin had no intention of giving up any parts of “Judea and Samaria.”149 Until Begin took

office in Israel, the Americans had believed that negotiations between Israel and her Arab

neighbors would build upon the “territory for peace”-formula integrated in the UN resolution

242. The idea was that Israel would give up territory she had occupied in the 1967 War in

exchange for recognition from her Arab neighbors.150 In February, Rabin had hinted at a

possible readiness to negotiate territorial compromise to attain peace.151 Begin, on the other

hand, did not believe in the “territory for peace”-formula. He did not make any efforts in

145 Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “1 Statement to the Knesset by Prime Minister Begin.” 146 Quandt, Camp David, 65-66, 78. 147 Quoted in Anziska, Preventing Palestine, 64; Gerald M. Steinberg and Ziv Rubinovitz, Menachem Begin and

the Israel-Egypt Peace Process– Between Ideology and Political Realism (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana

University Press, 2019), 66. 148 Telegram to Ambassador in Washington from Begin, 7 July 1977, transcript of telephone conversation 26

June 1977, Prime Minister’s Office [PMO] 4337/1 part 1, the Israeli State Archive [ISA], Jerusalem, Israel.

[Hebrew/English]; Steinberg and Rubinovitz, Menachem Begin and the Israel-Egypt Peace Process, 66. 149 Quandt, Camp David, 65-66; Waage, Konflikt og stormaktspolitikk, 406. 150 UN Resolution 242, approved 22 November 1967 in the aftermath of the 1967-war, called for Israel’s

withdrawal from the territories occupied during the war, in exchange for the Arab nations’ recognition of

Israel’s right to integrity and sovereignty. Territory [in exchange] for peace. The United Nations, “Resolution

242 (1967),” accessed 19 November 2019, https://undocs.org/S/RES/242(1967); Quandt, Camp David, 63;

Shlaim, The Iron Wall, 277-278; Waage, Konflikt og stormaktspolitikk, 365. 151 Anziska, Preventing Palestine, 33.

25

hiding his clear views. He was honest and direct. If Carter was ignorant to Begin’s views,

only Carter himself could be held responsible for it.152

In his campaign leading up to the 1977 election, Begin had strongly emphasized the

impossibility of establishing a Palestinian state on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.153 All in

his characteristically bluntness, which stood in sharp contrast to Labor politicians who were

careful not to express similar views in the public sphere, although they did not necessarily

disagree with Begin’s view of a Palestinian state.154 Paradoxically, Begin ended up being the

Israeli prime minister giving up the largest portion of occupied territory in Israel’s history,

when he agreed to withdraw Israeli forces and remove settlements from the Sinai Peninsula

as a part of the Camp David Agreement.155

Despite Begin’s harsh demeanor, his visit to Washington July 1977 had left Carter

with some sort of encouragement. However, Carter’s optimism did not last for long; already

two days after Begin’s return to Israel, Begin legalized three settlements on the West Bank.156

Begin considered the construction of settlements as a duty to the Israeli people and the

Zionist cause.157

Second half of 1977: destroying installations and killing terrorists

On 8 August 1977, Prime Minister Begin confirmed publicly, for the very first time, that

Israel was assisting the Christian groups in Lebanon. Up until this point, the support had been

hidden from the public. Begin verbally painted a picture of the devastations brought by the

civil war, imposed on the Christians by the Muslims. In addition, he pointed a finger directly

at the PLO. He compared the persecution of the people of Israel in the Bible with the

situation for the Christian Maronites, and he made it very clear that it was Israel’s moral duty

to help the Christians in Lebanon. However, at the same time, he made it clear that he

expected other countries, especially Western predominantly Christian nations, to assist the

Christians in Lebanon as well.158

152 Quandt, Camp David, 78. 153 Anziska, Preventing Palestine, 50; Steinberg and Rubinovitz, Menachem Begin and the Israel-Egypt Peace

Process, 52. 154 Anziska, Preventing Palestine, 50. 155 Shlaim and Yaniv, “Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy in Israel,” 258. On the removal of Israel’s

settlements in Sinai: Erik Cohen, “Introduction to ‘The Price of Peace: The Removal of the Israeli Settlements

in Sinai’,” The Journal of Behavioral Science 23, 1 (1987): 1-11,

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0021886387231002. 156 Anziska, Preventing Palestine, 64, 71. 157 Quandt, Camp David, 64; Waage, Konflikt og stormaktspolitikk, 406-407. 158 Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “29 Remarks by Prime Minister Begin on the situation in Lebanon- 8

August 1977,” accessed 31 October 2018,

26

Israel had been providing the Maronites in Lebanon with weapons and training

facilities for quite some time. Rabin had been hesitant to get directly involved in the

Lebanese conflict, so he had made an effort to stay at an arm’s length distance.159 Based

within the refugee camps, the Palestine Liberation Organization had grown into a state-

within-the-state in the absence of Lebanese control and had launched many attacks on Israel

from Lebanon.160

Until the PLO was forced to leave Jordan in 1970, their attacks on Israel had primarily

been launched from Jordan.161 However, the first substantial PLO attack fired from Lebanon

was launched already in the summer of 1968. On 14 June 1968, mortar shells hit the Israeli

kibbutz Manara. New attacks followed on 14, 20, 26 and 28 October, and struck Israeli

villages and kibbutzim in the northern part of the country. A few days later, Israel answered

with its first raid targeting PLO on Lebanese territory. In December 1968, an El-Al passenger

airplane was attacked in Athens, and in response, Israel attacked Beirut airport, destroying 14

civilian carriers. Shortly thereafter, Soviet Katyusha rockets were fired at the Israeli village

Kiryat Shmona.162 After the PLO was expelled from Jordan, the majority of their attacks were

subsequently launched from Lebanon.163 Israel continued the retaliations, following new PLO

attacks, with airstrikes, artillery shelling and infiltration of Lebanese territory to strike PLO

bases directly. Israel and the PLO were involved in what appeared to be an endless cycle of

attacks and retaliations.164

The Israeli-Lebanese border had been relatively calm the first half of 1977, with no

Israeli casualties.165 But the activities would soon resume. On 6 and 8 November, the Israeli

town of Israel Nehariya, a coastal city located in the northern part of the country, was hit by

rockets. Three civilians were killed, and six others were injured.166 On 13 November,

Minister of Defense Ezer Weizman informed the Knesset that Israel had responded with an

http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/MFADocuments/Yearbook3/Pages/29%20Remarks%20by%20Prime%20

Minister%20Begin%20on%20the%20situatio.aspx. 159 Schiff, “Lebanon: Motivations and Interests in Israel’s Policy,” 222; Shlaim, The Iron Wall, 349, 351-352. 160 Benny Morris, Righteous Victims - A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict 1881-1999 (London: John Murray,

2000), 499; Evron, War and Intervention in Lebanon, 29; Shlaim, The Iron Wall, 347. 161 Yaniv, Dilemmas of Security, 38-40. 162 Evron, War and Intervention in Lebanon, 28-29; Yaniv, Dilemmas of Security, 42-43. 163 Evron, War and Intervention in Lebanon, 28-29; Khalidi, Conflict and Violence in Lebanon, 42; Morris,

Righteous Victims, 499; Yaniv, Dilemmas of Security, 38-40. 164 Eisenberg, “From Benign to Malign,” 20; Evron, War and Intervention in Lebanon, 28-29; Sela, “Civil

Society, the Military, and National Security,” 58; Yaniv, Dilemmas of Security, 38-40. 165 Khalidi, Conflict and Violence in Lebanon, 124. 166 Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “66 Reply in the Knesset by Defence Minister Weizman to question on the

situation in Southern Lebanon, 13 November 1977,” accessed 31 October 2018,

http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/MFADocuments/Yearbook3/Pages/66%20Reply%20in%20the%20Knesse

t%20by%20Defence%20Minister%20Weizma.aspx; Khalidi, Conflict and Violence in Lebanon, 125.

27

air attack, where Israeli jets had hit PLO bases in the Tyre area, “destroying installations and

killing a large number of terrorists”.167 Weizman emphasized that Israel had no interest, not at

the time nor in the past, of attacking or occupying any area under Lebanese jurisdiction.

However, he repeated what Begin had confirmed in August – Israel was supporting the

Maronite government and the Christian villages of southern Lebanon. At the same time, he

made a promise: “So long as the terrorists act against us from southern Lebanon we shall take

action against them in any manner that the I.D.F. finds effective.”168

Early 1978: weapons and violence in Lebanon

Begin believed that the United States should have a clear role as an observer in the

negotiations between Israel and its Arab counterparts, and not as a participant. He was careful

not to involve the Americans too much into Israel’s internal affairs, but he did share some of

his concerns regarding the escalating situation in Lebanon. However, he promised that Israel

would not make any moves in Lebanon without informing the U.S.169 Therefore, Carter was

particularly disappointed and irritated when he learned that a small Israeli force had crossed

the Lebanese border in September 1977.170

The U.S. government had asked the Israelis to withdraw from Lebanon after their

entry in September, but a report from the commander of the United Nations Truce

Supervision Organization (UNTSO) confirmed that Israeli soldiers were still stationed on six

locations in Lebanon in January 1978, and that there had been reports of terrestrial and aerial

activities by the Israeli forces.171 To the Americans’ dismay, Israel had also been using

American equipment in this offensive, which was a violation of a 1976 American law of arms

exports.172 According to this law, the military equipment provided by the U.S. should only be

used as defense articles. Begin argued that the operation should not be considered as

aggression towards Lebanon, rather an attempt to support their Christian allies.173 To add

167 Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “66 Reply in the Knesset by Defence Minister Weizman.” 168 ibid. 169 Quandt, Camp David, 77-79. 170 Khalidi, Conflict and Violence in Lebanon, 130; Mathias Nesthun Sønsteby, “Alternativenes grusomhet:

Amerikansk politikk overfor Libanon, 1977-1979” (Master’s thesis, University of Oslo, 2015), 41; Morris,

Righteous Victims, 503; Yaniv, Dilemmas of Security, 69. 171 Telegram to The Office from Washington, 4 January 1978, no. 41, from the UN: Israel/Lebanon, PMO

4321/2, ISA [Hebrew]; United Nations Truce Supervision Organization is a group of military observers,

designed to supervise truce in Palestine after the Arab states opened hostilities against Israel in 1948, decided in

UN Resolution 50 (29 May 1948). United Nations Truce Supervision Organization, “Mandate,” accessed 18

October 2019, https://untso.unmissions.org/mandate; Yaniv, Dilemmas of Security, 69. 172 Cornell Law School, “U.S. Code § 2778.Control of arms exports and imports,” accessed 18 October 2019,

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/22/2778. 173 Sønsteby, “Alternativenes grusomhet,» 42.

28

insult to injury, the Americans learned that Israel had been conveying American weapons to

their Christian allies in Lebanon.174 This was a violation of the same U.S. law, which

explicitly prohibited sales to a third party without U.S.’ approval.175

In February 1978, the violence in Lebanon escalated. Syrian forces had begun to

patrol areas around Beirut, and they had established checkpoints in various locations around

the area. The Israeli leadership paid close attention to the situation, and they received

information about clashes between the Syrian forces and Lebanese army.176 The increased

violence was reported to have reached a new peak with bloody clashes in Beirut on 7 and 8

February. The Syrians, the Lebanese government led by Elias Sarkis, and the Christian

Maronites made efforts to establish a ceasefire, but despite reaching an agreement on the 8th,

the violence continued.177 UNTSO had also been caught in the disorder. The Israeli received

reports of attacks on the UN observers. The first attacks on the observers had been carried out

by the PLO. However, the most recent reports revealed that attacks also were carried out by

the Christians. Israel was asked to help stop the violence.178

Peace talks: towards Camp David

While the situation escalated in Lebanon, the Carter administration had its focus elsewhere.

Ever since he took office, Carter had been working to facilitate a peace conference in

Geneva. During Begin’s first visit to Washington in July 1977, Begin had expressed

willingness to participate in such a conference in accordance with Security Council 242 and

338. However, Israel demanded that only Israel, Egypt, Syria and Jordan would be invited to

participate. The PLO should be excluded.179 Surprisingly, Begin expressed some willingness

to negotiate withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula. However, he was still persistent that it was

impossible for Israel to give up on “Judea and Samaria”.180 The Likud government’s claim to

174 Telegram to The Office from Washington, 3 February 1978, no. 85, weapons to Lebanon, PMO 4321/2, ISA

[Hebrew]. 175 Cornell Law School, “U.S. Code § 2778.Control of arms exports and imports.” 2(A)i 176 Telegram to The Office from Washington, 8 February 1978, no. 46, Lebanon update, PMO 4321/2, ISA

[Hebrew]. 177 Telegram to Washington, New York, Ottawa, London, Paris, et.al from the Office, 9 February 1978, no. 853,

PMO 4321/2, ISA [Hebrew]; Telegram to Washington, New York, Ottawa, London, Paris, et.al from the Office,

10 February 1978, no. 901, Lebanon update, PMO 4321/2, ISA. [Hebrew] 178 Telegram to The Office from New York, 2 March 1978, no. 43, UN observers in Lebanon, PMO 4321/2, ISA

[Hebrew]; Telegram to New York, Washington from Office, 3 March 1978, no. 631, PMO 4321/2, ISA

Hebrew]. 179 Shlaim, The Iron Wall, 363-364. UN Security Council Resolution 338 was adopted on 22 October 1973, after

the Yom Kippur War, and called for a ceasefire and the implementation of Resolution 242. The United Nations,

“Resolution 338 (1973),” accessed 21 November 2019, https://undocs.org/S/RES/338(1973). 180 Avi Shilon, Menachem Begin: A life (New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 2012), 277; Shlaim,

The Iron Wall, 363-364.

29

all the occupied territories was founded on an ideological basis, more than previous

governments which had had stronger security emphasis.181

The road to a Geneva conference was bumpy. The parties did not agree upon who

were to participate, and whether or not the Arab countries should attend as one joint

delegation or as separate participants. In October, Israel and the U.S. presented a joint

working paper called “Suggestions for the Resumption of the Geneva Peace Conference.” It

suggested that “Palestinian Arabs” could participate in the conference. Egypt did not want to

accept unless the PLO was explicitly mentioned. Syria and the PLO rejected the whole

paper.182

Neither Begin nor the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat found the Geneva preparations

fruitful. Without informing the United States, Israel and Egypt began exploring the possibility

of a bilateral agreement between the two. Sadat thought the Geneva conference preparations

downed in procedural matters, while Begin preferred bilateral agreements.183 Still, Sadat

surprised all parties when he announced that he was prepared to go to Jerusalem to negotiate

with the Israelis face-to-face. Sadat arrived in Israel on 19 November and was met with

applause in the Knesset.184 Despite several rounds of talks between Egypt and Israel

following the Jerusalem visit, their efforts were largely unproductive. Their meetings showed

no significant progress, until an agreement was reached on Camp David the following

year.185

Early March 1978: diminishing support for the Israeli position

American political support for Israel had clearly decreased with Carter in office. With the

much more limited support from the White House, the American public support for Israel

was now more important than ever. To Israel’s dismay, the public support for the Israeli

position was also weakened.186 American Jewish Committee leader, Bertram H. Gold and

public opinion analyst Daniel Yankelovich contacted the Israeli Prime Minister and informed

him about the changes in the public opinion. They informed him that the support for the

Jewish side, which used to be very strong compared to the Arab side, had diminished

considerably and could be seen as almost equal. Gold and Yankelovich urged the Prime

181 Shlaim, The Iron Wall, 359. 182 Shlaim, The Iron Wall, 366-367. 183 Shlaim, The Iron Wall, 364-365. 184 Shlaim, The Iron Wall, 367-368. 185 Shlaim, The Iron Wall, 371. 186 Memorandum to Prime Minister Menachem Begin from Bertram H. Gold and Daniel Yankelovich, 7 March

1978, PMO 4338/5, ISA [English].

30

Minister to take some important steps to improve the situation. They suggested that he, and

other Israeli officials, should do their utmost to praise Egyptian President Sadat, as a man of

peace, while at the same time acknowledge appreciation of Sadat’s problems in the current

situation. They urged Begin to convey that Israel would not renege on its security concerns,

but that any non-security issues would not stand in the way of achieving peace.187 However,

these deliberations on securing Israel’s negotiating position and international standing were

soon overshadowed by violent events along the Israeli-Lebanese border.

187 Memorandum to Prime Minister Menachem Begin from Bertram H. Gold and Daniel Yankelovich, 7 March

1978, PMO 4338/5, ISA [English].

31

Chapter 4:

Litani

On 11 March 1978, a group of 11 Palestinian guerillas hijacked two Israeli busses. They had

set off from the coastal city of Tyre in southern Lebanon, in two rubber boats, with Tel Aviv

as their destination.188 However, the sea was difficult to navigate, and as a result, they ended

up in Caesarea, an Israeli city located on the midway between Haifa and Tel Aviv. When the

group arrived, they questioned and killed a young woman, before proceeding to the main road

to Tel Aviv. They stopped a taxi, and killed its passengers, before they hijacked a bus of

civilians. They commanded the bus driver to continue en route to Tel Aviv. On the way, they

managed to seize a second bus, and forced its passengers over to the first bus. They continued

towards Tel Aviv, but a roadblock eventually stopped the bus. The group fired at passing

vehicles, wounding and killing civilians, before the bus got destroyed in an explosion,

believed to be caused by a hand grenade thrown by one of the perpetrators. Israeli security

forces ensured that none of the terrorists escaped. 37 Israelis were killed and 76 were

wounded.189

“They came here in order to kill the Jews”

The terrorists were members of Fatah, which was the largest fraction of the Palestine

Liberation Organization (PLO). To the press, Prime Minister Menachem Begin informed the

public that the guerillas had left a leaflet, in which they revealed that their intention was to

take hostages and use them as leverage to pressure the Israeli government to accept several

demands. The perpetrators threatened to kill the hostages if the government did not comply

with their orders. However, nothing went according to plan, and the hostages were killed

before any demands were presented.190 Nevertheless, Begin was not in doubt of what their

real intentions were: “They came here in order to kill the Jews.”191 In his speech to the

Knesset the following day, Begin made it perfectly clear that “the shedders of innocent blood

188 Walid Khalidi, Conflict and Violence in Lebanon: Confrontation in the Middle East (Cambridge,

Massachusetts: Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, 1979), 129. 189 Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “133 Statement to the press by Prime Minister Begin on the massacre of

Israelis on the Haifa-Tel Aviv Road- 12 March 1978,” accessed 31 October 2018,

http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/MFADocuments/Yearbook3/Pages/133%20Statement%20to%20the%20p

ress%20by%20Prime%20Minister%20Begin.aspx. 190 Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “133 Statement to the press by Prime Minister Begin on the massacre of

Israelis on the Haifa-Tel Aviv Road- 12 March 1978.” 191 Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “133 Statement to the press by Prime Minister Begin on the massacre of

Israelis on the Haifa-Tel Aviv Road- 12 March 1978.”

32

shall not go unpunished.”192 The prime minister strongly condemned the PLO, and blatantly

referred to the group as Nazis. To him, this attack was just yet another assault on the Jewish

people. He was not subtle in his references to the Second World War, as he proclaimed: “We

shall not forget. And I can only call upon other nations not to forget that Nazi atrocity that

was perpetrated upon our people yesterday.”193

Begin was infuriated that European nations, both in the east and in the west, did not

dissociate themselves from the PLO. How was it possible that the very same countries that

had promised justice after the brutalities of the Second World War could recognize the PLO

as the rightful representative of the Palestinians? Begin questioned how Yasser Arafat, the

man he regarded as responsible for the bus attack, recently had been “welcomed

enthusiastically by the plenum of the United Nations organization.”194 In his eyes, the PLO,

which only a few years earlier had been declared as the “sole legitimate representative of the

Palestinian people” by the Arab League, was nothing less than a murderous Nazi

organization.195 In his statement to the press, as well as to the Knesset, Begin pointed a finger

directly at the Soviet Union. He emphasized that the Soviet Union too had promised justice

after the world war, but still they were supplying the PLO with weapons as well as the boats

used by the terrorist in this particular attack.196

In the wake of the terrorist attack, the Israeli administration carefully observed the

Arab countries’ responses to the 11 March massacre. However, none of the Arab countries

uttered “a single word of condemnation”.197 On the contrary, the Arab response seemed

somewhat joyous. The message to the Israelis was hardly disguised, and from an Israeli point

of view, this was frightening: Israel should expect such attacks. As long as the Israeli

government refused to recognize the demands for a Palestinian state, and as long as the

government refused to remove the Jewish settlements from the West Bank, Israel should

192 Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “134 Statement to the Knesset by Prime Minister Begin on the terrorist

raid and the Knesset resolution- 13 March 1978,” accessed 31 October 2018,

http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/MFADocuments/Yearbook3/Pages/134%20Statement%20to%20the%20K

nesset%20by%20Prime%20Minister%20Beg.aspx. 193 Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “133 Statement to the press by Prime Minister Begin.” 194 Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “133 Statement to the press by Prime Minister Begin.” 195 Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “133 Statement to the press by Prime Minister Begin”; Shlaim, The Iron

Wall, 338-339, 444. 196 Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “133 Statement to the press by Prime Minister Begin”; Israel Ministry of

Foreign Affairs, “134 Statement to the Knesset by Prime Minister Begin” 197 A selection of Arab statements, “Special Edition: Arab Responses to the attack on the Haifa-Tel Aviv

highway (11.3),” Ministry of Foreign Affairs [MFA] 8325/7 part 1, ISA [Hebrew/English].

33

brace herself. In the Arab press, it was clear that Israel should not be surprised if similar

strikes were launched in the future.198

The Israeli press speculated whether the terrorist attack could result in a greater

understanding for Israel’s position in the United States. Both the bus attack as well as threats

of possible attacks in the future could have a positive effect on the support for Israel. After

all, the public would sympathize with the victim, which was Israel in this particular case. The

terrorist attack had surely showed the world that a Palestinian state, under the leadership of

Yasser Arafat on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip would be a threat to Israel’s security, and

her whole existence. Fresh in mind, Begin remembered the message he had received earlier in

March: the public support for “the Israeli side” and “the Arab side” were now almost equal in

strength.199 The same change could be found in the White House, and it was no secret that

President Carter believed that Israel should withdraw from virtually all the areas occupied

during the war in 1967. However, Begin still expressed that he

trust[ed] that in light of this bloody event, a persons [sic] of goodwill will appreciate our

fundamental position […] namely: It is inconceivable that in Judea and Samaria and in Gaza a

state should be established that would be ruled by Yasser Arafat and his murderers. […] Our

position is known. Were that to be the case - and we have said so these many years - our

people would have been confronted by mortal danger and our state by a threat to its

survival.200

No “retribution”

In the early hours of 15 March, four days after the bus attack, Israeli Defence Force (IDF)

crossed the border to Lebanon. Just over 10,000 men entered southern Lebanon, with the goal

of destroying the PLO bases located near the Israeli-Lebanese border.201 Just as the attack

was launched, Begin informed President Carter about Israel’s operation. He explained to the

president that the operation was no “retribution”, and that the purpose of the mission was for

security reasons only. The IDF had been ordered to avoid civilian casualties, as much as they

could. Begin told Carter that the PLO had already announced that additional terrorist attacks

would be launched in the future, and he was confident that President Carter would understand

Israel’s need for self-defense against such attacks. Begin believed that the Israeli invasion

198 A selection of Arab statements, “Special Edition: Arab Responses to the attack on the Haifa-Tel Aviv

highway (11.3),” MFA 8325/7 part 1, ISA [Hebrew/English]; Marvine Howe, “Some Palestinians Are Proud of

Attack,” The New York Times, March 14, 1978. 199 Memorandum to Prime Minister Menachem Begin from Bertram H. Gold and Daniel Yankelovich, 7 March

1978, PMO 4338/5, ISA [English]. 200 Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “133 Statement to the press by Prime Minister Begin.” 201 Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “135 Israel Defence Forces statement on the operation in Lebanon”;

Farrell, “Raid Is Retaliatory”; Shlaim, The Iron Wall, 378; Waage, Konflikt og stormaktspolitikk, 233. The force

would eventually be expanded. About 25,000 troops were engaged in Operation Litani. Guerrero,

“Overshadowed Crisis,” 410.

34

was a legitimate response to PLO’s attack on the Israeli buses, and he hoped that Carter

agreed.202

The next day, 16 March, Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Foreign Minister Moshe

Dayan and Defense Minister Ezer Weizman met with the United States’ Deputy Chief of

Mission, Richard Viets, at the Prime Minister’s office in Jerusalem.203 Weizman ensured

Viets that the IDF did not use their air force north of the Litani River, except for

photographical purposes.204 However, the defense minister also made it clear that the Israelis

would expand the use of air force, if they saw it necessary.205

Deputy Chief of Mission Viets informed the Israeli officials that the U.S. Government

had sought to show some understanding towards Israel’s action, and was pleased to learn that

Israel had no intentions of staying in southern Lebanon. Israel requested new “Iron-Clad

insurances” from the Americans, as a condition for withdrawal. However, the Americans

rejected their request for military aid.206 Viets continued to inform Prime Minister Begin that

a United Nations Security Council meeting would, with great certainty, be held in the near

future. This meeting would, with high probability, strongly pressure for a resolution

commending Israel’s military action, and at the same time call for immediate and

unconditional withdrawal of Israeli forces. The prime minister expressed great concern of a

resolution that would call for Israeli withdrawal without a guarantee of an arrangement that

would prevent the PLO from returning to the area. Viets told Begin that the American

Government intended to respond to such a resolution with their own resolution, which would

call for the introduction of United Nations peacekeeping forces that would be deployed in the

area from which Israel would withdraw. He told Begin that the U.S. would oppose unilateral

202 Telegram to Washington from the Office, Message to President Carter from Prime Minister Begin, 14 March

1978, no. 292, PMO 4338/5, ISA [English]. 203 Deputy Chief of Mission is the officer second in command in an American diplomatic mission.

G.R. Berridge, Alan James and Lorna Lloyd, The Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Diplomacy (London:

Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 94 204 Telegram to Washington from the Office, transcript of meeting between the Prime Minister, Foreign

Minister, Defence Minister and Richard Viets (US Embassy), Prime Minister’s bureau, Jerusalem, 16 March

1978, no. 358, PMO 4338/5, ISA [Hebrew/English]. 205 Telegram to Washington from the Office, transcript of meeting between the Prime Minister, Foreign

Minister, Defence Minister and Richard Viets (US Embassy), Prime Minister’s bureau, Jerusalem, 16 March

1978, no. 358, PMO 4338/5, ISA [Hebrew/English]. 206 Telegram to Washington from the Office, transcript of meeting between the Prime Minister, Foreign

Minister, Defence Minister and Richard Viets (US Embassy), Prime Minister’s bureau, Jerusalem, 16 March

1978, no. 358, PMO 4338/5, ISA [Hebrew/English].

35

condemnation of Israel. However, the U.S. would not veto a resolution calling for Israeli

withdrawal.207

President Carter was utterly concerned for the possible impact the Israeli operation in

southern Lebanon might have on the peace negotiation with Egypt.208 The Deputy Chief of

Mission Viets suggested that it might be helpful for the situation if the Israelis publicly

announced that they intended to withdraw as soon as possible, and preferably before the U.S.

had voted in favor of the UN resolution. Perhaps somewhat agitated, the prime minister

reminded Viets that Israel already had expressed willingness to withdraw from Lebanon.

However, he maintained that: “What we did was a legitimate act of self-defense. I suppose

any other country under similar circumstances would do like us.”209 Begin pointed out to

Viets that the Israeli action should be regarded as quite reasonable, and both American

diplomat Joseph J. Sisco and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, among others, had

expressed their support for the operation.210 He also reminded the Deputy Chief of Mission

that Egyptian President Sadat had promised that he would hunt the killers of his friend Yusuf

Sibai, murdered in Cyprus in January 1978, to the end of the world. While Israel, on the other

hand, did not go to the end of the world, they “went to [their] northern border.”211

Impact on the peace talks?

Egyptian President Sadat condemned Israel’s actions in Lebanon. In contrast to the other

Arab leaders, Sadat also had denounced the terrorist attack on the Israeli buses on the Haifa-

Tel Aviv highway. However, he considered Israel’s response as even more violent and

vehement than the PLO attack. Still, he expressed willingness to continue the peace talks, but

it all depended on how the Israelis would proceed in Lebanon.212

207 Telegram to Washington from the Office, transcript of meeting between the Prime Minister, Foreign

Minister, Defence Minister and Richard Viets (US Embassy), Prime Minister’s bureau, Jerusalem, 16 March

1978, no. 358, PMO 4338/5, ISA [Hebrew/English]. 208 Telegram to Washington from the Office, transcript of meeting between the Prime Minister, Foreign

Minister, Defence Minister and Richard Viets (US Embassy), Prime Minister’s bureau, Jerusalem, 16 March

1978, no. 358, PMO 4338/5, ISA [Hebrew/English]. 209 Telegram to Washington from the Office, transcript of meeting between the Prime Minister, Foreign

Minister, Defence Minister and Richard Viets (US Embassy), Prime Minister’s bureau, Jerusalem, 16 March

1978, no. 358, PMO 4338/5, ISA [Hebrew/English]. 210 Telegram to Washington from the Office, transcript of meeting between the Prime Minister, Foreign

Minister, Defence Minister and Richard Viets (US Embassy), Prime Minister’s bureau, Jerusalem, 16 March

1978, no. 358, PMO 4338/5, ISA [Hebrew/English]; Telegram to the Office from Washington, 16/17 March

1978, no. 327, statement from Dr. Kissinger under an interview at the NBC Studio, PMO, 4338/5, ISA

[English]. 211 Telegram to Washington from the Office, transcript of meeting between the Prime Minister, Foreign

Minister, Defence Minister and Richard Viets (US Embassy), Prime Minister’s bureau, Jerusalem, 16 March

1978, no. 358, PMO 4338/5, ISA [Hebrew/English]. 212 Christopher S. Wren, “Sadat Affirms Goal Is Peace in Mideast,” The New York Times, March 17, 1978.

36

The Israelis had carefully kept the Egyptians in the loop, regarding the situation in

southern Lebanon. Minister of Defence Ezer Weizman sent a clarifying message to Minister

of Defence in Egypt, General Gamassy, reassuring the Egyptians that Israel did not intend to

keep any of the presently occupied areas in Lebanon. Weizman had also emphasized that the

IDF had no intention of hurting innocent people, Lebanese nor Palestinian, and that their fight

was not against the Palestinian people per se, but against the PLO. However, he admitted that

“when there is war, there are destructions and sufferings of all the fighting area.”213 Still, the

Israelis assumed that the operation in Lebanon would not disturb the peace talks between

Israel and Egypt.214 Egypt, on the other hand, expressed considerable concern over Israel’s

presence in Lebanon. The Egyptians were worried that the Israeli operation would escalate

the violence in Lebanon, and that this in turn would make it difficult for Egypt to continue the

peace talks with Israel. However, Israel’s promise to withdraw from the Lebanese area

seemed like a good test of Israel’s trustworthiness. General Gamassy hoped that the situation

would subside soon.215

In the U.S., the Americans were very concerned about the Israeli invasion. They were

continuously worried that the Israeli action would damage the peace process. In their view,

termination of the peace negotiations between Israel and Egypt would pose a far greater

threat to Israel’s security than the possibility of PLO’s return to southern Lebanon. Disturbing

the peace talks could possibly harm any hope of attainting peace in the Middle East in the

future. Mainly to protect the peace negotiations, the Americans wanted Israel to withdraw its

forces. To the Israeli prime minister, they argued that a buffer strip along the Israeli-Lebanese

border would not be able to stop future terrorist attacks. After all, Carter argued, the PLO

terrorists had not come across the border, they had arrived in boats. A potential peace

agreement between Israel and Egypt would have far more positive effects for Israel in the

long run.216

UNIFIL

Just as United States’ Deputy Chief of Mission Richard Viets had anticipated, the Israeli

invasion in southern Lebanon and withdrawal of Israeli forces were soon up for debate in the

UN. Israel’s ambassador to the UN Chaim Herzog (1975-1978) asked the president of the

213 Note from Minister of Defence Ezer Weizman, undated, PMO 4173/6, ISA [English]. 214 Note from Minister of Defence Ezer Weizman, undated, PMO 4173/6, ISA [English] 215 Telegram from Cairo to the Office: A message to General Weizman from General Gamassy, 21/22 March

1978, no. 5, PMO 4173/6, ISA [Hebrew/English]. 216 U.S. answers to clarifications requested by P.M. in meeting 16 March 1978, PMO 4338/5, ISA [English].

37

Security Council, Ivor Richard, to remember “the continuous acts of terror and violence

against Israeli civilians, together with the frequent shelling, sabotage incursions, bombing and

murder being perpetrated from Lebanese territory against Israel.”217 Herzog also claimed that

these terrorist actions were committed precisely to harm any possibility of achieving a peace

agreement between Israel and her Arab neighbors.218 Richard proposed that Lebanon, Israel,

Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Libya should participate in the Security Council meeting. Kuwait

requested that the PLO observer also could participate on the same level as states.219 The

Israelis had just the day before asked the U.S. to petition for removal of PLO’s observer

status in the UN. 220 However, while the PLO’s observer status was not removed, the

Americans did not support the proposal to invite the PLO to participate in the debate in the

Security Council.221

In the meeting, Egyptian representative Dr. A. Esmat Abdel Meguid called the Israeli

invasion a result of a deliberate Israeli policy of gradual expansion. He argued that Israel’s

military action in Lebanon revealed that Israel still believed that “her security can be

achieved through aggression, occupation and expansion, rather than through a just and lasting

peace in the Middle East based on the principles of the United Nations charter.”222 Meguid

also stated that he did not believe that Israel had any intention to withdraw from their newly

seized security zone in southern Lebanon. In conclusion, he proclaimed that the Israeli

invasion was a clear “obstacle in the way of achieving a just, lasting and comprehensive

peace in the Middle East.”223

The Lebanese and the Jordanian representative also demanded Israel to withdraw her

forces. The Jordanian representative warned the Security Council; if they did not act soon,

Israel would surely establish settlements in the area, to reclaim this area “as part of their

biblical homeland.”224 He argued that the Zionist leadership had “cast ‘covetous eyes’ on the

waters of the Litani River” long before the creation of Israel.225 The Syrian representative

compared the Israeli invasion with Syria’s own invasion in 1976, and asserted that the Syrian

force had been in Lebanon legally, as a part of the Arab Peace Keeping Force in Lebanon,

217 Telegram to the Office from New York, 17 March 1978, no. 424, MFA 8325/7 part 2, ISA [English]. 218 Telegram to the Office from New York, 17 March 1978, no. 424, MFA 8325/7 part 2, ISA [English]. 219 Telegram to the Office from New York, 17/18 March 1978, no. 456, MFA 8325/7 part 2, ISA [Hebrew]. 220 Telegram to the Office from Washington, 17/18 March 1978, no. 375, PMO 4338/5, ISA [Hebrew/English]. 221 Telegram to the Office from New York, 17/18 March 1978, no. 456, MFA 8325/7 part 2, ISA [Hebrew]. 222 Telegram to the Office from New York., 18 March 1978, no. 458, MFA 8325/7 part 2, ISA [English]. 223 Telegram to the Office from New York., 18 March 1978, no. 458, MFA 8325/7 part 2, ISA [English]. 224 Telegram to the Office from New York, 18 March 1978, no. 455, MFA 8325/7 part 2, ISA

[Hebrew/English]. 225 Telegram to the Office from New York, 18 March 1978, no. 455, MFA 8325/7 part 2, ISA

[Hebrew/English].

38

while Israel had taken matters into their own hands without anyone’s approval. The world

could no longer let Israel continue to “invade other Arab countries for the sake of ‘security’”,

he argued.226 The Libyan representative compared Zionism to Nazism, and accused the

Israelis of using an argument of self-defense as an excuse to expand their territory.227

The discussions culminated in United Nations Security Council Resolution 425,

approved in on 19 March. The resolution called for the immediate withdrawal of Israeli

forces from Lebanese territory, and for the establishment of an interim UN force in southern

Lebanon.228 The purpose of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was to

confirm “the withdrawal of Israeli forces, restoring international peace and security and

assisting the Government of Lebanon in ensuring the return of its effective authority in the

area”.229 The force would constitute 4000 soldiers and with a mandate of six months.230

During the debate on the resolution, Ivor Richard had stated that both Lebanon and

Israel had experiences more “than their fair share of the horror of war.”231 Although he found

it impossible to justify the terror act on the Tel Aviv road, he could neither accept Israel’s

response to the attack.232 On the same day, 19 March, an IDF spokesperson repeated that

Israel did not intend to establish a government in southern Lebanon. However, the

spokesperson did not want to reveal when the Israeli forces planned to leave Lebanon. On the

contrary, he emphasized that the IDF would continue to assist the Maronites in southern

Lebanon. He emphasized that the Israeli army also helped the residents in southern Lebanon

with medical aid and food supplies.233

226 Telegram to the Office from New York, 18 March 1978, no. 455, MFA 8325/7 part 2, ISA

[Hebrew/English]. 227 Telegram to the Office from New York, 18 March 1978, no. 455, MFA 8325/7 part 2, ISA

[Hebrew/English]. 228 Evron, War and Intervention in Lebanon, 78. 229 Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “137 Security Council Resolution 425 (1978), 19 March 1978,” accessed

6 May 2019,

https://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/MFADocuments/Yearbook3/Pages/137%20Security%20Council%20Res

olution%20425%20-1978--%2019%20Mar.aspx; Kaufman, “From the Litani to Beirut,” 29; Khalidi, Conflict

and Violence in Lebanon, 131-132. 230 Khalidi, Conflict and Violence in Lebanon, 131-132. 231 Telegram to the Office from New York, 19 March 1978, no. 500, MFA 8325/7 part 2, ISA

[Hebrew/English]. 232 Telegram to the Office from New York, 19 March 1978, no. 500, MFA 8325/7 part 2, ISA

[Hebrew/English]. 233 Telegram to the Office from Tel Aviv, 19 March 1978, no. 21, MFA 8325/7 part 2, ISA [Hebrew].

39

Weapons and no withdrawal

The first UNIFIL troops arrived on 22 March.234 However, in April, the Israelis had still not

withdrawn their forces from Lebanon. On 3 April, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Samuel Lewis

asked Defence Minister Weizman when Israel planned to withdraw. Weizman first answered

that Israel would be able to withdraw when the Norwegian battalion was deployed, at the

earliest. “If the Norwegian battalion is deployed within the next four or five days, then next

week we will be able to start withdrawal.”235 However, when pressed on the subject,

Weizman admitted that the IDF would not fully withdraw from the area even after the

Norwegians had arrived, and estimated that the withdrawal would probably be closer to about

10 kilometers.236

The Americans wanted the Israelis to make a public statement saying that they would

comply with resolution 425. However, the Israelis did not want to confirm to a withdrawal

schedule. Lewis hoped that the Israelis could make a statement along the lines of “we have

already withdrawn roughly X forces.”237 He explained that such a statement would be very

helpful to the U.S. government in the Congress. Lewis asked Weizman to publicly confirm

that the Israelis were “coordinating closely with the UN Commander our schedule for

withdrawals and will be announcing that as soon as coordination has been completed.”238

Weizman, on the other hand, was hesitant. He explained that the IDF had had been under

some shooting from Tyre, and therefore they were not prepared to withdraw. He also

expressed concern over UNIFIL’s efficiency. He said that Israel could not retreat before

UNIFIL was properly established and well-functioning.239 Weizman took the opportunity in

the meeting to ask about Syria; what exactly did the Americans think of the Syrians? Lewis

responded: “I think they are behaving fairly well, but saying very little.”240

Just a few days after Lewis’ meeting with Weizman, the Americans got another

unpleasant surprise. Yet again, the Israelis were exposed using American weapons in

Lebanon.241 However, because Israel had promised to withdraw in compliance with

234 Khalidi, Conflict and Violence in Lebanon, 132. 235 Meeting between Ezer Weizman and Samuel Lewis, 3 April 1978, PMO 4173/6, ISA [English]. 236 Meeting between Ezer Weizman and Samuel Lewis, 3 April 1978, PMO 4173/6, ISA [English]. 237 Meeting between Ezer Weizman and Samuel Lewis, 3 April 1978, PMO 4173/6, ISA [English]. 238 Meeting between Ezer Weizman and Samuel Lewis, 3 April 1978, PMO 4173/6, ISA [English]. 239 Meeting between Ezer Weizman and Samuel Lewis, 3 April 1978, PMO 4173/6, ISA [English]. 240 Meeting between Ezer Weizman and Samuel Lewis, 3 April 1978, PMO 4173/6, ISA [English]. 241 Telegram to Washington from the Office, 7 April 1978, no. 166, PMO 4173/6, ISA [Hebrew/English];

Bernard Gwertzman, “Vance Says Israel May Have Violated U.S. Arms-Use Law,” The New York Times, 6

April, 1978.

40

resolution 425, Cyrus Vance recommended not taking any further action.242 Begin, as usual,

repeated that the measure taken in Lebanon was legitimate self-defense.243 The Israeli-

American relationship had unquestionably taken a turn for the worse since Carter became

president. Israel’s reluctancy to withdraw from Lebanon had only intensified this tendency.244

Thus, the Americans were not pleased to learn that Israel had not only used American

equipment in Lebanon, they had also used cluster bomb units (CBUs) on targets in southern

Lebanon. Such use was a violation of the Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement between

Israel and the United States, signed in 1952.245 This agreement clearly defined the scope of

how the Israelis could use such weapons. CBUs could only be used if Israel was engaged in

active general hostilities, with clearly defined military targets, and not against targets located

in or close to civilian population centers.246 Already in 1976, Israel’s Ambassador to the

United States Simcha Dinitz (1973-1979) had given assurances of the restrictions attached to

the use of the CBUs. However, now the Americans believed the Israelis had violated these

guidelines.247 American media reported that U.S. officials had immediately raised their

concerns with Israeli officials. The Israelis, on the other hand, denied having any knowledge

of such discussion.248

Two days later, 11 April, the Americans arranged to meet with Israeli representatives

from the IDF to clarify the situation. The Americans expressed great disappointment of

Israel’s failure to keep their promises on the use of the CBUs.249 The Americans expected

new assurances from Israel. Shortly thereafter, Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan once again

promised that the Israelis would comply with the Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement’s

restrictions of the use of CBUs.250

242 Telegram to Washington from the Office, 7 April 1978, no. 166, PMO 4173/6, ISA [Hebrew/English]. 243 Gwertzman, “Vance Says Israel May Have Violated U.S. Arms-Use Law.” 244 Telegram to the Office from London, 25 March 1978, no. 238, PMO 4338/5, ISA [Hebrew]; Telegram to the

Office from Washington, 24/25 March 1978, no. 490, PMO 4338/5, ISA [Hebrew]; Telegram to the Office from

Washington, 24/25 March 1978, no. 487, PMO 4338/5, ISA [Hebrew/English]; Telegram to the Office from

Washington, 24/25 March 1978, no. 492, PMO 4338/5, ISA [Hebrew/English]. 245 Telegram to U.S. Embassy from Moshe Dayan, 10 April 1978, PMO 4338/7, ISA [English];

Telegram to the Office from New York, 8 April 1978, no. 199, “Excerpts from New York Times from today,”

MFA 8325/7 part 2, ISA [Hebrew/English]; Bernard Gwertzman, “U.S. Says Israelis in Lebanon Used Cluster

Bombs, Breaking Pledge,” The New York Times, April 8, 1978. 246 Telegram to U.S. Embassy from Moshe Dayan, 10 April 1978, PMO 4338/7, ISA [English]. 247 Telegram to the Office from Washington, 11/12 April 1978, no. 223, PMO 4338/7, ISA [Hebrew/English]. 248 Telegram to the Office from New York, 8 April 1978, no. 199, MFA 8325/7 part 2, ISA [Hebrew/English]. 249 Telegram to the Office from Washington, 11/12 April 1978, no. 223, PMO 4338/7, ISA [Hebrew/English]. 250 Telegram to U.S. Embassy from Moshe Dayan. 10 April 1978, PMO 4338/7, ISA [English]; Bernard

Gwertzman, “Israelis Renew Pledge to Curb Cluster Bombs,” The New York Times, May 13, 1978.

41

Withdrawal and no weapons

Still stalling the withdrawal, Herzog attempted to legitimize Israel’s continued presence in

Lebanon in the UN. On April 21, he claimed that Israel was assisting the inhabitants in

southern Lebanon to regain control over the area. In fact, the Israelis were providing medical

aid as well as assistance to rebuild houses in Lebanon, he claimed. Herzog said that Lebanon

appreciated Israel’s help.251 At the same time, he once again aired Israel’s concern about the

potential power vacuum in south Lebanon if Israel withdrew before UNIFIL was able to

establish their control over the area. Herzog confirmed that Israel intended to cooperate with

UNIFIL, but the Israelis were worried, nonetheless. However, once again he assured the UN

that Israel did not intend to stay in Lebanon.252 In comparison to Israel, Herzog claimed, the

PLO did not intend to cooperate with UNIFIL. Herzog argued that the PLO would continue

to fight the UNIFIL, just as they had fought the IDF.253

Israeli-American relations continued to cool. Already in March the Israelis had

received word that President Carter planned to change U.S.’ arms export policy in the Middle

East.254 Most likely, American military and economic aid to Israel would be reduced. At the

same time, they excepted economic aid to Egypt to increase.255 The American Jewish

community had attempted to stop the arms deal proposal, warning that a decision to expand

American arms export to include Arab states would severely damage the Israeli-U.S.

relationship, as well as the American Jewish community’s relationship with the current U.S.

administration.256 Despite Israel’s attempts, as well as attempts by the Jewish American

community, to stop this change in the American policy, the Senate voted in favor of Carter’s

arms deal proposal. The Americans had decided to expand their weapon sales to include

Egypt and Saudi Arabia.257

Eventually, the Israelis could no longer stall their withdrawal. On May 22, they

confirmed to the UN that they intended to withdraw their forces by 13 June. The UN

251 Note to the representatives, 15 May 1878, Summary from the UN, April 21 - Herzog’s statement, MFA

8325/7 part 1, ISA [Hebrew/English]. 252 Note to the representatives, 15 May 1878, Summary from the UN, April 21 - Herzog’s statement, MFA

8325/7 part 1, ISA [Hebrew/English]. 253 Note to the representatives, 15 May 1878, Summary from the UN, April 21 - Herzog’s statement, MFA

8325/7 part 1, ISA [Hebrew/English]. 254 Telegram to the Office from Washington, 24 March 1978, no. 479, PMO 4338/5, ISA [Hebrew]. 255 Telegram to the Office from Washington, 24 March 1978, no. 479, PMO 4338/5, ISA [Hebrew]. 256 Telegram to the Office from Washington, 30 March 1978, no. 565, PMO 4173/6, ISA [Hebrew/English]. 257 Telegram to the Office from Washington, 30 March 1978, no. 565, PMO 4173/6, ISA [Hebrew/English];

Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “152 Statement by President Carter on the Senate vote on Middle East arms

sale, 15 May 1978,” accessed 31 October 2018,

http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/MFADocuments/Yearbook3/Pages/152%20Statement%20by%20Presiden

t%20Carter%20on%20the%20Senate%20vo.aspx.

42

Secretary General was pleased to hear this and hoped that the withdrawal would start at the

earliest possible moment.258 Israel completed the withdrawal on 13 June 1978.259

258 Telegram to the Office from New York, 23 May 1978, no. 621, MFA 8325/7 part 1, ISA [Hebrew/English];

William E. Farrell, “Israelis to Leave Lebanon June 13, Cabinet Decides,” The New York Times, May 22, 1978. 259 William E. Farrell, “Israelis Withdraw Last Invasion Units in Southern Lebanon,” The New York Times, June

14, 1978.

43

Chapter 5

Conclusion

Even before the creation of the State of Israel, territorial expansion had been an important

hallmark of the Zionist movement. How much did the territorial aspect affect the decision to

launch Operation Litani? The operation was launched in response to the terrorist attack

performed by PLO guerillas. The Lebanese Civil War had made it possible for the PLO to

use Lebanese territory as a base of their attacks. If an Israeli operation in southern Lebanon

succeeded in destroying PLO terrorist bases, would Israeli security increase? The Zionist

movement had had a relationship with the Maronites in Lebanon for many years. Was the

decision to pursue the invasion a result of a desire to help their friends? And what about the

widespread perception in Israel of the ever-existing threat from Syria: if Syria gained control

over Lebanon, would there was a possibility that the Syrians could use Lebanese territory to

attack Israel? How much did this threat affect Operation Litani?

The territorial aspect

Since Israel’s creation in 1948, Israel has expanded her borders on many occasions, with the

largest expansion taking place during the 1967 War. However, the policy to expand the

“Jewish territory” started long before Israel’s creation, in Mandatory Palestine. Yet, when

Maronite leader Emile Eddé offered the Zionist leaders the area between Israel’s northern

border and the Litani River in southern Lebanon, the Zionists turned the offer down. Prime

Minister Menachem Begin held a strong belief that the State of Israel should encompass the

entire land of Eretz Israel, and he expressed this view numerous times. The idea of territorial

maximalism had constituted an important part of Begin’s world-view ever since his youth

and his involvement with the Zionist movements, and he believed that the Jews had an eternal

right to the land of Israel.

After the IDF crossed Israel’s northern border in 1978, however, the Begin

government was quick to emphasize that the Israelis did not intend to keep any of the

territory in Lebanon, and that they had no intention of incorporating any of this area into

Israel. Even though this area is believed to have been part of the area promised to Jakob’s

sons Asher and Naphtali in the Tanakh, the connection between this area and Biblical Israel

was not mentioned. However, the exact borders of Biblical Israel were not described in detail

in the Tanakh, and it is possible that Begin did not perceive this area as a part of Eretz Israel,

44

just as he did not regard any of the Sinai Peninsula to be an indispensable part of Israel.260

Nevertheless, some of Israel’s detractors accused Israel of using the security argument as an

excuse to reclaim the area between the border and the Litani River as a part of “their biblical

homeland.” Israel continued to deny any such intentions in the UN, to the press and in private

letters to Egyptian representatives, as well as in private meetings with American

representatives.

Begin was an ideologue. He had a strong desire to reclaim the territory of Eretz Israel,

and he expressed this prior to his days in politics, in his time in the opposition in the Knesset,

during his campaign, and after he was elected as prime minister in Israel. While he continued

to maintain his claim over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, he eventually returned the Sinai

Peninsula to Egypt, as a result of the Camp David accords. Moreover, he denied any

aspirations to keep southern Lebanon.

If the Israelis did intend to incorporate the area south of the Litani River into Israel,

this is not present in the state archive documents used in this thesis. It appears as if the

religious claim to Eretz Israel was more important in the rhetoric than it was in actual

political negotiations and military actions. The war between Israel and the PLO was not a

religious dispute, rather it was a war with territorial interests for the sake of control and

security. Therefore, I find it reasonable to assume that the religious aspect was not of

considerable importance, and hence, did not gain heavily on the Israeli government’s decision

to invade Lebanon in 1978.

Security and the PLO

The civil war had made it possible for the PLO to establish their headquarters in southern

Lebanon, and to launch attacks over the border to Israel. Rockets launched from Lebanon

over the northern Israeli border could hit targets far into the country, and Israel’s decision to

invade southern Lebanon can be seen as an attempt to gain “strategic depth” or a buffer zone

in the north. By driving the PLO further north in Lebanon, the Israelis would reduce the areas

vulnerable to PLO attacks. However, the terrorist attack that prompted the invasion was not

launched over the border – the terrorists had set off from Lebanon in boats. One can question

whether the Israeli invasion in southern Lebanon would be able to prevent similar attacks in

the future. This issue was also raised by President Carter.

260 Begin’s argument that Sinai was not part of Biblical Israel is rendered in Avi Shilon, Menachem Begin – A

life (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2012), 293.

45

The terrorist attack in March presented the Israelis with an opportunity to invade

southern Lebanon. In Begin’s announcement of the invasion, the PLO was explicitly made

the main target. Begin insisted that Operation Litani was not a retaliatory raid, but he also

promised that the terrorists would be punished. No doubt, PLO activities were of a great

concern for the Israelis. Especially when it came to the question of whether or not to

withdraw the Israeli forces, the Israelis expressed concern about PLO’s potential return to the

area. They used this argument to justify their delay. However, the Israelis also used the

terrorist attack on the Haifa-Tel Aviv road as an excuse to question PLO’s observer status in

the UN, and the Israelis asked the U.S. to propose the removal their status. Begin also used

the occasion to criticize the UN’s lack of judgment when the majority of the UN member

states had accepted PLO as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.

In the documents used in this thesis, concerns about the PLO are mostly present in

discussions about withdrawal from the area south of the Litani River. Israel’s right to defend

herself was used as justification in letters and meeting with American representatives, but the

PLO was hardly explicitly mentioned. In contrast, the PLO was openly made target and used

as an excuse in the public. I find it reasonable to assume that the threat from the PLO was an

important factor in the decision to invade Lebanon, as well as their decision to stall the

withdrawal.

Humanitarian reasons

Israel had been involved with the Maronites long before the civil war broke out, and when

violence escalated, the Maronites asked the Israelis for help. Initially, the Israelis provided

the Maronites with weapons and training facilities in secret, but eventually Begin revealed

that Israel was indeed sending the Maronites weapons. Begin compared the Christian

Maronites’ situation in Lebanon with the Jews’ situation in Europe in the early twentieth

century and emphasized that he believed it was Israel’s duty to help an equally oppressed

people.

In the Israel State Archive, it has been difficult to find such commitment to the

Christians. In the UN meetings, the Israelis attempted to justify their presence in Lebanon by

arguing that the IDF helped the inhabitants of southern Lebanon by providing food and

medical supplies, as well as helping them rebuild their houses. However, in the documents

analyzed for this thesis, it appears as if the support for the Maronites came second in line for

the Israelis. That does not imply that there was no compassion for the Maronites’ cause in

Lebanon. However, in these documents, I have not found anything that can support the

46

hypothesis that the sympathies for the Maronites encouraged the Israeli intervention in

southern Lebanon. Israel’s support for the Christians also put an extra strain on the Israel-

U.S. relations as the Americans learned that Israel had been sending American-produced

weapons to Lebanon, which may have made it more difficult for the Israelis to withstand

pressure for withdrawal.

The threat from Syria

Israel had tacitly agreed to let Syria intervene in Lebanon in 1976. At that time, Israel and

Syria had both supported the incumbent Lebanese government. Since then, however, the

situation had changed. The Israelis were increasingly concerned about Syria’s involvement in

Lebanon, and they were ready to act if Syria made any moves towards the so-called red lines.

Prior to the invasion in 1978, the Israelis collected hundreds of pages of interviews made by

Syrian President Assad.261 Although it is not possible for me to know how much importance

these documents were given at the time, I find it reasonable to believe that these pages were

collected in order for the Israelis to get a sense of Assad’s intentions and plans for Lebanon.

After the invasion, the Israelis used the opportunity to use their air force to observe Syrian

activity north of the lines.

Israel’s apprehensions about Syria were mentioned in private meetings and in

telegrams to American representatives. However, they were not mentioned in public

statements or in the discussions in the UN. The area between the Israeli-Lebanese border and

the Litani River could serve as a buffer zone between the Israelis and the Syrians just as

much as it could serve as a buffer zone between the Israelis and the PLO. I believe that the

threat from Syria was a significant concern for the Israelis and was an important factor in the

Israelis’ decision to invade Lebanon in 1978.

Further discussions

It is difficult for me to determine precisely how much importance any of these documents had

at the time. Nor do I know how many documents I have not been given access to. However, I

believe that the documents I have accessed, and translated, have provided reasonable results.

Based on these documents, I deduce that the security aspect was of greatest importance to the

Israeli government when they decided to invade Lebanon in 1978. I find that this largely

261 PMO 375/4, ISA contains a large collection of interviews and statements made by Assad in 1976-1977.

47

correspond to how the event has been interpreted in other researchers’ works.262 Similarly,

the religious factor has often been considered of minor importance, which corresponds with

the findings in this thesis. Consequently, I believe that the contents in the documents used in

this thesis can give a reasonable representation of Israel’s main concerns before and after the

1978 invasion.

In many of the documents examined for this thesis, much attention was given to the

peace negotiations between Israel and Egypt. The prospects of achieving peace in the Middle

East was one of the main concerns after the invasion in 1978, especially in the U.S. In many

documents, Operation Litani can seem to have fallen in the shadows of the “real issue” –

namely the peace negotiations. As alluded to in this thesis’ introduction, the same tendency

can be observed in scholarly literature. The importance of the Litani operation has in no way

prompted a strong scholarly interest on understanding Israeli decision-making prior to and

during the invasion. In this thesis, I have focused on Israel’s motives. However, further

research is needed to understand the decision-making process within the Israeli government

in more detail.

262 E.g. Anziska, Preventing Palestine, 117-118; Morris, Righteous Victims, 501-502; Peleg, Begin’s Foreign

Policy, 151. All three points to destruction of PLO bases and the establishment of security zone as the most

important (or only) goal.

48

Appendix A: Map of southern Lebanon

Source: https://mfa.gov.il/MFA/AboutIsrael/Maps/Maps/Withdrawal-Southern-Lebanon.jpg

(downloaded 16 November 2019)

49

Appendix B: UN Resolutions 425 and 426

Source: https://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/RES/425%281978%29

(downloaded 18 November 2019)

50

Primary Sources

From the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA):

MFA 8325/7 חצ part 1

15.03.78 - 14.06.78

Contains, among other topics:

Collection of response from Arab states, discussions about UNIFIL and withdrawal.

MFA 8325/7 חצ part 2

15.03.78 - 14.06.78

Contains, among other topics:

Abstracts from meetings in the UN, new paper articles.

From the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO)

PMO 375/4 א [A]

02.03.1976 - 08.05.1978

Contains, among other topics:

Collection of interviews given by Assad, mostly from 1976.

PMO 4321/2 א

04.01.1978 – 20.12.1978

Contains, among other topics:

Reports about UNTSO, the violent situation in Lebanon, and American weapons in Lebanon.

PMO 4337/1 א part 1

Contains, among other topics:

Reports of Carter’s response to change of leadership in Israel.

PMO 4338/5 א

14.03.1978 – 25.03.1978

Contains, among other topics:

Reports of deteriorating relationship between Israel and the United States, decreasing military

support to Israel. Begin’s announcement of invasion to Carter.

PMO 4338/6 א

27.03.1978 - 10.04.1978

Contains, among other topics:

Discussions about peace negotiations between Israel and Egypt, and withdrawal.

PMO 4338/7 א

11.04.1978 - 22.11.1978

Contains, among other topics:

51

Discussions about usage of Cluster Bombs and other weapons produced in the United States.

PMO 4173/6 א

14.03.1978 - 07.04.1978

Contains, among other topics:

Discussions about Israeli use of American weapons, correspondence between Israel and

Egypt, discussions of withdrawal.

52

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