Israel at War: 1982 | 5 Minute Videos
After years of relentless terrorist attacks from its northern neighbor, Israel decided to act. An old adage holds that everyone knows how wars begin but nobody knows how they end. That was certainly true in Lebanon. Renowned historian Michael Oren explains.
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Script:
At dawn, on June 6, 1982, 60,000 Israeli troops, accompanied by 800 tanks, stormed across Israel’s northern border into Lebanon.
So began the fourth Arab-Israeli war—a war that the Israeli government officially dubbed Operation Peace for Galilee but the rest of the world called the Lebanon War.
An old adage holds that everyone knows how wars begin but nobody knows how they end.
That was certainly true in Lebanon.
The war’s roots could be traced back to Israel’s struggle for independence in 1948, when more than 100,000 Palestinians fled to Lebanon.
They were kept in refugee camps, which became hotbeds of radicalism.
Then, with the Palestinians’ defeat in the Jordanian Civil War of 1970, another 200,000 Palestinians fled to Lebanon along with numerous terrorist groups.
Chief among these was the Palestine Liberation Organization, the PLO, under Yasser Arafat.
The massive influx of armed Palestinians tipped Lebanon’s delicate balance between Christians, Druze, and Muslims.
It lead, five years later, to the outbreak of civil war in Lebanon, and hundreds of thousands of casualties. Syria exploited the conflict to occupy large parts of the country.
The terrorists, meanwhile, turned their sights on Israel—firing rockets into the Galilee and attacking northern border communities.
In March 1978, terrorists landed on a beach between Tel Aviv and Haifa and attacked the nearby highway, killing 38 civilians, many of them children.
Israel responded by invading southern Lebanon—the Litani Operation—which succeeded in pushing the terrorists back from the border, but only temporarily.
The PLO attacks continued, not only from Lebanon, the West Bank, and Gaza, but also against Jews and Israelis abroad.
Israel struck back, hitting PLO bases. In addition, it formed an alliance with Bashir Gemayel, the leader of the Lebanese Chistian militia.
Israeli Defence Minister Ariel Sharon believed that, together with the Christians, Israel could drive the PLO and the Syrians out of Lebanon and replace them with a pro-Western government that would make peace with Israel.
The entire Middle East would be altered, Sharon asserted, and convinced Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin of the plan.
Israeli forces were ready to strike.
On June 3, 1982, Shlomo Argov, Israel’s ambassador to Great Britain was shot in the head by a Palestinian terrorist and left permanently disabled.
The next day, the Israeli government approved Operation Big Pines, designed to push the PLO 25 miles away from the border.
But a secret part of the plan also provided for the possibility that the IDF would push further north to drive Syrian forces out of Lebanon.
Two Israeli divisions crossed the border, one heading north along the coastal road and the other heading east to outflank the Syrians.
Between the two columns towered Beaufort Castle, a medieval stronghold that served as the PLO’s fort. It was taken after a bloody battle by Golani Brigade commandos.
On both fronts, the fighting proved fierce.
Yet everywhere Israeli arms prevailed—the air force shot down 100 Syrian jets and helicopters without suffering a single loss.
Bashir Gemayel signed an historic peace agreement with Israel.
By the end of June, Israel was besieging Beirut.
Through American mediation, Syrian troops evacuated the area and some 6,500 PLO terrorists — most notably among them Yasser Arafat — boarded boats for Tunisia.
Operation Big Pines appeared to be on the verge of an historic success.
But it was not to be.
