The Invasion Legacy

It is now the second anniversary of the invasion of Lebanon—an act by Israel which began in infamy and ended in disaster.

Even Israel's leaders concede today that the announced reason for the invasion—the attempted assassination of the Israeli ambassador in London by "PLO gunmen" (who later turned out to be anti-PLO gunmen)—was no more than a pretext for carrying out a plan to destroy the PLO and put into power a new Lebanese regime that would be friendly to Israel.

From the beginning, the U.S. Administration shared in the infamy. It failed to make any attempt to forestall Israel from invading, even though it knew in advance that it would. It then stood by, making barely audible clucking noises, while the Israelis launched a massive attack in violation of a U.S.-mediated ceasefire that the PLO had adhered to strictly for 11 consecutive months. Two days later, it vetoed a U. N. Security Council Resolution that would have levied sanctions against Israel if it did not call off its attack. And within another week, U.S. officials were joining Israeli officials in proclaiming that the invasion presented "opportunities" for ushering in a "new era" of stability in Lebanon and peace in the Middle East.

Disaster at Best

To call the outcome a disaster is, perhaps, using understatement. The outcome was the most tragic, of course, for the Palestinians and Lebanese, who died in the thousands. The vast majority of those who died were not fighters but civilians—men, women and children who often died painfully and slowly from phosphorous—and cluster-bomb wounds or while buried under rubble. Thousands more who are still alive today remain injured, homeless or both. Palestinian civilians on the West Bank also became victims, as Israel took advantage of the world's preoccupation with the Lebanon war to step up its campaign to establish Jewish settlers there, and the settlers themselves became more militant against the Palestinians.

The disastrous results of the invasion for the Israelis is also clearly evident. More than 600 of their soldiers have died, and more are dying every day at the hands of a new set of enemies whom the Israelis have created through their current occupation of South Lebanon: the Lebanese Shiite Muslims, the largest religious group in the country. The PLO is gone from Lebanon but not destroyed, and some Palestinian guerrillas continue to operate: helping keep Israel's northern border insecure. In Beirut, the present Lebanese government, shaky at best, is not the pro-Israeli institution which the Israelis had hoped to install, but one which listens to Syria rather than to Israel. At home, Israel's economy has been disrupted by the enormous expense of the past two years in Lebanon, and the issue of its invasion has become the most divisive in Israel's history.

And what about the United States? We don't have space for a full listing of those events which add up to a disastrous experience for this country. First on the list, of course, would have to be the massacre of 241 U.S. servicemen, which would not have taken place if there had been no Israeli invasion. To this could be added the burden of guilt which the U. S. will forever have to carry for having broken its commitment to protect Palestinian civilians in Beirut, by withdrawing the marines only a few days before the massacre of hundreds of Palestinians at Sabra and Shatila. And what of the U. S. goals, shared with Israel during the early balmy days of the invasion, about a "new era" of unity and stability for Lebanon? Lebanon today is more fractured than ever, now that Israel occupies a big chunk of it. Its religious sects are more divided than before the Israeli invasion, with the return of the "Green Line" dividing Christians and Muslims in Beirut, and the collective memory of a brutal war between Christians and Druze in the Shuf mountains—an area that had been quiet throughout the factional fighting that preceded the arrival of the Israelis.

Furthermore, the fact that the Administration first made it clear that it was keeping its marines in Lebanon, however unwisely, to prop up a pro-Phalangist regime, and then withdrew the marines as soon as the regime began to come under severe pressure, was a sharp setback to U.S. credibility throughout the area. Some of the fallout from this loss of confidence in the U.S. is being felt during the current crisis in the Gulf.

And what is the moral of all this for Israel and the U.S.? For Israel, the lesson should be that its favorite policy of "might makes right" ought to be abandoned as unworkable. As far as the U.S. is concerned, it should have learned by now that a blind devotion to the idea that "smart little Israel" has all the answers is not the best way to arrive at a policy that is in the U. S. interest.