The 1982 war in Lebanon was yet another humiliation for the Arabs and victory for the US/Israel coalition that had dominated the area since Israel’s founding in 1948. This book, written by a former American army Colonel, is a history of that war and its aftermath, bringing the reader up to the mid 1980s. The book is both a summary of the war itself, as well as the basic political and historical background leading to the war. Col.
Dupuy makes quite a fuss about Israel’s position in the late 1970s, where the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was left in its positions within Lebanese territory as the Israeli’s withdrew. Israel had occupied southern Lebanon as a means of controlling Arab militancy in the areas. This withdraw left room for a UN delegation to take over the area (the UNIFIL Mission), a delegation not trusted by the bulk of Israeli’s, and certainly not to the rightist Likud party, who saw Lebanon as a staging area for Arab militants and also for the Syrian government, at the time financed and armed by the USSR.
The point of the UN mission was to oversee the Israeli withdrawal from the south of the country, something else that allow it to be mistrusted by both Israeli’s and Lebanese Christians, the latter more commonly allied with Israeli interests. The former Colonel is clearly in sympathy with Israel and its American patron, as might be expected from his military background. He neglects to inform us the extent to which Israel was continually negotiating from a position of strength, having by far the strongest army and airforce in the region, as well as having a substantial number of nuclear warheads.
The Essay on Arab-Israeli War of 1973
The Arab-Israeli War was an armed conflict initiated by the Arab nations of Egypt and Syria against Israel on October 6, 1973 in an effort to reclaim territories that Israel had controlled since the Six Day War of 1967. The date holds special significance to the Jewish calendar, being Yom Kippur, hence this war is also known as the Yom Kippur War. Though Israel was caught by surprise and ...
A major problem with the work as a whole is that the author treats Israel and the PLO as equals, where in point of fact, the Palestinians were radically inferior to the Israeli’s in terms of weaponry, tactics and cash. The PLO continued to organize in Lebanon, and, despite a long occupation, Israel was unable to eject them. In the very early 1980s, the PLO continued to import weapons from Libya and, to a lesser extent, the USSR via Syria.
It also remains the case that the Syrian government had its own issues with the PLO and their ultimate political loyalties. (Dupuy,12) However, on June 3, 1982, a socialist terror group named for its leader Abu Nidal, to a great extent unpopular among Palestinians (though out author does not mention this) attempted to assassinate the Israeli ambassador to Great Britain Shlomo Argov. Today, it is well known that the Abu Nidal organization was a plant of both British and Israeli intelligence.
Patrick Seale, author of Abu Nidal: A Gun for Hire (Random House, 1993), makes the rather well-substantiated claim that the Nidal organization has been left in tact for the sole purpose of continuing to garner support for the Israeli cause. They are powerful enough to make a mess, but weak enough to pose no real threat. Nevertheless, this was the spark that ignited Israel’s desire to invade Lebanon and end the PLO’s recruitment in the region once and for all.
Nevertheless, according to UN reports of the era, Israel violated Lebanon’s airspace over 2000 times between 1979 and 1981, all with the purpose of destroying Arafat’s PLO. The author does not mention this. The author also refuses to deal with the long standing policy of the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) for its own regular military forays into south Lebanon. Instead, the author concentrates his attention on the PLO and its attacks on non-compliant Arabs in the country. Dupuy does do very well in developing the scenario for the final assault on Lebanon.
Both the PLO’s attacks on Israeli settlements in Galilee as well as the assassination attempt dovetail to provide cover for Israel’s drive to destroy any anti-Zionist movements from developing in Lebanon. The Colonel is also accurate to describe the Christian Lebanese as being generally pro-Zionist, being as fearful of “Islamic militancy” as the Israelis themselves. It is also the case that the Israeli’s made skillful use of the now disbanded South Lebanon Army, the Christian militia allied to Israel. The PLO was outgunned at every level. The Syrians lost almost 90 of their older model Soviet MiGs and helicopters.
The Term Paper on Is Peace Possible Between Israel And Palestine
The Arab world is not in a compromising mood Nations never concede; they fight. You wont get anything by peaceful means or compromise. You can, perhaps get something, but only by the force of your armsBut its too late to talk of peaceful solutions (Bard 1). The Arab League Secretary Azzam Pasha said this statement on September 16, 1947, eight months before the state of Israel was established. The ...
Thanks to top of the line American equipment, the Israeli’s suffered no air damage whatsoever. Though capable of marshaling substantial resistence, including defeating the Israeli landing at Zahrani, they were reduced to using about 100 ancient tanks, most of which were not functional by the time of the invasion, and older model Soviet rifles and mortars that were as much a hindrance as a help. The Syrians were able to contribute only the early 70s model T-72 Soviet tank, which, even in its prime, was a very difficult vehicle to maneuver.
The authors even hint that the Soviets were deliberately giving their Syrian patron the assembly line rejects of an already controversial military vehicle. Dupuy’s special pleading throughout the work becomes very quickly bothersome. His long and drawn out description of the well-known events of the Nazi Holocaust (Dupuy, 22-25) exist solely to build sympathy for the Israelis, while completely ignoring the fact that the PLO, at the time, was recruiting most successfully from the slum population of the long standing refugee camps.
These camps were breeding grounds for disease, and because of their squalid state, were excellent grounds for recruiting by the PLO and far more radical Arab organizations. A particularly powerful description is based on the now infamous massacres in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila during the invasion (Dupuy, 190-192).
Though the massacre was carried out “indirectly,” as the authors state, it was carried out by Israel’s allies, the Christian South Lebanon Army, and with the knowledge of Ariel Sharon, who was defense minister at the time, later to become Prime Minister.
Of course, the reality is that IDF responsibility is not indirect, but direct, since the IDF had the camps completely surrounded and controlled all access to these squalid places. The IDF knew the Christian Flange would perpetrate outrages upon a group they clearly loathed (Dupuy, 192).
The Essay on The Invasion Of Panama
The Invasion of Panama In order to carry out his invasion of Panama in 1989, as Jonathan Alter states in the article For Bush, the Best of a bad bargain?, President Bush had two alternatives to choose: either to tolerate Manuel Noriega (Newsweek: January 1, 1990, p.23) and in this way to make a tacit confession of importance (Newsweek: January 1, 1990), or to follow a more drastic path: to start a ...
The IDF made sure none of the camp inmates would escape. Dupuy provides the reader with a biased, yet well written, narrative of the often confusing and complex events leading up to the invasion of Lebanon in 1982.
While the author is clearly on the side of the Israelis, he does not try and escape the Israeli complicity in the camp massacres, likely the most memorable element of the invasion itself. The writer does very well in developing the historical context of war, and following the complex politics of its aftermath. But alas, the complexity of Arab politics, not to mention the nature of Arab complaint, is often lost on the author, yet, the book provides an interesting introduction of the war from a very American point of view.
