Two Histories

Here I compare two histories of events in 1982, surrounding Israel’s attack on PLO sites in Lebanon, called the Lebanon War.

First from If Americans Knew:

“[In the early 1950s] Arab states regularly complained of the reprisals to the UN Security Council, which routinely rejected Israel’s claims of self-defense...

“In June 1982 Israel again invaded Lebanon, and it used aerial bombardment to destroy entire camps of Palestinian Arab refugees, By these means Israel killed 20,000 persons, mostly civilians...Israel claimed self-defense for its invasion, but the lack of PLO attacks into Israel during the previous year made that claim dubious...The [UN] Security Council demanded ‘that Israel withdraw all its military forces forthwith and unconditionally to the internationally recognized boundaries of Lebanon’...

“The UN Human Rights Commission, using the Geneva Convention’s provision that certain violations of humanitarian law are ‘grave breaches’ meriting criminal punishment for perpetrators, found a number of Israel’s practices during the uprising [the intifada] to constitute ‘war crimes.’ It included physical and psychological torture of Palestinian detainees and their subjection to improper and inhuman treatment; the imposition of collective punishment on towns, villages and camps; the administrative detention of thousands of Palestinians; the expulsion of Palestinian citizens; the confiscation of Palestinian property; and the raiding and demolition of Palestinian houses.” John Quigley, “Palestine and Israel: A Challenge to Justice.”

Second from Myths and Facts, Jewish Virtual Library:

"By June 1982, when the IDF went into Lebanon, the PLO had made life in northern Israel intolerable, by its repeated shelling of Israeli towns.

A force of some 15-18,000 PLO members was encamped in scores of locations in Lebanon. About 5,000-6,000 were foreign mercenaries, coming from such countries as Libya, Iraq, India, Sri Lanka, Chad and Mozambique.1 Israel discovered enough light arms and other weapons in Lebanon to equip five brigades.2

The PLO had an arsenal that included mortars, Katyusha rockets, and an extensive anti-aircraft network. The PLO also brought hundreds of T-34 tanks into the area.3

Syria, which permitted Lebanon to become a haven for the PLO and other terrorist groups, brought surface-to-air missiles into that country, creating yet another danger for Israel.

Israeli strikes and commando raids had been unable to stem the growth of this PLO army. Israel was not prepared to wait for more deadly attacks to be launched against its civilian population before acting against the terrorists.

The PLO had repeatedly violated the July 1981 cease-fire agreement. In the ensuing 11 months, the PLO staged 270 terrorist actions in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, and along the Lebanese and Jordanian borders. Twenty-nine Israelis died, and more than 300 were injured in the attacks.4 The situation in the Galilee became intolerable as the frequency of attacks forced thousands of residents to flee their homes or to spend large amounts of time in bomb shelters. During this period, Israel launched retaliatory raids against PLO bases in Lebanon.

After Israel launched one such assault on June 4-5, 1982, the PLO responded with a massive artillery and mortar attack on the Israeli population of the Galilee. On June 6, the IDF moved into Lebanon to drive out the terrorists.
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger defended the Israeli operation: "No sovereign state can tolerate indefinitely the buildup along its borders of a military force dedicated to its destruction and implementing its objectives by periodic shellings and raids."5

"On Lebanon, it is clear that we and Israel both seek an end to the violence there, and a sovereign, independent Lebanon," President Reagan said June 21, 1982. "We agree that Israel must not be subjected to violence from the north."

Documents found by the IDF in Lebanon during the operation showed that terrorist groups had made detailed plans for shelling towns in northern Israel. The following are translations of two documents found at PLO headquarters in Sidon. Both were dated July 1981:

Name of Shelled Target: Kiryat Shemona
Number of Salvos: 17 shells in 2 portions, each portion 120mm
Unit in Charge: Artillery of the Joint Forces of the South.

To: El-Haj Ismail
Greetings for the Revolution!
The Supreme Military Council has decided to concentrate on the destruction of Kiryat Shemona, Metullah, Dan, Shear Yashuv and Nahariya and its vicinity.

Kiryat Shemona: will be distributed among all the platoons and will be shelled with improved "Grad" shells.

Metullah: will be shelled with 160mm mortars (Palestine Liberation Front-As-Saiqa).

Nahariya and its vicinity will be shelled with 130mm guns-Artillery Battalion 1

Dan and Shear Yashuv: will be the responsibility of the eastern sector.

Revolution until victory!6

For more than a month, the PLO proved itself intransigent, trying to extract a political victory from its military defeat. Arafat declared his willingness "in principle" to leave Beirut, then refused to go to any other country.

Throughout the siege, the PLO hid behind innocent civilians, calculating that if Israel were to attack, it would be internationally condemned. That is precisely what happened.

By mid-June, Israeli troops had surrounded 6,000-9,000 terrorists who had taken up positions amid the civilian population of West Beirut.

To prevent civilian casualties, Israel agreed to a ceasefire to enable an American diplomat, Ambassador Philip Habib, to mediate a peaceful PLO withdrawal from Lebanon. As a gesture of flexibility, Israel agreed to permit PLO forces to leave Beirut with their personal weapons.12 But the PLO continued to make new demands.

For weeks, the PLO talked about withdrawal, while attaching conditions that made it impossible. The PLO adopted a strategy of controlled violations of the cease-fire, with the purpose of inflicting casualties on Israel and provoking Israeli retaliation sufficient to get the IDF blamed for disrupting the negotiations and harming civilians.

"The Israelis bombed buildings, innocent looking on the outside, where their intelligence told them that PLO offices were hidden," wrote Middle East analyst Joshua Muravchik. "Their intelligence also told them of the huge network of underground PLO storage facilities for arms and munitions that was later uncovered by the Lebanese Army. No doubt the Israelis dropped some bombs hoping to penetrate those facilities and detonate the dumps. The PLO had both artillery and anti-aircraft [equipment] truck mounted. These would fire at the Israelis and then move."13 The Israelis would fire back and sometimes miss, inadvertently hitting civilian targets.

In numerous instances, the media mistakenly reported that Israel was hitting civilian targets in areas where no military ones were nearby. On one night in July, Israeli shells hit seven embassies in Beirut. NBC aired a report that appeared to lend credence to PLO claims it had no military positions in the area. Israel, Muravchik noted, "soon released reconnaissance photos showing the embassy area honeycombed with tanks, mortars, heavy machine guns and anti-aircraft positions."14[see notes at the website source]

And this from Palestine Facts:

The final provocation occurred in June 3, 1982 when a Palestinian terrorist group led by Abu Nidal attempted to assassinate Israel's Ambassador to Great Britain, Shlomo Argov. The IDF subsequently bombed PLO bases and ammunition dumps in Beirut and attacked other targets in Lebanon on June 4-5, 1982. The PLO responded with a massive artillery and mortar attack on the Israeli population of the Galilee. It was the PLO shelling, and not directly the Argov shooting as is sometimes assumed, that triggered the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

The histories of the two sides only loosely map one to the other. I am suspicious of the claims of Israeli atrocities for several reasons.

First, the Palestinians have always hid behind their own populations so that civilian casualties are guaranteed.

Second, the one real atrocity, committed by the Lebanese Christian Phalange in retribution for PLO assassinations in Lebanon, was inadvertantly permitted and abetted by Israeli troops; Israelis - yes Israelis - protested this and high ranking Israeli officers were punished, despite not knowing in advance of the atrocity plans of the LCP. This speaks of an Israeli intolerance for atrocities, not the appetite of which they are accused.

Third, the supposed atrocities are generally accompanied by no objective accounts, they are accusations without support. The Israeli accounts are accompanied by newspaper accounts to which they refer in the notes.

It is possible that we westerners are, in fact, duped by the press accounts of Palestinian atrocities, and a lack of reporting on Israeli atrocities. I have come to doubt that. I admit to being prejudiced by the video of wailing Palestinians carrying a dead "victim" above their heads, when the victim sat up and looked around; the mourners quickly pushed him back down into the death position and continued wailing mightily.

I am old enough to remember the constant suicide bombing of Israeli markets by Palestinian martyrs; I remember the shelling into Israel from Golan Heights; I remember the "hudnas" such as the Lebanon truce which was really a re-arming lull in the intifada, which continued as the Palestinians were readied.

Are the Palestinians justified? They will never be convinced otherwise, and that is the reality.