1. Likud strategy
2. Lebanon War
3. Intifada
I. The Likud Strategy
The 1980's saw Israel in its best strategic position since the founding of the state in 1948. The US-Israeli relationship had developed into a strategic alliance in everything but name, with strong US political, military and financial support of the Israeli government. No one questioned the fact that Israel had the strongest and most sophisticated military in the region. The Reagan Administration was openly pro-Israeli in its public statements and in most of its policies (squaring off on arms sales to the Saudis at times, and some tensions over peace process issues). Camp David had removed Egypt from the list of Arab states at war with Israel, and international guarantees helped to solidify that peace. Iraq, another militarily strong Arab state, was absorbed in its war with Iran. In order to gain support in that conflict from the US and the West in general, it even made some conciliatory noises about ending the Arab-Israeli conflict. Jordan had a de facto peace arrangement with Israel that kept Israel's longest border with an Arab state quiet. There were still troubling issues at the beginning of the 1980's, including the loss of Iran as a regional partner and the development of a PLO "state-within-a-state" in an increasingly chaotic Lebanon, but all in all Israel's security picture was quite positive.
It was in this favorable strategic atmosphere that the Likud party took power after the Israeli elections of 1981. In those elections Likud was able to dispense with the support of a centrist bloc that had emerged in the 1977 elections, and was able to form a government consisting of itself, parties to its right, and religious parties. In essence, Likud now had a free hand domestically, to go along with the favorable strategic situation, to consolidate Israel's control over the territories taken in the 1967 War, particularly the West Bank. Key to the that goal, from the point of view of major Likud leaders, was the destruction of PLO military and political power in the territories, and the development of some alternative Palestinian leadership with which to negotiate a limited version of autonomy within the frameworks set out in the Camp David accords. To that end the Likud governments of the 1980's attempted to do two things -- destroy the power of the PLO state-within-a-state in Lebanon, and develop an alternative Palestinian West Bank leadership. They succeeded in the first goal, but not in restructuring Lebanese politics. They failed in the second, with the Palestinian uprsising (intifada) as the final nail in the coffin of an alternative leadership.
We
should be clear that Likud was not an entirely free agent during this period.
From 1984 to 1990 it was forced to share power with Labor in uneasy coalition
governments, greatly restricting its ability to deal with the Palestinian issue
as it saw fit. We should also recognize that there were divisions within Likud
about how to deal with these issues tactically, though always within the
strategic goal of maintenance of Israeli sovereignty over the occupied
territories. But in the end, despite a favorable regional and even global
strategic situation (particularly by the end of the 1980's), the Likud
leadership's ability to remake Lebanese and Palestinian politics ran afoul of
domestic politics -- in Lebanon, in the Palestinian community, and in Israel
itself.
II. Lebanon
The War in Lebanon was the first, and most ambitious, effort by the Likud government in Israel, to take advantage of its good strategic position to achieve its ultimate goals regarding the occupied territories. The Lebanon War was very much the brainchild of Likud defense minister Ariel Sharon. There had been other Israeli military ventures into Lebanon, most seriously in 1978, against PLO military assets there. What set the 1982 venture apart was its geographical extent -- going all the way up to Beirut; and its political ambition -- to rid Lebanon of the PLO, to install a Lebanese government friendly to Israel, and to make Lebanon the second Arab state to sign a peace treaty with Israel.
Background on Lebanese civil war:
1) demographic shifts from the National Pact of 1943; confessional basis of politics encouraging splits along religious lines –
(According to a "Al-Nahar" Lebanese newspaper article published on 02/10/2005 and based on the lists of Lebanese registered voters for the upcoming elections, the voters in Lebanon are 3,029,138, 59% of whom are Muslims and 40.08 Christians (with 0.2 Jewish). As to the distribution among the various Christian denominations, the Maronites represent 22.1%, the Orthodox 7.8%, the Catholics 5.2%, the Armenian Orthodox 3%, the Armenian Catholics 0.7%, the Protestants 0.6%, Syriac Orthodox 0.5%, Syriac Catholics 0.4%, Roman Catholics (AKA Latin) 0.4%, Chaldeans 0.1%, and Assyrians 0.1%. Since there have been no recent censuses, I believe the electoral lists are the closest way to measure the population.)
2) Palestinian demographic and political factor since the early 1970's, including the PLO state within a state in the south and in refugee camps around Beirut.
3) beginning of fighting in 1975; Syrian intervention on the side of the Christians in 1976 – prevent complete Muslim-Left-Palestinian victory that could draw Syria into a war with Israel.
4) From 1978 -- Syrian-Christian tie frays as Israel builds its ties with Lebanese Forces leaders. 1980 Zahle incident (caused by Lebanese Forces) to draw US and Israel in, leads to US mediation and eventual July 1981 "unofficial PLO-Israel ceasefire".
Clearly Sharon's strategy in Lebanon was built upon the profound divisions within Lebanese society, and the desire of powerful elements in the Maronite community in particular for a strong Israeli alliance to end the civil war, the Syrian presence and Palestinian political power in the country. It was this element of Lebanese divisions that Sharon built upon, but it was this same element of domestic divisions in Lebanon that foiled his plan.
Debate about how much the rest of the Israeli cabinet knew about the extent of Sharon's plans when the war was launched in June 1982. Clear cabinet consensus on limited campaign against the PLO, which is how the war was sold (Operation Peace for Galilee). However, most of the Israeli sources indicate that, except for Begin, the rest of the cabinet was kept in the dark about the larger plan. It was executed so skillfully and quickly that the momentum of the campaign had carried Israeli forces to the outskirts of Beirut before any substantial opposition to Sharon could develop in the cabinet. PLO forces retreated into the city. Sharon consciously sought out a confrontation with Syrian forces around Beirut, driving them into the northern part of the Biqa' valley, and dealing the Syrian airforce a tremendous defeat (knocking out anti-aircraft missiles, downing 65 Syrian aircraft to 1 Israeli aircraft lost). The Israeli army then laid seige to Beirut for 10 weeks, until the United States negotiated the withdrawal of the PLO from Beirut.
It was here, at the height of military victory, that the plans to remake Lebanese politics came acropper. Bashir Gemayel, who was elected president of Lebanon at a meeting of the Lebanese parliament organized by the Israeli forces, was assassinated in September 1982. The subsequent massacre of Palestinian civilians in Beirut by partisans of Gemayel led to an outcry internationally and in Israeli itself about the failure of the IDF to restrain its allies. Sharon was subsequently forced to resign as Defense Minister. Lebanese domestic opposition to Amin Gemayel, who succeeded his assassinated brother, grew, aided by Syria and by a new player in Lebanese politics, revolutionary Iran. US diplomacy did finally lead, in May 1983, to an agreement between Lebanon and Israel that was short of a full peace treaty but something very close to it. However, the Gemayel government was so weak that, with the withdrawal of US and Israeli forces, it was forced to abrogate the agreement.
The guerrilla war waged by opponents of the new regime drove the US marines out of the country in February 1984, after Oct. 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks. Israeli forces had begun their withdrawal from around Beirut in Sept. 1983, with the forces of the Lebanese Army incapable of holding the territory the Israelis turned over. By June 1985 Israeli troops had withdrawn from all parts of Lebanon except the "security zone" in the south. There they set up a client militia -- the South Lebanese Army, with mostly Christian officers and mostly Shi'a men -- to patrol the area. The Israeli army maintained an important supporting presence in the area.
The big winners from this episode, in the end, were Syria, which re-established its role as the central arbiter of Lebanese politics, and Shici groups, particularly those associated with Iran, whose influence in southern Lebanon grew with the departure of the PLO. Hizballah particularly grew in strength, winning seats in the Lebanese parliament and taking the lead role in combatting the pro-Israeli forces in the South.
The remainder of the 1980's saw a stalemate in Lebanese politics. Amin Gemayel remained president, but nobody paid much attention to him. The Syrians held the upper hand, but were either unwilling or unable to consolidate their control over the whole country. Maronite political forces continued to believe that they could resist Syrian control. By the end of the 1980's they tended to consolidate around Gen. Michel Awn, the commander of the Lebanese Army. When Gemayel's term ended in 1988, with no successor elected by the Lebanese parliament, Awn claimed (under dubious constitutional authority) the presidency and tried to resist Syrian control (supported by Iraq, of all people -- rivalry with Syria).
Meanwhile, under Syrian and general Arab auspices, a large number of Lebanese
politicians, Muslims and Christians, met at the Saudi city of Ta'if to try to
piece together a new political system in the wake of the civil war. They came
up with an agreement in 1989, the Ta'if Agreement, that somewhat changed the
political balance in Lebanon -- equal representation of Christians and Muslims
in the parliament, more power for the PM and less for the President -- but did
not fundamentally change the sectarian nature of the system. The Syrians were
able to get rid of Awn during the Gulf War and consolidate their control in
Lebanon. [For events since that time, look to the chronology at the end of
these lecture notes.]
III. Palestinians
While the realities of Lebanese domestic politics foiled Sharon's "big plan" for constituting a Christian-dominated Lebanon as an ally of Israel, and the realities of Israeli politics forced his humiliating resignation from the Defense Ministry, the Lebanese war did succeed in one important objective: it removed the PLO military and political infrastructure from the borders of Israel. With the PLO fighters spread to various Arab countries, and PLO headquarters moved to Tunis (with American permission), the PLO seemed to have been marginalized from the Arab-Israeli equation. We should note that it was not only the Israelis who worked to kick the PLO out of Lebanon. A PLO pocket in northern Lebanon was expelled by the Syrians in December 1983.
Likud tried to take advantage of this by developing a set of local Palestinian leaderships -- called the Village Leagues -- with which to negotiate. The Village League system never gained the support of any measurable segment of the Palestinian community -- Israelis not offering much, PLO groups using violence against those who participate. In 1988 the effort was officially abandoned.
Interestingly enough, Labour, which had returned to a share of power with the 1984 elections (economic issues central in forming the government), attempted to revive the "Jordanian option," seeking out King Husayn as a negotiating partner on the West Bank. A secret agreement between Shimon Peres (then foreign minister) and King Husayn was apparently reached in 1987, involving an international conference including a joint Jordanian-Palestinian negotiating team as the first step to negotiations on the West Bank. However, his Likud partners refused to go along with the conference proposal.
But in the end it was the Palestinian uprising in the West Bank and Gaza that put an end to both the Village Leagues and to the "Jordanian option." The intifada was a spontaneous reaction to occupation in December 1987 that developed into a loosely organized national movement. It involved civil disobedience like strikes, tax strikes, non-cooperation with the Israeli occupation authorities. Most dramatically it involved militant demonstrations against Israeli forces, but without weapons. Palestinian youth would throw stones at Israeli soldiers. The initial Israeli reaction was quite harsh (Rabin as Defense Minister, ordering "force, might, beatings), and many more Palestinians than Israelis were killed. Some of these harsh reactions were captured by television reporters, and shown on television screens in Israel, thorughout the Middle East and over the world. These images, as much as anything, recaptured popular attention and support for the Palestinian cause.
The intifada reasserted the central role of the Palestinian issue in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and brought into new prominence as a rival to the PLO the Islamic movements. It did this by emphasizing the importance of grass-roots organizing capacity -- the ability to mobilize the Palestinian populace for political purposes. Neither the Village Leagues, nor King Husayn could do that. In recognition, Israel formally dropped the Village League plan in 1988 (it had really been dead for awhile), and King Husayn in July 1988 formally renounced Jordan's claim to govern the West Bank.
Meanwhile, the renewed focus brought by the intifada to the Palestinian dimension of the Arab-Israeli conflict was redounding to the political benefit of the PLO, the only recognized international "address" for dealing with Palestinian issues. During this period a number of changes in PLO positions toward Israel and negotiations crystallized -- a process that had begun in the 1970's, and was spurred on by the various defeats suffered by the PLO over the previous two decades. These changes were represented by the Palestinian acceptance of UNGA resolution 187 in their declaration of independence in 1988, and in Arafat's acceptance of UNSC resolution 242 and renunciation of "terrorism" as a prelude to initiating dialogue with the US in December 1988. As a result, the United States in early 1989 began a diplomatic dialogue with the PLO, the first official US-PLO contacts ever.
Why would Arafat make these changes? He did so, in my mind, from a position of weakness and because of that weakness: a) the PLO military option basically crushed; b) the changes in the USSR signalling that Moscow could not and would not provide the kind of support that it did in the past; c) the need to revive the diplomatic front, the only place the PLO had a monopoly on Palestinian identity, in the face of the challenges from within the West Bank and Gaza, both from Islamist groups and from younger cadres within the nationalist movement. Obviously there were intellectual changes in Palestinian political thought that preceded this change. These changes in the PLO position set the stage for the later bargaining that would lead to Oslo and the White House lawn, but a few important things happen in between.
To sum up, then: despite a very favorable regional and international environment, the Likud government was unable to achieve its goal of removing the Palestinian issue from the regional agenda while maintaining Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank. Likewise Labor and Jordan could not come to a deal on a "Jordanian option," despite the evident desire of both to do so. They were foiled by the messiness of domestic politics -- in Lebanon first of all, and then in both Israel and the Palestinian community.
This is just a brief outline of the political map of present-day Lebanon:
1) Christian community, dominated by the Maronites --
a) Phalangist party, associated with Gemayal family
b) National Liberal Party, associated with Chamoun family
c) these two organizations, with some others (Maronite monks), joined into the Lebanese Forces, which has now taken on an organizational life of its own. Had close ties with Israel, as have the Chamounists. Its leader is now in jail, and its fortunes have declined with the consolidation of Syrian control since the Gulf War.
d) Maronites of northern Lebanon, associated with former President Sulayman Franjiyeh, enemies of the Phalange and allies of Syria
e) South Lebanese Army -- mostly Maronite and Greek Orthodox officers, most Shi'i troops, created and supplied by Israel in 1978 to control the "security belt" – defunct as of 2000
f) Maronite patriarch -- with the recent decline in influence of most Maronite political organizations, the Patriarch (a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church) has taken a much more high-profile political role – Nasrallah Butros Sufayr
g) the followers of Gen. Michel Awn, who claimed the presidency in 1988 and was expelled from the country by Syria in 1991, during the Gulf War, returned when Syria withdrew in 2005. Won most of the Maronite seats in the 2005 elections
2) Shica community (idea of social mobilization, breaking away from old political organization of large landholders, Musa Sadr and founding of Amal in 1975)
a) Amal (Afwaj al Muqawama al-Lubnaniyya) -- headed nominally by Nabih Berri, associated with Syria, most "Lebanese" of the Shica organizations in that it accepts the multi-confessional nature of the society. In the 1970's was the largest of the Shica organizations, but plagued by factionalism
b) Hizballah (Party of God) -- calls for an Islamic Republic in Lebanon, associated with Iran, "spiritual leader" identified as Shaykh Muhammad Fadlallah, political leader Shaykh Hassan Nasrallah. Founded after the Iranian Revolution. Now holds seats in the Lebanese parliament and is the dominant Shi’a organization.
c) various other Shici organizations -- Islamic Jihad, Islamic Amal, etc. Shadowy in terms of origins, size and foreign and domestic connections
3) Sunni community -- for the most part did not form into armed groups. One small militia, usually identified as Nasirist (hangover from the 1950's and 1960's) -- Murabitun, allied with PLO and Libya. As a whole, the Sunni community has identified more with the Palestinians than any other in Lebanon, and looked to the PLO for military support.
a) former prime
minister, Rafiq al-Hariri, a billionaire with close ties to the Saudis, was the
most powerful and ambitious Sunni politician since the beginning of the civil
war. His son Sa’d became the leader of Hariri’s movement, the Future Movement,
after his father’s assassination in 2005
4) Druze -- represented by the Popular Socialist Party founded by Kamal Jumblatt and now headed by his son Walid. PSP was envisaged by Kamal as a real leftist political party, and he made an effort in the 1970's to put together a non-sectarian leftist political bloc in Lebanon. His efforts were stymied not only by the nature of Lebanese society, but also by active Syrian opposition (probably killed by Syria). Now basically representative of the Druze community. Militarily powerful in Mt. Lebanon area.
5) various local militias and non-sectarian groups -- most notably the Sunni local militias in the cities of Tripoli and Sidon; the ideological parties also have militias, most notably the Bacth (Syrian branch) and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party -- both associated with Syria.
6) foreign forces – Syrians were in the Biqac valley and some in West Beirut, until 2005; Iranian Revolutionary Guards in the Biqac; Israelis in security zone of South Lebanon (left in 2000); UNIFIL forces at points in South Lebanon
A brief look at the phases of the conflict (details in your readings):
1) outbreak (1975) -- bus attack in Ain al-Rummaneh, Palestinian factor finally throwing the skewed demographics of Lebanon into conflict
2) 1975-76 -- offensive held by coalition of Lebanese leftists, headed by Kemal Jumblatt, and the PLO. Originally supported by Syria.
3) 1976-78 -- Syria intervenes directly on behalf of the embattled Christain right (fear of an uncontrolled Lebanon and Israeli intervention), halting the leftist-PLO offensive. PLO retreats to safe area in the South; leftist coalition basically crumbles. Christians solidify their hold on East Beirut and the mountain; Syrian presence ratified by Arab League, tacitly accepted by Israel through US mediation
4) 1978-82 -- Israeli operation Litani in 1978, strengthening of Israeli-Christian ties as the Syrian-Christian ties fray. 1980 Zahle incident (provoked by Lebanese Forces) leads to US mediation and eventually to July 1981 unofficial Palestinian-Israeli cease-fire
5) June 1982-February 1984 -- Israeli invasion of Lebanon aimed at reconstructing a friendly Lebanese state under control of the Lebanese Forces; assassination of Bashir Gemayal and Sabra/Shatila massacres; US and Western European intervention and diplomacy (Reagan Plan of Sept. 1, 1982; May 17, 1983 accord); Syrian regrouping, and their attacks on Arafat PLO (split in Fatah in mid-1983, Tripoli campaign in December 1983); growing Shica oppostion to the Israelis and the US (Sept. 1983 Israeli withdrawal from Shouf, Oct. 1983 bomb at Marine headquarters, Feb. 1984 US Marines withdraw and Druze/Shica forces take control of West Beirut, June 1985 Israeli troops out of Lebanon, exception of security zone)
6) 1984-1988 -- Syrian upperhand, but Christian determination not to accept a Syrian solution. Syrians unwilling to use the force necessary to bring situation under control, so stalemate. Factional fighting among the Christians and among the Muslim groups (Druze v. Amal; Amal v. PLO; Hizballah v. Amal)
7) Ta'if agreement in 1989; Awn ousted in 1991; Hariri government in 1992.
8) Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon in 2000, collapse of SLA, Hizballah victory.
9) 2005: Hariri assassination, Syrian withdrawal