Israel in Lebanon: a New Labour Consensus?

Abstract

In the late 1970s and early 1980s Israel made a series of incursions into Lebanon. The 1982 invasion was the most controversial, unleashing an unprecedented level of international condemnation. Although the attempted assassination of Shlomo Argov, the Israeli ambassador to London, was the pretext for the strike, Israel’s real aims were to undermine the PLO’s military and political base in the country, to forge links with its Lebanese allies and to improve its border security (Lesch and Tessler, 1989, p. 63). The government believed that a heavy military blow to the PLO would render it incapable of carrying out terrorist activities and erode its support among moderate Palestinians (ibid., pp. 36–7). In September the Lebanese Christian militia massacred Palestinians in the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps in Beirut. The massacre took place within the sight of the Israeli army (ibid., p. 63), creating the view that Israel’s decision to send the militia into the camps rendered it responsible for the subsequent events.