History Revisited or Revamped? The Maronite Factor in Israel's 1982 Invasion of Lebanon

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Notes

 1. Laura Zittrain Eisenberg, ‘Desperate Diplomacy: the Zionist–Maronite Treaty of 1946’, Studies in Zionism, Vol. 13, No. 2 (1992), 147–63.

 2. Author interview with Yaakov Shimoni, 4 March 1987, Jerusalem.

 3. Author interview with Elchanon Oren, 4 March 1987, Tel Aviv.

 4. Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, Cambridge, 2004, pp. 463–465, 473–493 and 1948: The First Arab–Israeli War, New Haven, 2008, pp. 339–341, 344–347, 406. Morris sees the flow of refugees into Lebanon as a natural by-product of the war as well as the result of purposeful action by individual IDF commanders designed to induce Palestinian flight, including several cases of atrocities against civilians. Morris also argues that apart from a solitary successful attack in June, the Lebanese army in fact did not invade Israel at all, but rather deployed defensively within its own territory. As a face-saving gesture to its fellow Arabs, however, Lebanon allowed a small ALA brigade to use southern Lebanon as a launching point for a strike into Israel, with the Lebanese army providing covering fire and logistical support. Morris, 1948, pp. 257–260.

 5. Yaakov Shimoni to Eliahu Sasson, 12 November 1948, Israel State Archives (hereafter, ISA) 2570/11 (Hebrew) Individual IDF commanders did or did not distinguish between Muslims and Christians in their zones according to their own proclivities.

 6. Shimoni to Walter Eytan, 18 November 1948, ISA FM 186/17 (Hebrew); Morris, 1948, p. 344.

 7. Shimoni to Sasson, 2 November 1948, ISA 2570/11 (Hebrew); Beate Hamizrahi, The Emergence of the South Lebanon Security Belt: Major Saad Haddad and the Ties with Israel, 1975–1978, Connecticut, 1988, p. 14.

 8. ‘Situation of Jews in Syria and Lebanon’, 31 August 1948, ISA 2563/3 (Hebrew); Anon, ‘News from the Lebanon’, undated (probably December 1949), ISA, 2531/12 (Hebrew); author interview with Shula Cohen-Kishik, 20 May 1986, Jerusalem; Shimoni interview; Michael Sasson, correspondence with author, 23 June 1987; author interview with Kamal Salibi, 31 October 1992, Portland; Michael Hudson, The Precarious Republic: Political Modernization in Lebanon, New York, 1985, pp. 48–49.

 9. Author interview with Arye Shalav, 31 March 1978, Tel Aviv; author interview with Yossi Vogel, 26 April 1987, Kibbutz Ein Gev; Shabtai Rosenne to Eliahu Sasson, 13 March 1949, ISA 2950/1 (Hebrew).

10. Multiple armistice documents in Israel State Archives, Documents on the Foreign Policy of Israel, Vol. 2 (October 1948–April 1949), ed. Yehoshua Freundlich, Jerusalem, 1984 and Vol. 3 (Armistice Negotiations with the Arab States: December 1948–July 1949), ed. Yemima Rosenthal, Jerusalem, 1983; David Ben-Gurion, Yoman Hamilchama (The War of Independence: Ben Gurion's Diary), Israel Ministry of Defence, Tel Aviv, 1982, Vol. 3, pp. 911, 957, 977; Tom Segev, 1949: The First Israelis, trans. Arlen N. Weinstein, New York, 1986, pp. 9–10; Morris, 1948, pp. 378–380.

11. Multiple ILMAC reports, ISA 24545/12, 2950/3,6,8,10; Walter Eytan, The First Ten Years: A Diplomatic History of Israel, New York, 1958, pp. 39, 42–44; author interview with Eytan, 6 March 1987, Jerusalem; E.L.M. Burns, Between Arab and Israeli, New York, London, 1962, pp. 120–122.

12. ‘Meeting with Emile Edde’, 13 July 1948, ISA 2565/12 (Hebrew); ‘Meeting with Representative of Archbishop Mubarak, 28 Feb 1949’, ISA 2563/23 (Hebrew); Shimoni interview; Shimoni seminar, Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, 7 December 1983 (Hebrew); ‘Israeli assistance for the Organization of a Coup in Lebanon’, undated, ISA 163/5/A (French).

13. David Ben-Gurion, 5 June 1949, in G. Rivlin and E. Oren (eds.), Min Hayoman (From Ben-Gurion's Diary: the War of Independence), Israel Ministry of Defence, Tel Aviv, 1986, p. 444; Benny Morris, ‘Israel and the Lebanese Phalange: 1948–1951’, Studies in Zionism, Vol. 5, No. 1 (1984), pp. 125–44; Itamar Rabinovich, The War for Lebanon: 1980–1973, Cornell, 1984, pp. 161–162; Benny Morris, ‘The Phalange Connection’, Jerusalem Post Magazine, 1 July 1983, pp. 7–8; Kirsten E. Schulze, Israel's Covert Diplomacy in Lebanon, London, New York, 1998, pp. 33–36.

14. Yair Evron, War and Intervention in Lebanon: The Israeli–Syrian Deterrence Dialogue Baltimore, 1987, p. 26.

15. Yair Evron, War and Intervention in Lebanon: The Israeli–Syrian Deterrence Dialogue Baltimore, 1987, pp. 26–28; Irene L. Gendzier, Notes from the Minefield: United States Intervention in Lebanon and the Middle East, 1945–1958, Boulder, CO, 1999, pp. 256–257, 291; Schulze, Israel's Covert Diplomacy, pp. 61–62; Reuven Erlich, Basabach Halevanon: mediniyutan shel hatnua hatziyonit veshel medinat yisrael klapei Levanon, 1918–1958 (In the Lebanon Tangle: the Policy of the Zionist Movement and the State of Israel towards Lebanon, 1918–1948), Israel Ministry of Defence, Tel Aviv, 2000, pp. 382–391.

16. Rabinovich, War for Lebanon, p. 164; Michael Brecher, The Foreign Policy System of Israel: Setting, Images, Process, Oxford, 1971, pp. 277–278; Michael Bar-Zohar, Ben-Gurion: The Armed Prophet, New York, 1968, chap. 33.

17. David Ben-Gurion, 27 July 1937, Zikhronot (Memoirs), Tel Aviv, 1971–1987, Vol. 4, p. 331.

18. David Ben-Gurion, 27 July 1937, Zikhronot (Memoirs), Tel Aviv, 1971–1987, Vol. 4, 29 July 1937, p. 367.

19. Ben-Gurion, Yoman Hamilchamah, Vol. 2, 24 May 1948, p. 454.

20. Ben-Gurion, Yoman Hamilchamah, Vol. 2, 18 June 1948, p. 533.

21. Ben-Gurion, Yoman Hamilchamah, Vol. 2, Vol. 3, 19 December 1948, p. 887.

22. David Ben-Gurion to Moshe Sharett, 27 February 1954, and Moshe Sharett to David Ben-Gurion, 18 March 1954, in Moshe Sharett, Yoman Ishi (Personal Diary), Vol. 8, pp. 2397–400.

23. Ben-Gurion to Sharett, 27 February 1954, in Sharett, Yoman Ishi, Vol. 8, pp. 2397–98. Particularly close analysis is in Erlich, Basabach Halevanon, pp. 368–372. There are various English translations of the entire correspondence. See, for examples, Arnold Schwartz (trans.), ‘Ben-Gurion and Sharett on the Lebanon Problem: An Exchange of Letters’, Moment, Vol. 7, No. 8 (1982), pp. 43–45 and Livia Rokach, Israel's Sacred Terrorism, Association of Arab-American University Graduates, 1980, pp. 24–28.

24. Sharett, Yoman Ishi, 27 February 1954, Vol. 2, p. 377.

25. Sharett to Ben-Gurion, Yoman Ishi, 18 March 1954, Vol. 8, p. 2399.

26. Sharett to Ben-Gurion, Yoman Ishi, 18 March 1954, Vol. 8, pp. 2398–400.

27. Eliahu Sasson to Moshe Sharett, 25 March 1954, reprinted in Davar, 29 October 1971, p. 14 (Hebrew). Davar published Sasson's letter along with those of Ben-Gurion and Sharett under the headline, ‘B.G. recommended in 1954 [that Israel] act to help establish a Christian Maronite state in Lebanon; an exchange of letters among Ben-Gurion, Sharett and Sasson for and against the plan.’

28. Sharett, Yoman Ishi, Vol. 4, 16 and 28 May 1955, pp. 996, 1024.

29. Moshe Sharett, Yoman Ishi, Vol. 4, 16 May 1955, p. 996, and again on 28 May 1955, p. 1024.

30. Moshe Dayan, 22 October 1956, Avnei Derekh (Milestones), Tel Aviv, 1975, p. 255 and The Story of my Life, New York, 1976, p. 215.

31. Livia Rokach, ‘Israeli State Terrorism: An Analysis of the Sharett Diaries’, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 9, No. 3 (1980), pp. 3–28 and Israel's Sacred Terrorism. See similarly Schulze, Israel's Covert Diplomacy and Sabri Jiryis, ‘Secrets of State: An Analysis of the Diaries of Moshe Sharett’, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 10, No. 1 (1980), pp. 35–57.

32. Evron, War and Intervention, p. 26.

33. Erlich, Basabach Halevanon, p. 385; Zeev Maoz, Defending the Holy Land: A Critical Analysis of Israel's Security and Foreign Policy, Ann Arbor, MI, 2006, p. 175.

34. Evron, War and Intervention, p. 30.

35. Evron, War and Intervention, pp. 45–47.

36. Ze'ev Schiff and Ehud Ya'ari, Israel's Lebanon War, New York, 1984, chap. 1; Evron, War and Intervention, pp. 42–45.

37. For an analysis of the contribution of Begin's world view and leadership style to the decision to launch the 1982 invasion see Ofira Seliktar, ‘Israel's Menachem Begin’, in Barbara Kellerman and Jeffrey Z. Rubin (eds.), Leadership and Negotiation in the Middle East, New York, 1988, chap. 3.

38. Maoz, Defending the Holy Land, pp. 178–183.

39. Schiff and Ya'ari, Israel's Lebanon War, pp. 46–47; Maoz, Defending the Holy Land, pp. 191–192, 202–206.

40. Schulze, Israel's Covert Diplomacy, pp. 130–133, 135.

41. The Beirut Massacre: The Complete Kahan Commission Report, Tel Aviv, 1983.

42. Maoz reverses the order of the factors leading to the Israeli invasion. He argues that the PLO and Syria actually posed minimal danger to Israel or even the Israeli Galilee, but that Sharon's desire to go after the PLO led the Begin government to overstate the PLO and Syrian threats so as to accomplish job one: the demolition of the PLO. Maoz, Defending the Holy Land, p. 182.

43. Schiff and Ya'ari, Israel's Lebanon War, chap. 1; Evron, War and Intervention, pp. 42–45.

44. Schiff and Ya'ari, Israel's Lebanon War, p. 39.

45. Helena Cobban, The Making of Modern Lebanon, Boulder, CO, 1985, pp. 186–187; David C. Gordon, The Republic of Lebanon: Nation in Jeopardy, Boulder, CO, 1983, pp. 146–147; Schiff and Ya'ari, Israel's Lebanon War, pp. 231–232.

46. Schiff and Ya'ari, Israel's Lebanon War, p. 233.

47. Schiff and Ya'ari, Israel's Lebanon War, p. 43.

48. Yaakov Sharett (ed.), Who Pushed for Military Intervention in Lebanon?, Tel Aviv, 1983 (Hebrew).

49. An excellent introduction is Glenn E. Perry, ‘Israeli Involvement in Inter-Arab Politics’, International Journal of Islamic and Arabic Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1984), pp. 11–31.

50. Avner Yaniv, Dilemmas of Security: Politics, Strategy and the Israeli Experience in Lebanon Oxford, 1987, p. 64; Evron, War and Intervention, p. 28.