Israel's Lebanon War

by Ze'ev Schiff, Ehud Ya'ari

From Simon & Schuster, Israel's Lebanon War is the first and only complete inside account of a disastrous military adventure and its ongoing consequences.

A detailed narrative by two Israeli journalists on the origins, conduct, and political repercussions of the Lebanon war, based on previously unreleased documents and interviews with high officials.

Genres: Middle East, Israel, History, Lebanon, War, Military Fiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

Sometimes published as Zeev Schiff

Reviews

[Barry Sierer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book should not be considered an objective piece of history, but is still fascinating nonetheless. The book was published 1984, two years after the Israelis launched Operation “Peace for Galilee”. The authors go into detail about Israel’s proceeding involvement in Lebanon’s civil war. While the book does wade into details of the political and military operations, the most prominent theme seems to be the author’s outrage over Defense Minister Ariel Sharon’s campaign of deception targeting the Israeli cabinet. Sharon’s lies, omissions, and obfuscations eventually cost him the support of the cabinet and even the army. At one point during the siege of Beirut, Sharon is actually stripped of the authority to order IAF airstrikes. However this reader can't help but suspect that certain members of the Cabinet were content to accept Sharon's bogus explanations (such as not going as far as Beirut or avoiding clashes with the Syrians)so they could avoid thier own responsibilities.

The book also covers in troubling detail, the role of IDF in the Sabra and Shatilla massacres. The authors describe a situation where the IDF was on the sidelines and only receiving pieces of unconfirmed rumors about the killings of Palestinian civilians by their Phalangist allies. At one point during the operation; The Phalangists request bulldozers from the IDF to remove “illegal structures” in the camps. Later it was found that these were requested by the Phalange in order to move several bodies of their victims. I would consider this to be one several different points of view on this incident, far from the whole truth.

It is recommended, but should taken as a memoir of a turbulent time.

[Martin Koenigsberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Idea was so simple. Send the Israeli Army into Lebanon- Root out the PLO's Military wing in a Lightning Campaign- Humble the Syrians who had stopped the Lebanese Civil War on their terms- and Leave the Maronite Christian Leader Bashir Gemayel in the President's Palace to put on Friendly Arab state on the Northern Border of the Jewish Homeland. But nothing is simple about anything in Lebanon- and Ze'ev Schiff and Ehud Ya'ari, two top Israeli Journalists who won awards for their work on this war- explain in layered detail why Ariel "Arik" Sharon, a Brilliant Battle Tactician and Grand Strategist in the 1973 War seems to have proved the Peter Principle when elevated to Defence Minister in Menachem Begin's Cabinet. By the end- there were more Israeli casualties than expected or politically palatable, Israel's Christian Allies had committed horrible atrocities at the Sabra and Shatilla PLO Camps in Beirut, Syria was still there in the Bekaa Valley, over 220 US and French "Peacekeeprrs" were dead in Terrorist Attacks, The Christians were no more powerful than they had been- and a New Enemy -Iran's Ally Hezbollah had emerged as a New and Very Real threat to Israel. We see it all go wrong- in detail- with good explanations.

The Authors show that far from being a Wise and Worldly Group of Israeli Cabinet Members skillfully controlling Lebanese Politics- Begin's team were relatively naive. Many of their assumptions and long -held ideas about the Lebanese Civil War participants were totally wrong from the jump- and the Weak but sophisticated Lebanese Politicians played the various Israeli constituencies against each other brilliantly for their own ends. In Lebanon, every ethnic group had a Left, center and fascist Militia- and Arabs, whether Red, Moslem, Fascist,Christian or Centrist or Druze would never willingly choose to deal with the Israelis openly-or without keeping all their other options open. No single group in this bloody passion play comes off as Heroic, or Brilliant or worthy of real respect- but the Israelis who might have known better- Sharon, Begin, the Israeli Staff or the Heads of Mossad and Military Intel come in for the most earned critiques.

With almost all issues very adult themes and a lot of Atrocities to cover, a Junior reader should be at least 12-13 to have the Political understanding this book demands. For the Gamer/Modeller/Military Enthusiast, this book is a very mixed bag. Yes there are some Skrirmish descriptions and Maps that might help Scenario/Diorama development, but it's mainly here for the Military Enthusiast to explain how this War's supporting political base was poor, and how Sharon controlled what rare accurate information he had available to him- to push for his Ideas and plans- when it could and perhaps should have been used to avoid the whole morass. I think this book is a good one and deserves wider distribution to students of the 1980s Middle Eastern roots of our present multitude of regional concerns. A strong rec- but you won't necessarily find any characters to respect. Warts all round.

[Jurij Fedorov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow ... though a bit long I must say. I only had 6 days to read it and just about made it. It's a very detailed overview where Begin and Sharon are in meetings and we get to hear their words and responses. Reagan's too. These authors went to work right after the 1982 Lebanon Israel war to interview 100+ people and people were eager to give details about even small emotions from secret meetings which makes this a strong overview of what Ariel Sharon did during his war and how he fooled everyone to conduct it. This is amazing writing as you really feel the emotions on the page. You need to read this.

It was the first war not for Israel's survival. PLO had created a strong base in Lebanon and were attacking Israel with constant terrorist attacks often against civilians. This made it impossible to accept them there. Reagan begged Begin not to conduct the war yet Israel needed to at least kick PLO out of Lebanon. Indeed they did this, but 600+ IDF soldiers died and 100ks were protesting in Tel Aviv. This short war was so unpopular it made them kick out the government and soon a very left-wing government took power and tried to negotiated their way to peace with Arafat. Which showed weakness meaning the terrorist attacks expanded 100 fold until Israel built a wall to West Bank and the attacks finally stopped. So who is better a neo-conservative Sharon staging a war by himself or a left-wing government fooled by terrorists into surrendering territory and expanding terrorism?

Hence this book shows you an extremely important event in Israel's history. It also made Hezbollah take over south Lebanon from PLO and today Lebanon is too afraid to kick them out. The Hezbollah army was huge and their constant terrorist attacks extreme as Iran funds them with oil money.

The Lebanon war was a civil war from 1975 to 1990. Christians wanted to keep power, but Palestinian immigrants made them a minority. Palestinians also conducted several massacres against them and took over whole towns kicking out all Christians. Druze did the same to them. Christians returned the favor. When IDF and Saddam Hussein supported them with weapons they were quite strong and took the chance to conduct massacres. But they never liked Israel or Jews and after the IDF war IDF pulled out and Christians were genocided to a large degree. They just refused to sign any deal with Israel whatsoever no matter how small and kicked IDF out. Meanwhile Syrian forces, who IDF also fought during this war, were allowed to stay. The goal was to annex Lebanon as many Syrians see it as rightfully theirs. They forced them to change the laws to always ask Syria before making a political decision. Yet Syria had their own issues and Lebanon experienced a new disaster in the Syrian immigrant crisis during ISIS. Palestinians still live in refugee ghettos without rights in all these Arab nations. So Lebanon is full of Muslim ghettos and Hezbollah is more powerful than the government.

The book also goes over the massacre Christians conducted in Beirut when IDF was there. Israel conducted a full investigation and Sharon and others were blamed for not predicting it could happen. You need to read it yourself to see who was at fault and what could have been predicted. It's clear IDF was gullible and stupid here. Yet I'm not sure how many options they had. Christians refused to help with anything and IDF was losing hundreds of men they needed help fast and it was this or nothing. Christians would go in and find terrorists in the refugee areas - yet they didn't settle for that alone. Unfortunately Christians set this up to commit the massacre fooling IDF.

One also wonders what deals they could make with IDF. If IDF stayed Hezbollah would never have grown large and Lebanon could have become much more powerful and rich. Yet they really didn't have a choice. The Arab tribes hated Jews so such a deal would be extremely unpopular in a time where much of the world didn't even recognize Israel.

Obviously this book is super critical towards Israel. The left-wing always hates wars no matter if essential or not. So the whole government is blamed for a huge failure. Begin looks old and clueless and Sharon looks like a mix of Kissinger and Dick Cheney. It's not falsely blaming or claiming things though. But you do need to read a slightly less anti-Israel book to get the other side.

[Jun-Dai Bates-Kobashigawa]

This book is super Israel-centric, which makes total sense since it is intended as (a) a critique of the Israeli leaders involved in the catastrophe and (b) a dissection of the events and the specific points at which government mechanisms for oversight, channels of escalation, etc., failed. Also, it was written in the immediate aftermath of the main part of the war, long before the dust had settled and clearer perspectives had emerged (but with the advantage that the events were still fresh and most of the players still alive and available).

As a timeline it is valuable, and as an understanding of the military and political mechanics of the conflict it is useful. It is mostly good at not assuming the reader has a ton of context on the people, places, events, etc., but at times it does get a bit confusing trying to understand who is doing what where. And while it does explain the main actors and forces in Lebanon, it does not really get into the larger context of how they arrived at the power structure they did. That is clearly beyond the scope of this book, but it is something I would really like to understand.

From the book, it is clear that Ariel Sharon was a jerk and a liar. Not the only one, but this book makes him out to be a power-hungry egomaniac who basically caused the war out a sheer desire to take advantage of an opportunity to exploit a particular political moment to kick off some military adventures.

While Begin is clearly bears some ultimate responsibility for the conflict and for what he allowed to happen, including the massacres that came out of it, it’s interesting how much the war wasn’t really his plan so much as something he was willing to approve just because he knew he might not get a better opportunity to deal a blow to the PLO.

I would dearly love to have a similarly detailed history of the Lebanese Civil War. And also of Syria’s perspective in all this.

[Becky · Rating 5 out of 5]

While there was a little too much military history, battle play-by-play for me (not really my thing), I found the overall synthesis really topnotch. Schiff and Za'ari go into serious depth explaining how Sharon quietly undermined and ended up controlling the cabinet and directing Israel to go to war almost unquestioned. I enjoyed reading first hand how these decisions, which seem so dumb in hindsight, are often the result of a thousand small-seeming questions that culminate in a huge wave of craziness. There is no unitary actor in the majority of world history, it's so many layers, or "death by a thousand paper cuts" and this is explained really well in this book.

I noticed a lot of parallels between this situation and what happened to the US invasion of Afghanistan. The post-script was especially prescient, "...the nature of the fighting changed radically, and for the IDF the operation deteriorated into a lame-duck war whose aim steadily boiled down to keeping the toll of Israeli casualties to a minimum. The campaign that had ostensibly been launched to defend the Galilean settlements ended with the IDF devoting all its energies to defending itself; the promised swift, surgical attack on terrorist concentrations had eroded into a long occupation and brutal guerrilla war against the occupying force." You could easily replace certain words in this final paragraph and it would match our current Afghan war.

[Edward Champion · Rating 2 out of 5]

Schiff and Ya'Ari write from such a cumbersome and unnatural place that it was quite astonishing to see how the uninformed American media bought into their superficial portrait of Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon. These two tendentious types shoehorned their way into America public grace with their fawning (and now risible in hindsight) portrait of Alexander Haig. But the two authors are very bad at unpacking the reasons for this needless war. They are particularly superficial about the Syrians and the Palestinians. This book does have some value for what it reveals about the priapic and bloodthirsty temperaments of Begin, Sharon, and all the other bloodthirsty members of the Israel foreign ministry. So I would not recommend this book as a solid entry point to understanding Middle Eastern history.

[Skye · Rating 4 out of 5]

The impression I got of this book is that it's more a work of investigative journalism (written in the immediate aftermath of the war) attempting to understand what went wrong, rather than a purely objective history written long after the events. That being said, as someone who knew very little about this war before reading it, I came out the other side feeling like I have a working knowledge of the war in general, Begin and Sharon's roles in the war, and the results of it (in both Israel and Lebanon).

[Oren Mizrahi · Rating 4 out of 5]

magnificently critical and detailed. -1 star because the book was intended to be a work of investigative journalism at the time and not a work of history. without the context of the details of the israeli political establishment at my fore in 2022, some of the sections were a bit confusing.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

For anyone that has any interest in Middle East politics, this is a must-have. An in-depth description of how the Israeli government essentially put blinders on to the repurcussions and mislead their people (sound familiar??) in their invasion of Lebanon in the early 1980's.

[Ram · Rating 2 out of 5]

this one was an account of the war in 1982 in Lebanon including the infamous Sabra & Shalita massacre.