Israel in 1982: The War in Lebanon
by RALPH MANDEL
LS
ISRAEL MOVED INTO its 36th year in
1982—the
nation cele-
brated 35 years of independence during the brief hiatus between the with-
drawal from Sinai and the incursion into
Lebanon—the
country was deeply
divided. Rocked by dissension over issues that in the past were the hallmark
of unity, wracked by intensifying ethnic and religious-secular rifts, and
through it all bedazzled by a bullish stock market that was at one and the
same time fuel for and seeming haven from triple-digit inflation, Israelis
found themselves living increasingly in a land of extremes, where the middle
ground was often inhospitable when
it
was not totally inaccessible.
Toward the end of the year, Amos Oz, one of Israel's leading novelists,
set out on a journey in search of the true Israel and the genuine Israeli point
of
view.
What he heard in his travels, as published in a series of articles in
the daily Davar, seemed
to
confirm what many had sensed: Israel was
deeply, perhaps irreconcilably, riven by two political philosophies, two
attitudes toward Jewish historical destiny, two visions. "What will become
of
us
all, I do not know," Oz wrote in concluding his article on the develop-
ment town
of
Beit Shemesh
in
the Judean Hills, where the sons
of
the
"Oriental" immigrants, now grown and prosperous, spewed out their loath-
ing for the old Ashkenazi establishment. "If anyone has a solution, let him
please step forward and spell
it
out—and
the sooner the better. The situa-
tion is not good."
OPERATION PEACE FOR GALILEE
Background of the Lebanon War
The military thrust into Lebanon that began on June 6, though launched
in response to a specific occurrence, was, in retrospect, the seemingly inevi-
table consequence of a series of developments that began over
a
decade
earlier with the expulsion of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)
from Jordan and its subsequent move into Lebanon. The PLO's move did
away with Lebanon's delicate political balance and unleashed
a
civil war
that raged for over five years, bringing in its wake
a
large-scale military
intervention by Syria. When the dust settled, as it were, Lebanon had ceased
