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But intense emotions often make it difficult to think carefully about the implications of one’s actions. Watching Israel’s growing military operation in Gaza, I am reminded of another invasion by another right-wing Israeli government — also in response to terrorist attacks — and how it ended, which was very different from Israel’s hopes.
Decades ago, the main Palestinian group, the Palestine Liberation Organization, set up base in Beirut. The PLO and other Palestinian organizations controlled parts of Lebanon bordering Israel. They fought continually against the Israel Defense Forces and killed Israeli civilians. In 1982, the Likud government of Menachem Begin (with Ariel Sharon as defense minister) decided to launch an invasion to root out the PLO infrastructure in Lebanon and drive it out of the country altogether. To do this effectively, Israel allied itself with Lebanon’s Christian militias (one faction of many in a multisectarian country). After wiping out the PLO, Begin hoped to install a Christian-dominated government in Beirut.
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The invasion was big and bloody. Israel attacked with almost 80,000 troops and more than 1,200 tanks. By one estimate, more than 17,000 people in Lebanon were killed and more than 30,000 injured. In the end, Israel did achieve its goal of expelling the PLO from the country. But the cost was a brutal escalation of violence, which produced a horrific tragedy. A militia allied with Israel and operating in a zone that Israel controlled massacred hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians — including many women, children and elderly people — in Beirut’s Sabra neighborhood and the adjacent Shatila refugee camp. Of greater long-term significance, Israel’s invasion galvanized non-Christian forces in that country and helped create Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shiite group. Since then, Hezbollah has been one of the most potent threats to Israel’s security. On Oct. 7, Hamas claimed to have fired 5,000 rockets on Israel. Hezbollah has an estimated 150,000 rockets and missiles.
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The lesson is surely that wars often have outcomes very different from those imagined at the outset. In many ways, the tensions in the Middle East are the unintended consequences of another invasion, the one launched by the United States in Iraq in 2003. It toppled the Sunni-led government of Saddam Hussein, turning Iraq into a Shiite-led country whose ruling elite had deep ties to Iran. This rattled the Persian Gulf Arabs, who are overwhelmingly Sunnis, and Israel, bringing them closer together. And that burgeoning alliance threatened in turn the survival and strength of Palestinian extremist groups such as Hamas, which decided to burn the house down. The U.S. invasion also created al-Qaeda in Iraq, which was the precursor to the Islamic State.
What can Israel do? As University of Chicago scholar Robert Pape notes, careful studies of terrorism suggest that “the only way to create lasting damage to terrorists is to combine, typically in a long campaign of years, sustained selective attacks against identified terrorists with political operations that drive wedges between the terrorists and the local populations from which they come.” He suggests that, alongside a military response, Israel should present some pathway to a Palestinian state.
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Retired Gen. David Petraeus, who masterminded the “surge” of U.S. forces in Iraq that defeated a series of insurgent and terrorist groups, emphasized to me that separating the general population from the terrorist group is key. In addition, he added, you have to offer the population something, some hope for a better future. In his new book, “Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare From 1945 to Ukraine” (co-written with Andrew Roberts), he attributes the success of the surge as much to these political factors as to purely military ones.
Israel is not following the Petraeus strategy. There are an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 Hamas fighters in Gaza — in a place with a population of more than 2 million, about half of them children. As best we can tell, Gazans have mixed views toward Hamas. It won one election in 2006, mounted a coup in 2007 and has ruled since then with an iron Islamist fist. Now, as Gazans suffer a cruel siege that has blocked most food, water and fuel to all 2 million residents, experiencing hourly bombardment, watching thousands of civilian deaths, they could well rally around Hamas. It is the opposite of what a well-designed counterterrorism strategy aims for.
I realize it is easy to critique from afar. And Israel, of course, is feeling deeply vulnerable, a vulnerability made worse by the appalling rise of antisemitism in so many parts of the world, including the United States. But it is worth reflecting on whether policies forged in anger and retribution yield lasting gains. Israel invaded Lebanon and got Hezbollah. Israel wore down the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, which strengthened Hamas.
I do not know what this current campaign will produce in the long run. But I fear it will not be good for Israel or the Palestinians.
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Israelis are understandably horrified by the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on their country. The resulting sense of trauma has fueled a desire for what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calls “mighty vengeance.”
But intense emotions often make it difficult to think carefully about the implications of one’s actions. Watching Israel’s growing military operation in Gaza, I am reminded of another invasion by another right-wing Israeli government — also in response to terrorist attacks — and how it ended, which was very different from Israel’s hopes.
Decades ago, the main Palestinian group, the Palestine Liberation Organization, set up base in Beirut. The PLO and other Palestinian organizations controlled parts of Lebanon bordering Israel. They fought continually against the Israel Defense Forces and killed Israeli civilians. In 1982, the Likud government of Menachem Begin (with Ariel Sharon as defense minister) decided to launch an invasion to root out the PLO infrastructure in Lebanon and drive it out of the country altogether. To do this effectively, Israel allied itself with Lebanon’s Christian militias (one faction of many in a multisectarian country). After wiping out the PLO, Begin hoped to install a Christian-dominated government in Beirut.
The invasion was big and bloody. Israel attacked with almost 80,000 troops and more than 1,200 tanks. By one estimate, more than 17,000 people in Lebanon were killed and more than 30,000 injured. In the end, Israel did achieve its goal of expelling the PLO from the country. But the cost was a brutal escalation of violence, which produced a horrific tragedy. A militia allied with Israel and operating in a zone that Israel controlled massacred hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians — including many women, children and elderly people — in Beirut’s Sabra neighborhood and the adjacent Shatila refugee camp. Of greater long-term significance, Israel’s invasion galvanized non-Christian forces in that country and helped create Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shiite group. Since then, Hezbollah has been one of the most potent threats to Israel’s security. On Oct. 7, Hamas claimed to have fired 5,000 rockets on Israel. Hezbollah has an estimated 150,000 rockets and missiles.
The lesson is surely that wars often have outcomes very different from those imagined at the outset. In many ways, the tensions in the Middle East are the unintended consequences of another invasion, the one launched by the United States in Iraq in 2003. It toppled the Sunni-led government of Saddam Hussein, turning Iraq into a Shiite-led country whose ruling elite had deep ties to Iran. This rattled the Persian Gulf Arabs, who are overwhelmingly Sunnis, and Israel, bringing them closer together. And that burgeoning alliance threatened in turn the survival and strength of Palestinian extremist groups such as Hamas, which decided to burn the house down. The U.S. invasion also created al-Qaeda in Iraq, which was the precursor to the Islamic State.
What can Israel do? As University of Chicago scholar Robert Pape notes, careful studies of terrorism suggest that “the only way to create lasting damage to terrorists is to combine, typically in a long campaign of years, sustained selective attacks against identified terrorists with political operations that drive wedges between the terrorists and the local populations from which they come.” He suggests that, alongside a military response, Israel should present some pathway to a Palestinian state.
Retired Gen. David Petraeus, who masterminded the “surge” of U.S. forces in Iraq that defeated a series of insurgent and terrorist groups, emphasized to me that separating the general population from the terrorist group is key. In addition, he added, you have to offer the population something, some hope for a better future. In his new book, “Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare From 1945 to Ukraine” (co-written with Andrew Roberts), he attributes the success of the surge as much to these political factors as to purely military ones.
Israel is not following the Petraeus strategy. There are an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 Hamas fighters in Gaza — in a place with a population of more than 2 million, about half of them children. As best we can tell, Gazans have mixed views toward Hamas. It won one election in 2006, mounted a coup in 2007 and has ruled since then with an iron Islamist fist. Now, as Gazans suffer a cruel siege that has blocked most food, water and fuel to all 2 million residents, experiencing hourly bombardment, watching thousands of civilian deaths, they could well rally around Hamas. It is the opposite of what a well-designed counterterrorism strategy aims for.
I realize it is easy to critique from afar. And Israel, of course, is feeling deeply vulnerable, a vulnerability made worse by the appalling rise of antisemitism in so many parts of the world, including the United States. But it is worth reflecting on whether policies forged in anger and retribution yield lasting gains. Israel invaded Lebanon and got Hezbollah. Israel wore down the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, which strengthened Hamas.
I do not know what this current campaign will produce in the long run. But I fear it will not be good for Israel or the Palestinians.
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