History Lesson: 1978

'Defence Minister Ezer Weizman told a press conference early today that after last Sunday's guerilla attack near Tel Aviv in which more than 30 Israelis were killed it had been decided to "clean up once and for all terrorist concentrations in Southern Lebanon".' Page two of the flimsy green sheet from the Agence France Presse report was still stuffed into my pocket as we drove south from Beruit.[ . . . ]

'I hope,' Weizman said in that agency tape, 'that Syria will understand that it is an operation limited to southern Lebanon, that the Lebanese government will understand that it is a preventative operation, and that the rest of the civilised world will realise that it is aimed essentially at preventing fresh attacks against Israel's civilian population like the ones we have suffered.'[ . . . ]

[ . . . ]It seemed an extraordinarily large army to commit to Lebanon if the eradication of a few PLO bases was all that was at stake. Menachem Begin, the Israeli prime minister, spoke about Israel's determination 'to root out the evil weed of the PLO'. This sort of metaphor became constant refrain in Israel. [ . . . ] Above all else, they were terrorists. Terrorists, terrorists, terrorists. The word was ubiquitous, obsessive, cancerous in its own special way. Terrorists were animals. Animals had to be put down. [ . . . ]

[ . . . ]The Israelis occupied all but this narrow strip of territory below the Litani. But they were now coming under rocket fire from Palestinian positions north of the river. The Israeli-Palestinian line had merely moved a few miles north - at a cost of up to 2,000 Lebanese and Palestinian lives and 20 Israelis.The Americans had agreed to support a United Nations force in southern Lebanon, an international army which was to carry the acronym UNIFIL. This stood for United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon. The catch, of course, was the word 'interim'. { . . . ]

(from Pity The Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon, by Robert Fisk, pp. 123-132)

And thus the UN was stationed in south Lebanon under the auspices of UN Resolution 425:

3. Decides, in the light of the request of the Government of Lebanon, to establish immediately under its authority a United Nations interim force for Southern Lebanon for the purpose of confirming the withdrawal of Israeli forces, restoring international peace and security and assisting the Government of Lebanon in ensuring the return of its effective authority in the area, the Force to be composed of personnel drawn from Member States;

But don't fret.

It'll all work out just fine THIS time.