Two Lebanon's
The “Good” Wars?
Justifications?
• Israel perceived itself to be reacting to major changes
in its external environment and thus to have had
important, arguably overwhelming, strategic reasons
for responding as it did. Nevertheless, the three cases
were not situations of immediate and overwhelming
compellence, such as the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
• Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon and the war in 2006
have been extensively chronicled.
• The reports of the Winograd Commission (2007 and 2008) provide unparalleled insight into the DMP
during the 2006 war. Biographies of major figures such as Begin and Sharon help understand the
Lebanese invasion of 1982.
Invasion 1982
• Israel’s invasion of Lebanon on June 5, 1982 was directed against
two distinct enemies, Syria and the PLO, and the strategic
rationale for attacking each differed.
• Syria had long been Israel’s most implacable enemy, and with the
Israeli– Egyptian peace treaty of 1979, it now succeeded Egypt as
the primary one as well.
• Lebanon, conversely, was the only one of Israel’s neighbors that
had refrained from initiating hostilities against it ever since 1949.
• Preservation of this heretofore peaceful border, now challenged by
both the growing Syrian and PLO roles in Lebanon, constituted a
fundamental strategic objective for Israel.
Motives, 1982
• For Prime Minister Begin, the invasion was designed to lead
to the PLO’s expulsion from Lebanon and to its destruction.
Thus enabling Israel to dictate the terms both of a
settlement there and of the Palestinian issue.
• At the very least, stall the momentum of Palestinian
nationalism and greatly diminish the possibility that the
West Bank might ever be severed from Israel.
• Ariel Sharon sought a fundamental solution to the Lebanese
problem, including destruction of the PLO and withdrawal of
Syrian forces, which he believed would pave the way for a
Lebanese government willing to make peace with Israel.
Invasion 1982
• The Syrian and PLO threats were perceived by Israel as
constituting severe changes in its environment that
required commensurate responses.
• In acting in Lebanon, Israel’s motivations were initially
clearly reactive, but by the time of the invasion, a year
had passed since the deployment of the Syrian missiles
and PLO shelling.
• As such, the invasion was a case of Israel taking the
initiative to shape its environment and attain objectives
exceeding those militated by immediate circumstances
DMP, 1982
• The cabinet’s rejection of the “big invasion plan” in December 1981, as well
as five scaled-down versions over the following months, led to Sharon’s
decision, in cooperation with Begin, to adopt a more circuitous approach.
Instead of requesting cabinet approval for the full-scale invasion, Sharon
now sought and received approval for a limited operation, which he then
used to lead the cabinet in piecemeal fashion in the desired direction.
• The invasion was the product of extensive planning in the defense
establishment and reflected an overall, if controversial, strategic construct,
largely shared by Begin and Sharon.
• A number of basic “unknowables,” however, such as whether the
Phalangists would indeed live up to their role, turned the DMP into an
incremental one, while the need to obtain cabinet approval in piecemeal
fashion ultimately made it sequential and even improvisational.
War 2006
• On July 12, 2006, two IDF soldiers were
kidnapped and eight killed in a Hizbollah border
attack.
• The resulting war would turn out to be Israel’s
longest since 1948, putting an end to the sixyear
period of relative quiet along the Lebanese
border.
Prelude to War 2006
• Having completely withdrawn from Lebanon to its international border in 2000, with UN
confirmation, Israel maintained that no further justification existed for conflict with Hizbollah. But, as
a deterrent to Hizbollah, it adopted a declared retaliatory policy stating that it would respond
massively to any future attacks.
• With the outbreak of the Second Intifada in September 2000, however, Israel found that it could not
effectively wage two wars at the same time, diplomatically or militarily, and chose to give priority to
the Palestinian front.
• In October 2000 it refrained from retaliating to Hizbollah’s first major attack in the post-withdrawal
period, setting a pattern that continued throughout the following years, despite periodic shelling of
the north, repeated attempts to kidnap Israeli soldiers, and other painful, but low-level, attacks.
• Israel found itself in a bind. The small number of casualties did not provide clear justification for a
major response, particularly given its preoccupation with the Palestinian front. Conversely, it was
clear to Israel’s decision makers that the relative calm on the Lebanese border would not last long
and that Hizbollah would ultimately initiate a major escalation, or force Israel to do so.
• Moreover, Hizbollah was making use of the passing time to build up a massive rocket arsenal—from
7,000 at the time of the withdrawal to over 13,000 by 2006.
Prelude
• Following the withdrawal from Gaza in August 2005, Hamas
and other Palestinian organizations fired over a thousand
rockets into southern Israel. Moreover, in late June 2006, two
Israeli soldiers were killed on the Gaza border and one
abducted (Gilad Shalit).
• As with the withdrawal from Lebanon, both Israel’s public and
decision makers were increasingly becoming convinced that
even a complete Israeli withdrawal from Arab territory, albeit a
unilateral one, had only diminished its security.
• Israel’s deterrent image was crumbling and its leaders
increasingly felt that something had to be done.
External factor
• In a broader context, Israel’s leaders viewed Hizbollah
as part of the far greater confrontation with Iran.
• Israel assumed that the massive rocket arsenal Iran
provided Hizbollah was intended primarily as a
deterrent—to threaten Israel with severe punishment in
the event that it attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities.
• A strategic threat to Israel in its own right, Hizbollah
was thus part of a much greater, in this case
potentially existential, one.
Motives, 2006
• Formally, the cabinet merely authorized a “strong” strike against Hizbullah on July
12, 2006. Most of the ministers agreed that they had only approved a limited
operation, but beyond that there were substantial differences.
• The objectives, according to Prime Minister Olmert, were as follows
• changing the strategic situation in southern Lebanon;
• pushing Hizbullah from the border and deterring further attempts to abduct
soldiers;
• strengthening Israel’s general deterrence; and
• engendering a diplomatic process that would lead to international
• intervention and to the full implementation of Security Council Resolution
1559.24
DMP, 2006
• From the beginning, the 2006 war was explicitly designed as a “rolling,” i.e., sequential,
operation. Olmert and Peretz knew that the operation might have to be expanded significantly,
though they hoped that this would not prove necessary.
• IDF planning explicitly called for a suspension of operations on day five to assess the situation
and decide if and how to proceed.
• For CoS Dan Halutz, the war’s length and scope were flexible variables to be determined by
two factors: one military—Hizbollah’s responses to IDF operations, especially its counterattacks
on July 12 and 13—and the other, political—the cabinet’s willingness to continue
approving further operations.
• He accounted that the operation might end within days if Hizbollah exercised restraint, but
the planning he presented to the cabinet on July 12 was based on the assumption of four to
six weeks of fighting.
• The Winograd Commission found that the fear of casualties and of a prolonged guerrilla war
were among the primary factors contributing to the sequential nature of the DMP.
• The DMP was found to have been essentially sequential in nature.
DMP, 2006
• On August 1, after nearly three weeks of fighting, the IDF now requested approval to
conquer a six-kilometer zone along the border, in effect to reestablish the zone Israel
had left six years earlier.
• On August 5, Halutz again pushed strongly for a major ground operation, but Olmert
and Peretz remained opposed.
• On August 9, with the Security Council cease fire resolution looming, the cabinet
finally approved a major operation, but even then only “in principle,” with Olmert and
Peretz authorized to decide when (and thus if) to launch it.
• Olmert vacillated for two days and only on August 11, with the cease re hours away,
finally ordered the IDF into action, but with instructions to be ready to stop virtually
immediately. Combat was apparently planned to last five days; the cabinet, however,
approved only three.
• In reality, the operation ended a little after one day, once the cease re had come
into effect.
DMP Outcomes
• During the half-year preceding the 1982 invasion, the cabinet discussed the situation
in Lebanon repeatedly and met daily during the early weeks of the fighting.
• Unlike most major military operations in Israeli history, the cabinet plenum, not the
MCoD or some other sub-cabinet forum, was the formal locus of decision making.
• The real decision making, however, was done elsewhere. AKA: Begin and Sharon
• Paradoxically, it was the cabinet’s firm opposition to the “big plan” in December 1981
that led to its circumvention.
• For Begin, the cabinet became an obstacle to be overcome; for Sharon, it was an
adversary to be defeated through selective and slanted reporting.
• From the beginning in 2006, Olmert decided that in-depth discussions of Israel’s
wartime objectives and options would not be held in the leak-prone cabinet plenum.
Instead, substantive discussion of policy and wartime developments would be held in
the MCoD, with actual operational matters to be further restricted to a specially
constituted and discrete “Forum of Eight.” Thus, the cabinet was by design not the
true locus of decision making.
Highly-political DMP
• Partisan politics were minimal in the cabinet throughout the invasion DMP. Following the
rejection of the “big plan” in December 1981, however, cabinet meetings came to be all
about coalition politics, not policy, with Begin and Sharon seeking to build the minimum
majority necessary to obtain approval for almost any invasion.
• A process of political give-and-take, of compromise and deception, became the order of
the day.
• The ministers’ opposition was substantive, not partisan.
• The 2006 Second Lebanon War was not politically divisive and both party and coalition
politics were of little significance. By rapidly taking decisive action and then further
expanding the operation, Olmert defused opposition from the right.
• Given the events preceding the war, including the perceived failure of the unilateral
withdrawal from Gaza as well as the kidnappings on both the Gaza and Lebanese
borders, the left supported the war too. Indeed, with dovish Labor Party leader Peretz
serving as defense minister, opposition from the left could have only come from the fringe.
Highly political DMP
• Partisan politics were thus not an issue in the cases
studied. Significant differences did exist within the
cabinet in 1982, but they were substantive, not
partisan.
• In 2006 they were again substantive, not political.
• Public opinion, conversely, played a significant role
in all three cases, contributing to the decisions to
expand the fighting in 1982 and 2006.
Results
• Groupthink
• rational choice (individual) not a factor
• Failure to incorporate strategic lessons "its national security
decision-making process” in 2006, Israel repeated the
mistakes of 1982 in the Second Lebanon War by
establishing political goals that its military means were
unable to fulfill.
• The result in both cases was the failure of the IDF to achieve
the policy goals, a diminution of the deterrent value of the
IDF, and a loss of faith in Israel's civilian government.
Sources
• Itamar Rabinovich, The War for Lebanon (Ithaca, 1984), p. 122.
• Ze’ev Schiff, “The Green Light,” Foreign Policy, No. 50 (Spring, 1983), 73–85;
• Ariel Sharon, Warrior: An Autobiography (New York, 1989), p. 430, 433.
• Amos Perlmutter, The Life and Times of Menachem Begin (New York, 1987), pp. 375,
383.
• Winograd Commission Final Report, pp. 89, 92; Shelah and Limor, op. cit., p. 177;
• Matt M. Mathews, We Were Caught Unprepared: The 2006 Hizbullah–Israeli War
• Chuck Freilich, “National Security Decision-Making in Israel: Processes, Pathologies
and Strengths,” Middle East Journal, LX : 4 (Autumn 2006), 635–663.
• Haaretz: 1982-85; 2006