Lessons of the First Lebanon War

Some 33 years have passed since that Saturday in early June 1982 on which tens of thousands of reservists were called up and sent north, starting a new chapter in Israel's history.

I was a teenager at the time and I wholeheartedly believed in the justice of our cause in Operation Peace for Galilee, now known as the First Lebanon War. This war was among the most just Israel has fought. The enemy back then was Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat, who was responsible for the murder of innocent women and children and the firing of Katyusha rockets into northern Israel.

A little less than a year before the war, in July 1981, the Americans imposed a cease-fire that brought calm to the northern border. Nevertheless, Israel developed plans to deal with the terrorists on the other side of the border in Lebanon and the unsuccessful attempt by the Abu Nidal Organization to assassinate then-Israeli Ambassador to the U.K. Shlomo Argov on June 3, 1982 in London was the trigger that led to those plans being implemented.

The war began as a limited operation based on plan called Oranim A. But it quickly transformed into Oranim B. In the short term, the operation in Lebanon achieved its goals -- the expulsion of the PLO from Lebanon to Tunisia, the destruction of PLO infrastructure in Lebanon and the delivery of a harsh blow to the Syrian military, particularly the Syrian Air Force, which was almost completely destroyed.

But in the long term, the war in Lebanon produced endless problems and had consequences which, in my opinion, were no less serious than those of the Yom Kippur War in 1973. The Yom Kippur War, at the start of which Israel was caught by surprise, ended when Egypt surrendered. Eventually, Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel, which has essentially turned into a nonaggression pact. A state of nonaggression with Syria has also held in the Golan Heights for the past 42 years. In stark contrast, however, the expulsion of the PLO from Lebanon only created new enemies for us and led the Palestinians, quicker than we could have imagined, to Ramallah and Gaza, where, under the guise of the "Oslo Accords," the Second Intifada, which cost the lives of more than 1,000 Israelis, was brewed.

In Lebanon, a new entity emerged -- Hezbollah, supported by Iran and Syria -- which was no less of an enemy than the PLO was. The First Lebanon War caused serious cracks in the IDF's deterrence, as terrorist groups viewed the IDF's withdrawal from Beirut and later southern Lebanon as great victories, similar to how they perceived the disengagement from Gaza in 2005. This battered deterrence led to Operation Grapes of Wrath in 1996 and the Second Lebanon War in 2006, as well as the three major operations in Gaza since the disengagement.

Also, the First Lebanon War gave rise to dubious prisoner exchanges, turning the kidnapping of IDF soldiers into a top priority for terrorist groups. In the Jibril Agreement, a prisoner exchange deal reached 30 years ago last month, Israel released 1,150 terrorists in return for three soldiers. This terrorists returned to Judea and Samaria and helped build the infrastructure for the First Intifada, which broke out in 1987.

One of the lessons of the First Lebanon War is that things must be kept in proportion. Even those who believe in the biblical verse, "My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth," must remain focused on protecting the lives of Israeli citizens and defending the borders of our country, rather than setting a new regional order and imposing an artificial reality.

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