Lebanon: Gateway to Peace in the Middle East?

Abstract

Overloaded by internal conflicts and buffeted by the strong winds of outside interference, the Lebanese political system collapsed during the 1975-6 civil war. Between 1975 and 1982 Lebanon was the scene of the worst political and religious conflicts in its history and the stage for continuing confrontations among the various regional and international forces which fought each other directly, or through their surrogates, on Lebanese territory. In June of 1982, Israel unleashed its long-awaited attack against southern Lebanon. Its objectives were to establish a security zone for its northern towns and cities, to break the military backbone of the Palestinian resistance movement, and to eliminate the Palestine Liberation Organization (plo) as a political force. In this article, we propose to analyse the causes of the collapse of the Lebanese political system, the links that the domestic forces which came to prominence after 1975 established with external actors, and, finally, the objectives and consequences of the Israeli invasion of 1982. We will consider whether this invasion was a turning point in the history of Lebanon and in the continuing Arab-Israeli conflict, and whether as a consequence of the Israeli invasion, Lebanon will recover to become the gateway to peace in the Middle East.