Israel’s Lebanon War – by Ze’ev Schiff and Ehud Ya’ari(Counterpoint) Actieprijs

Beschrijving

Israel’s Lebanon War (1975-1990)

The Lebanese civil war is one of the most complicated conflicts of the modern era. Then take into account Israel’s invasion, occupation, PLO retreat, Syrian, Iranian, US and French involvement and you have a quagmire or sifting loyalties, death, destruction, retreats and military disasters with long term repercussions.

This book does a great job at explaining the situation as it was in 1982. Sharon’s belief in striking a major blow at an elusive enemy growing stronger by the day in a foreign country, his deceptive military plan and the establishments trust in a war hero to do what he will.

The book also chronicles the sifting loyalties between Sunni, Shite, Druze, PLO, Christian and Syrian players and correctly depicts the ruling Christian Phalange party as a mafia organization that Israel wrongly placed its trust in.

Ariel Sharon is roasted in this book and for good reason, (his deceptive military plans about how far he would go in Lebanon. The catalyst for invasion based on terror attack by Abu Nidal and NOT the PLO), but his actions must be looked at in a wider context. The PLO, like it did in Jordan in late 1960’s, was an independent military force operating in a sovereign country. Cross border strikes into Israel left many citizens and IDF members frustrated as these guerrillas would disappear back over the Lebanese border. Like many established military plans throughout 20th century, Sharon wanted one last strike at the PLO to crush its stronghold in Lebanon. Can not blame him for that, however, the complications other military entities found themselves in (USSR in Afghanistan, French in Indochina, Algeria, US in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan), were not thought out by Sharon or others as Israel does not have a large enough military to occupy large territory. The result? A long costly occupation that later led to the 2006 war.

This is a great book that explains a complicated mess to begin with!

For further NOTES See also the BACK of the book!