On June 6, 1982, Israel rolled its armour across the Lebanese frontier in a concerted drive to destroy the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) based in Lebanon. The spark that ignited the conflagration was the attempted assassination of the Israeli ambassador to Great Britain on June 3, but the military campaign, called "Operation Peace for Galilee", was a long time in planning and had been threatened on several previous occasions.
Ever since the PLO was forced out of Jordan in 1970, Lebanon had become its main base of operations against Israel. The PLO had played a major role in the Lebanese Civil War which erupted in 1975, and although prevented by Syria from crushing the Lebanese Phalange, the guerrillas had seized a number of Lebanon's cities, towns and villages and established an elaborate headquarters in West Beirut. From their position in the south, the PLO could train their guns and rockets on villages in northern Israel. Terrorist infiltration of Israel by land and sea from these bases was also a constant source of difficulty for the Israelis.
Initially, the Israeli advance was described as limited. Its stated objective was the removal of PLO contingents in a 25 to 30 mile zone in southern Lebanon. The Israelis swept past the UN peacekeeping force and attacked the PLO-controlled coastal cities of Tyre and Sidon, as well as the inland fortifications at Beaufort Castle, Nabatiyah and Hesbeya. With their superior military strength, the Israelis quickly overran these bases, but instead of pausing, they continued their strike north through Damour and Khalde, to Beirut itself.
Other Israeli columns pushed through Lebanon's central region, eventually flanking the Bekka Valley on one side and cutting the Beirut to Damascus Highway on the other. Israeli units moved into East Beirut, controlled by the Christian Phalange, and were greeted as liberators.
From the middle of June through the summer months, the war settled into a quasi-military, quasi-political stand-off. The mainline forces of the PLO, estimated at between 6,000 and 12,000 men, were secreted in a maze of underground tunnels and artillery positions around West Beirut. The Israeli completely ringed the area, controlling the sea as well as land approaches to and from West Beirut. Overhead, the Israeli air force was virtually unopposed. The Israelis declared that their objective was the "expulsion" of the PLO from Beirut and Lebanon to other countries. If the PLO refused to leave West Beirut, the Israelis were prepared to force them out.
West Beirut was inhabited by several hundred thousand people, and the Israeli shelling and bombing took a heavy toll of life and property. The plight of the innocent victims of the war was televised throughout the world on a daily basis, and with every picture of the maimed and the dead, the rubble and the decay, Israel lost what little moral support it still retained at the outset of the fighting.
The war was fought on two fronts - military and political/diplomatic. Israel won the military engagement, but the PLO was the clear victor in the political/diplomatic contest. Israel purchased short-term security, but it was placed under great pressure to satisfy the Palestinian demand for a national home. Israeli-American relations were severely strained by the conflict, and the U.S. government felt compelled to emphasise its ties to the Arab world while reducing its commitment to Israel.
