Arafat and acting on Iraqi instructions fired a bul-
let into Argov’s head, inflicting critical wounds
that left him paralysed. On 4 June, Israeli planes
struck at PLO targets in the Lebanon. The PLO
responded by shelling Israeli kibbutzim in Galilee.
The truce was broken. On the 6th, the Israeli
Defence Force began its operation in Lebanon.
But instead of confining themselves to the south-
ern Lebanon, as the watching world expected, they
knocked out the Syrian Soviet missiles in the Bekaa
Valley on 9 June and advanced four days later all
the way to the outskirts of West Beirut, where the
PLO had established their strongholds.
In the eyes of the world – and in the face of
growing opposition at home, as the Labour Party
strongly condemned the extension of the war to
Beirut – the Israelis were now playing an entirely
new role. No longer heroically defending their
homeland, the Israeli army and air force seemed to
be indiscriminately (though this was actually not
so) shelling the districts of West Beirut; half of the
city remained under siege for more than a month.
This was Sharon’s war, the culmination of his
grand design, though neither Begin nor the Israeli
Cabinet were fully aware of his plans. On 21
August the PLO’s fighting force, loyal to Yasser
Arafat, began leaving Beirut by sea under the
protection of a multinational force, having accept-
ed Israel’s terms of surrender. Nearly 15,000
Palestinians and Syrians were evacuated during the
next few days by sea and land. But neither the
Syrians nor the PLO were crushed or even cowed;
they would fight back another day. Sharon’s grand
design had not succeeded; rather, it had severely
damaged Israel’s international reputation and its
people’s confidence in democratic government.
Nor could a stable Christian Maronite Lebanon
be reconstructed as a friendly neighbour. In mid-
September the Lebanon’s president-elect, the
Christian Maronite Bashir Gemayel, was assassi-
nated on the orders of Syrian intelligence. The
Lebanon was lapsing into chaos as warring fac-
tions fought each other once again.
The evacuation agreement reached with the
PLO contained an important clause stipulating
that law-abiding, non-combatant Palestinians
who had remained in West Beirut and the south-
ern Lebanon would be guaranteed protection. In
the massacre that ensued in two Palestinian
refugee camps, Sabra and Shatila, Israel’s reputa-
tion suffered the most ignominious blow. The
sadistic killings were a savage revenge for Bashir’s
assassination, but the Phalangist Christians who
committed the atrocity and who hated the
Palestinians, had determined on a massacre long
before. The Israeli commanders had sent them
into the camps to clear out any remaining terror-
ists, little imagining they would also turn on
whole families, including defenceless women and
children. They should have known better. The
bodies, bloated by the sun, were shown to the
world on television. Israel was blamed for the
hundreds of dead. At a subsequent inquiry in
Israel in 1983, Sharon was judged primarily
responsible and his dismissal as minister of
defence was urged. It is to Begin’s discredit that
though Sharon had to quit the defence post he
remained a minister in Begin’s and successive
governments. Massive ‘Peace Now’ rallies in
Israel and mounting Israeli casualties among the
forces occupying parts of the Lebanon finally per-
suaded the government to order their withdrawal.
The Lebanon war had been a disaster for Israel.
It achieved fundamentally nothing. The Lebanon
remained torn between rival Muslim Iranian and
Iraqi factions, the Druse and right-wing Phalangist
Christians. Central government was nearly power-
less and was dominated by Syria. Killings contin-
ued daily in the city, divided between Muslim West
Beirut and Christian East Beirut by the so-called
Green Line, until the Christian Forces agreed to
withdraw in November 1990. The West learnt that
it can achieve nothing, by force or by diplomacy,
to bring peace to the Lebanon, even though rival
Muslim groups held Western hostages. And the
Syrians, still controlling parts of the country, were
stuck in the quagmire of conflict. The Syrians did
not withdraw as promised, but after 1990, under
Asad’s watchful gaze, Lebanon rediscovered a
fragile peace.
Begin accepted the consequences of his failure and,
haunted by the many Israeli casualties, resigned in
September 1983, to be replaced by another Likud
hardliner, Yitzhak Shamir. The election of 1984
ended in a stalemate, with the religious parties
1
CONTINUING TURMOIL AND THE WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST 909
