Reply #10: Fair enough [View All]

[tinnypriv]

True they stopped actions along the Lebanon/Israeli border, but they did step up their operations from Jordan and Europe.

Putting aside the fact that this first point is correct, you claim elsewhere that the border confrontations can be equally blamed on Israel and the PLO.

Obviously the fact that they "stopped actions" is the truth, and the other position is contradictory, so you'd be advised to withdraw one of them.

As for "operations from Jordan and Europe", true, but not even the Reagan adminstration subscribed to the position that any of them should have a bearing on Israeli interactions with Lebanon, nor should they be a justification for breaking the cease-fire.

That was a sensible position, since the Palestinians also (legitimately) claimed that Israel had not stopped terror and repression in the occupied territories, from their "base" (Israel).

If Israeli operations in Judea do not justify PLO "reprisals" against Tiberas, Jaffa or Tel-Aviv, in violation of the cease-fire, neither do PLO operations in Europe justify "reprisals" against Sabra, Jibshit or Rashidiyeh.

As for the Palestinians, they were indeed in Lebanon not by their choice.

Which is a mild way of putting it.

However, militant groups such as the PLO did take advantage of the political vacuum of the Lebanese Civil War in order to establish their own domains. The PLO were far from a positive influence in Lebanon often bullying the indigenous groups, so much so that both Shia and Christian groups welcomed the IDF when Operation Galilee started.

Nobody claims the PLO were a "positive infulence" (certainly not me), but the "bullying" was mild in comparison to the treatment meeted out by the Israeli allies (as hawkish Israelis who investigated discovered), and the "welcome" was circumscribed and cautious in the Lebanese quarters you mention (can go into detail but would prefer to leave that complex topic aside).

In any case, I see no reason for you to use the "Operation (Peace For) Galilee" term to refer to the invasion - that's straight out of 1984 - do you refer to the invasion of Iraq as "Operation Iraqi Freedom"?

No, I'm not saying the IDF were liberators as they took out their own agenda against the local population and the Palestinian refugees. It is just a matter that both sides were culpable

So, the IDF "took out their own agenda" (in another country) "against" the Lebanese and the refugees they expelled, and "both sides" are to blame for the outcome?

By that reasoning, there could have been no complaint if a PLO army had "took out their own agenda" against the Jewish population, expelling them to say, Egypt, and thereafter organising and arming a mercenary force to continue to harass them long afterwards, finally invading Egpyt (after massive bombing) to destroy whatever organisations they might have constructed from the rubble of their lives, whilst also attacking virtually every Egyptian outside of right-wing elements.

The blame for whatever destruction is wrought is therefore equally shared between the Jewish victims and the Arab aggressors?