“Peace for Galilee” or the Making of a New Insurgency

Abstract

On June 3, 1982, Israeli Ambassador to London Shlomo Argov was seriously injured in an attack perpetrated by the Palestinian Abu Nidal group. The Menachem Begin government thus decided to embark on Operation Peace for Galilee, the largest operation ever launched against the PLO in Lebanon. The IDF deployed virtually all of its regular forces, some 1,500 tanks and its entire air force and navy. Operation Peace for Galilee is worth examining in depth. It proved to have serious negative repercussions for Israeli security, the army’s deterrence capability, and the country’s image on the international scene. On the military level, it provides a counterexample of how to combat terrorism. The “strongest army in the Middle East” ventured into the operation in total disregard for the pitfalls of counterinsurgency warfare in order to satisfy a highly debatable political objective that was criticized at the time by several generals in the military establishment and the political elite. It is without a doubt the most serious error committed by Israeli strategists in their fight against terror.