Israel’s history of aggression against Lebanon

Israel’s latest murderous assault on Lebanon is part of a recurring pattern of imperialist aggression. Israel has invaded Lebanon three times previously—in 1978, 1982 and 2006. On each occasion, Israel inflicted horrific death and misery as well as destroying vital infrastructure and forcing thousands of people from their homes.

The three previous invasions are, however, only part of the story of Israel’s concerted aggression against the Lebanese people. For well over 50 years, there have been repeated Israeli air raids, sabotage operations, naval attacks, border raids and the funding of the military operations of Lebanese fascist forces. And for many years, Israel maintained an occupation of south Lebanon.

After the defeat of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Jordan in 1971, Lebanon became the main centre of the Palestinian resistance to the Zionist occupation. To counter the Palestinian forces, Israel attacked Lebanon more than 6,200 times between 1968 and 1975.

As a consequence of the Israeli aerial attacks, some of the Palestinian refugee camps in southern Lebanon were totally levelled. By October 1977, about 300,000 refugees—mainly Lebanese Shia Muslims—had fled southern Lebanon.

These attacks provoked mass popular opposition amongst workers and the poor in Lebanon. After the Israelis assassinated three Palestinian leaders in Beirut in 1973, 250,000 demonstrators, roughly a tenth of the population of Lebanon, marched in protest. The Lebanese army, however, refused to lift a finger to fight Israel and instead tried to crush the resistance.

The ongoing raids into south Lebanon radicalised the predominantly Shiite population of the south and led to the rapid growth of the Lebanese Communist Party, the Organization of Communist Action and other socialist groups. These groups organised armed militias to repel Israeli attacks.

Israel in turn armed and trained fascist militias in Lebanon. The largest militia, the Kataeb or Phalange, had been directly inspired by General Franco’s Spanish fascists of the 1930s.

In March 1978, Israel invaded southern Lebanon up to the Litani River in an attempt to crush the PLO’s guerrilla forces. The Israel Defence Force unleashed cluster bombs provided by the United States against the civilian population, killing between 1,100 and 2,000 Lebanese and Palestinians and forcing 100,000 to 250,000 to flee as refugees.

Israel installed their far-right ally, the South Lebanon Army militia, to preside over Lebanese territory south of the Litani River. During its long years of military rule, the South Lebanon Army, which was cohered, armed and trained by Israel, became notorious for its sheer brutality. In 1985, it set up the Khiam detention centre, where torture was carried out on a large scale against its popular opponents.

In 1982, Israel invaded again. This time, Israeli troops advanced all the way to the Lebanese capital Beirut. They laid siege to the city for nearly two months to starve the population into submission. They then unleashed their fascist Lebanese allies to carry out a horrific massacre of the population of the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila.

In some areas of southern Lebanon, the Islamist organisation Amal was able to mobilise sections of the Shiite population against the Palestinians and the left, who they blamed for the devastation wreaked by Israel. Amal aped the fascist Phalange with its own massacres of Palestinians. Nonetheless, over the next few years a concerted struggle by left-wing and Arab nationalist forces managed to drive the Israelis out of all but a small strip of southern Lebanon.

By 2006, Hezbollah had established itself as a powerful force in Lebanon, both politically and militarily. So Israel again invaded, determined to take out Hezbollah and thus severely weaken the strategic position of Hezbollah’s ally Iran.

As is invariably the case, Israel was backed by the US, which vetoed a UN ceasefire resolution. Initially, most of the surrounding Sunni Arab states were happy to see Israel take on their regional rival.

But this time the Israeli steamroller was stopped in its tracks as Hezbollah was able to galvanise widespread popular support from outside its core Shia communal base. After 33 days of intense fighting, the Israel Defence Force was forced to retreat with its tail between its legs.

Israel has long held plans for another assault on Hezbollah to make amends for its defeat in 2006. Israel’s public justification this time is that it is simply responding to rocket attacks by Hezbollah, a listed terrorist organisation.

But the Israeli state and, notoriously, its security apparatus Mossad have long been among the most proficient and blatant exponents of terrorism—car bombings, individual assassinations, poisonings and sabotage operations—all around the world. The recent coordinated Israeli attack on pagers and walkie-talkies is just their latest terrorist atrocity.

Yet again Israel’s war drive is backed by the US and other Western powers such as Australia. The US administration doesn’t relish the prospect of a war with Iran, which Israel’s assault on Hezbollah opens up. Nonetheless, the US continues to pour in the weaponry that Israel vitally depends on to carry out its assault on Lebanon and is sending more warships and troops to the Middle East to back Israel. Why?

Because whatever its “excesses”, Israel is a key strategic force defending the interests of US imperialism in the Middle East. With its enormous oil wealth and its strategic location, including the vital international trade route the Suez Canal, the region is of vital importance to world capitalism.

Consequently, the US establishment, including both major political parties, continues to provide the political support and the enormous military hardware necessary for Israel to wage its repeated wars and to carry out its genocide in Gaza.

The liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz summed up the relation of Israel to Western imperialism as early as September 1951: “Israel has been given a role not unlike that of a watchdog ... Should the West prefer for one reason or another to close its eyes it can rely on Israel punishing severely those of the neighbouring states whose lack of manners towards the West has exceeded the proper limits”.

Indeed, most of Israel’s innumerable wars have been waged, not against the Palestinians, but against the neighbouring Arab states. As far back as 1956, Israel made clear its role as a protector of Western imperialist interests by joining the old imperial powers of France and Britain in a war on Egypt. The war was in response to the nationalisation of the Suez Canal by Egypt’s new nationalist government led by Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Since then, Israel has waged war after war against the surrounding Arab states. It was Israel’s lightning military victory in 1967 over Egypt, Syria and Jordan that really demonstrated Israel’s worth to the US as a power in the region.

In the wake of the 1967 war, the US began to throw its full weight behind Israel with much greater political, financial and military support. It became the key defender of Western imperialist interests in a volatile region. Israel’s latest war is no exception to this pattern.

There has been much hypocritical hand-wringing in the West, including by the Albanese government, over the devastation being inflicted on Lebanon. But the Western leaders’ calls for a ceasefire and “restraint” by Israel are nothing more than a show.

The rich and powerful in the US, Britain and Australia know on which side their bread is buttered. A victory for Israel very much serves their rapacious capitalist interests. We must stridently oppose this war.