The Lebanese War-Looking Back

There are three major differences between the Lebanese War and previous Israeli wars (with the possible exception of the Sinai campaign of 1956). The first is that the Lebanese War didn’t focus on the interstate conflict between Israel and the Arab countries. It was a kind of revival of the old pre-statehood, intercommunal conflict between Israelis and Palestinians—the conflict over what Israelis call “the Land of Israel.”

Ben Gurion’s main contribution to Isr...