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For more than a year, Israel, goaded by the bombardment of her northern settlements by Palestinian gunners from fortified sanctuaries in southern Lebanon and by terrorist attacks on her citizens at home and abroad, had wanted to send her forces into Lebanon and destroy the Palestine Liberation Organization (P.L.O.). On June 6, 1982, despite the strongest possible warnings by the U.S., Israel launched her offensive at last.
Dangerous and tragic though this turn of events was, it provided a historic opportunity to deal with the problem of Lebanon by removing the causes of a national crisis that had long threatened to be mortal. The primary obstacle to peace in Lebanon had been the presence of two foreign armies—the Syrian "peacekeeping" force and the military arms of the P.L.O.—each in its own right stronger than the Lebanese army. This de facto occupation had stripped the central government of its authority and created the conditions for strife among the religious and ethnic communities of Lebanon. The Israeli invasion added a third foreign army and, in the worst case, threatened to create, in southern Lebanon, a new zone of occupation.
But Israel's military incursion also created circumstances in which it was possible, during the fleeting moments in which the former equation of power had been overturned, to remove all foreign troops from Lebanon and restore the powers of government to the Lebanese.
In the final hours of my incumbency as Secretary of State, even after my resignation, this opportunity was seized. Peace was within our grasp. Then, in a series of miscalculations that divided American diplomacy and dissipated American influence, peace was thrown away. The situation we now face in Lebanon is the result.
How did this happen and why? In January 1982, President Reagan had written to Menachem Begin, urging restraint in Israel's support for the Lebanese Christian Phalange in its bitter struggle against Syria. In his lawyerly fashion, Begin sought to redefine the conditions under which the U.S. would consider an Israeli attack justified. Pointedly, I repeated my formula: only in strictly proportional response to "an internationally recognized provocation." Begin agreed, then changed his mind, and in one of his exercises in creative nuance, told Reagan Israel would take no major action "unless attacked in clear provocation."
There had been a cessation of hostilities between the P.L.O. and Israel under an agreement brokered by our special Middle East envoy, Philip Habib, and Saudi Arabia. Begin interpreted the cessation of hostilities as universal and regarded any terrorist attack anywhere in the world, as well as the violation of any Israeli frontier, as a breach of the agreement meriting retaliation.
In late January, Israeli forces captured a team of six heavily armed terrorists who had infiltrated from Lebanon through Jordan. Word reached me that Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon had recommended heavy attacks on P.L.O. bases in retaliation, followed by an invasion if the P.L.O. escalated in reaction.
We had