THE IMPERATIVE OF REMOVING HAMAS FROM GAZA - In the Peace for Galilee campaign Israel forced the expulsion of the PLO from Lebanon.

By: Joseph Puder

Friday, August 16, 2024 

In the summer of 1982, following the attempted assassination of Shlomo Argov, Israel’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, Israel launched Operation Peace for Galilee, also known as the First Lebanon War.  In so doing, Israel reacted to the continual Katyusha rocket fire being lobbed into northern Israel that disrupted the lives of its citizens for many years.  At the time, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) led by Yasser Arafat, broke every cease-fire arranged by Philip Habib, a senior State Department diplomat, sent to the region by the Reagan administration. 

Following Hamas’ ascendancy to power in Gaza in 2007 and, in the aftermath of broken cease-fire agreements with more than 20,000 rockets filling the skies of southern Israel, and, on the heels of Hamas’ October 7, 2023, brutal massacre of 1200 Israelis and kidnapping of 250 taken to the Gaza Strip as hostages, Israel embarked upon Operation Swords of Iron. 

There are other parallels between these historic events. In the summer of 1982, Israel’s Labor party and its leftist supporters organized massive demonstrations in Israel, while the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were fighting in Lebanon. Prior to October 7, the political left in Israel had organized wide-spread demonstrations in opposition of judicial reform except their aim was to bring down the Netanyahu government. Then, in the last nine months the same people protested allegedly, in support of the Israeli hostages, but called for immediate elections. In 1982 and now, Yahya Sinwar like Arafat before him, carefully monitored the Israeli domestic situation, and their positions hardened while counting on the demonstrators to pressure the Israeli government to make unacceptable concessions to the Hamas terrorists.

In 1982, the demonstrations in Israel were against the siege of Beirut – action that forced the PLO’s expulsion from Lebanon. The demonstrations, however, caused delay in the evacuation of the PLO terrorist and encouraged the Reagan administration to put pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Menahem Begin.  Arafat then, and Sinwar today, have capitalized on the pressure placed on Israel by foreign actors, and especially allies, like the US.  Both Arafat and Sinwar were able to delay their inevitable demise by the inadvertent support they received from the US, the Europeans, and Israeli leftist demonstrators.

The irony is the IDF soldiers, both draftees and reservists, want to finish the job of destroying the Hamas terrorist infrastructure in the Gaza Strip. Their common sense tells them that if Hamas operatives remain in Gaza, they will once again be armed and funded by Iran, and other enemies of the Jewish state. Moreover, the deaths of those soldiers killed in this operation would have been in vain and, perhaps their children would have to go to war again.

Operation Peace for Galilee was Initially supported by the Israeli public. The provocative terror that had been coming from “Fatahland,” in southern Lebanon, constituted a “state within a state” and was, to a large extent, responsible for the civil war in Lebanon. Palestinian terror from Lebanon was waged with impunity. With no one in Lebanon to prevent the cross border Palestinian terror, Israel was compelled to act.  While some had labeled the Peace for Galilee Operation as an “unnecessary war,” it did give Israel a respite from Palestinian terror for several years.  And, it had the potential of fostering peace between Israel and Lebanon. Regrettably, the assassination of President-elect Bashir Gemayel, by the Syrians, ended that chance. 

Operation Swords of Iron was certainly a defensive war that united the entirety of the Israeli public. And while arrogance and complacency of the IDF top echelon was to blame for the horrible debacle that occurred on that awful Saturday of October 7, the horrific cruelty of the Hamas (Nukhba) terrorists made the war against Hamas unavoidable.

Hamas is not only a cruel terrorist organization that seeks to murder Jews and eradicate the Jewish state, but also widely understood in Israel that there can be no accommodation with an entity whose religious “obligation” is to wage jihad against the Jewish State of Israel. Hamas leaders have made it clear that if they should survive this current war, they would instigate endless October 7’s.  "We will repeat the October 7 attack time and again until Israel is annihilated," Hamas official Ghazi Hamad told MEMRI, a research organization based in the US.

Back on June 9, 1982, US President Ronald Reagan, under pressure from the Soviet Union to force Israel into a cease-fire, demanded that Israel stop the outflanking of the Syrian army in the Bekaa Valley, despite the fact that the Syrian army, along with Palestinian terror groups, continued shelling Israeli communities in the Galilee. IDF forces were able to destroy Syria’s Russian-made SAM Missiles, which rendered both Syrian and, ultimately, Soviet defenses vulnerable. A parallel exists these days as well with President Joe Biden and VP Kamala Harris demanding of Israel to agree to a cease-fire while Hamas is still lobbing rockets at southern Israel.

In the midst of the heated debate in Israel over the handling of the war in Gaza, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated clearly, “Israel has only one choice: To achieve total victory, which means eliminating Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, and releasing our hostages. This victory will be achieved.” Yet, Hamas has consistently said that any cease-fire agreement should include an end to the war and a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. Netanyahu has suggested he would only be open to a temporary pause in the war of several weeks. 

Regarding the Israeli hostages held Gaza, it seems that the Israeli public is divided.  The Netanyahu camp believes that only through military pressure by the IDF, will the hostages be released. Those in the opposition believe that a cease-fire should take place now regardless of the impossible conditions that Hamas has set forth – including the release of high-ranking Fatah leader, Marwan Barghouti, currently imprisoned by Israel.

If Israel has learned anything from its 1982 experience with the PLO terrorists, it is that relentless military pressure is what finally forced the PLO expulsion from Lebanon.  It is therefore imperative that the IDF continue to uproot the Hamas fighters and its infrastructure in Gaza.  Once that happens those Israelis who were forced out of their homes in the south will be able to return.