The Soviet Union and Syria (RLE Syria) by Efraim Karsh

Author:Efraim Karsh [Karsh, Efraim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138998124
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 27849706
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

War over Lebanon

Neither the USSR nor Syria were wholly taken by surprise by the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Given Israel’s long-standing resistance to any form of direct Syrian military presence in Lebanon, Syria’s growing interference in the Lebanese crisis from late 1975 onwards could not but contain the seeds of an armed confrontation between the two countries. Yet, since Israel and Syria found themselves in the same boat, with both reluctant to see a leftist-Palestinian victory, a tacit agreement was reached as early as 1976 on the ‘rules of the game’ in Lebanon. These rules were maintained, by and large, despite the fact that in 1977 Syria resumed its support for the PLO and turned against the Christian camp. Within this framework, Syria remained aloof at the time of the massive Israeli operation against the Palestinian forces in south Lebanon (‘Operation Litani’) in March 1978, thereby exposing itself to severe criticism from its opponents in the Arab world, particularly Iraq. Similarly, the air clashes between Syrian and Israeli aircraft over Lebanon in June and September 1979 did not result in a breakdown of the modus vivendi between these two arch-enemies.

This situation began to change in late 1980, when Begin promised the Phalangists that Israel would guarantee the security of the Lebanese Christian community. Encouraged by this far-reaching pledge, which included the provision of an Israeli aerial umbrella in case of Syrian air strikes against the Phalangist forces, the leader of the Christian militia, Bashir Gumayel, escalated his activities against the Syrian forces in Lebanon. By April 1981, the Phalangists’ provocations had resulted in Syria laying siege to Zahla; from that point on, the road to the missile crisis, which brought Israel and Syria close to war, was short. Nor did the abating of the crisis in June 1981 eliminate the danger of war. With Begin still committed to the destruction of the surface-to-air missiles in Lebanon, and Defence Minister Sharon determined to overwhelm the Syrian forces in Lebanon during his envisaged campaign against the Palestinians – despite his public claims to the contrary37 – the spectre of a Syrian-Israeli confrontation in Lebanon loomed large.

The escalation did not escape the Soviets’ notice. Viewing Begin’s second government as a ‘government of war’, which would sooner or later attack the Palestinian organizations in Lebanon, from late 1981 onwards the Soviet media repeatedly warned of Israel’s intention to strike at Lebanon, intensifying these cautions during the winter of 1981 and the spring of 1982. On 1 March 1982, for example, a Tass commentary argued that the US Defence Secretary, Caspar Weinberger, ‘practically gave the “green light” to Israeli intervention in Lebanon’, and on 14 April Izvestiya accused Israel not only of unleashing ‘bloody terror against the Palestinians on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip’, but also of ‘preparing to crush Lebanon with its mailed fist’ in order to ‘strip the Palestinian people of their national rights’ and to bring about their ‘physical annihilation’. An official Tass statement, issued a week later in

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