twofowler,
It's useless to talk to Thomas. He will just drag out some pro-PLO historian who ignores the entire context of the Lebanese Civil War and the growth of the PLO state-within-a-state in southern Lebanon, but goes on at length about the outrage of Israel aggression. Syrian aggression (they still have 40,000 troops in Lebanon), on the other hand, is not an outrage, at least not one they will mention.
There was a huge history of shelling northern Israel. Kiryat Shmona is a town with so many bunkers, they can live underground, because they've had to do just that. The PLO did make an attempt to keep the cease-fire in 1981, for one good reason -- they knew Israel had had enough, and Begin and Sharon would act in force. The PLO needed a breathing space in the war. That's the only reason the PLO has ever kept a truce. They have no interest in peace; their whole raison d'etre is attacking Israel. Even during 1981 they had to keep up a steady stream of guerilla raids from Jordan to prove to their people that they weren't actually thinking of co-existing peacefully with Israel. And the northern shelling never stopped, just lessened.
The Lebanon invasion was a mistake in the end. But how many shells would this country take quietly if, say, Puerto Rican Nationalist terrorists were shelling Laredo from Mexico? |
