Rethinking The Root Causes of The First Lebanon War: Bringing Together Lebanon and The Palestinian Occupied Territories, 1977–1982

ABSTRACT: This article makes three contributions to the study of the root causes of the First Lebanon war: 1) It argues that Israeli policies and actions during Begin’s governments (1977–1983) in the Occupied Territories and Lebanon should be analyzed together and interwoven into a single dialectical narrative; 2) It contends that the decision to lead Israel into a full-scale war in Lebanon was linked to Israel’s ambitions in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, including Jewish settler agendas and their advocacy of a large-scale war in Lebanon; 3) It maintains that the deception narrative which has dominated Israeli scholarship regarding this war should be adjusted and analyzed in light of the fact that the war plans and preparations had been reported accurately and in detail by both the international and Israeli press since August 1981.*