From the Vault: The 1982 Israel / Lebanon War

“I think its not unlikely that Israel will invade Lebanon soon. They’ve been trying to provoke a PLO action that would lead to invasion for months and sooner or later they’ll do it. And that could lead to a more general regional war.”
~Noam Chomsky, speaking to KPFA’s Philip Maldari in April 1982, just days after an Israeli military officer was killed by a landmine in the buffer zone in Southern Lebanon. Over the following months, Israel used the officer’s death to justify a full-scale bombing and occupation of Lebanon in attempt to oust the Palestinian Liberation Organization from Lebanese soil.

The summer of 2006 will long be compared the spring of 1982 in the troubled lands of the Middle East. Just as the death of of an Israeli soldier sparked a major bombardment and subsequent invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the headlines these days tells an eerily similar story. Once again, the Middle East teeters on the brink of full-blown war, and Pacifica Network’s listener-sponsored reporting on the region shines today as it did in 1982.

On this episode of From the Vault, we remember the harsh lessons of the 1982 Israeli/Lebanon War through news reports filed by Pacifica reproters during the invasion and from interviews and documentaries on the conflict. Bear in mind it is nearly impossible to give a complete and definitive account of all that led up to the war the events that followed in one half-hour program, but using the extensive collection here in the Archive, we present Pacifica’s perspective.

Then, we’ll balance the hard facts of Pacifica’s news reports with archival commentaries by Middle East Journalist Robert Fisk, Middle East scholar Edward Said, MIT Professor Noam Chomsky, and University of San Francisco Professor Stephen Zunes.