Fateful Triangle

5. Peace for GalileeSince 1949, Israel has sought to remove the displaced Palestinianrefugees from the border areas and to destroy their emergingpolitical and military structures. The 1982 invasion of Lebanonwas a further stage in these efforts. Their general character overthe years was indicated by Chief of Staff Mordechai Gur in an interviewin the Israeli press after the 1978 invasion of Lebanon, which droveanother quarter-million Arabs from their homes with heavy casualties, inretaliation for a PLO terrorist attack in Israel. Gur observed that “For 30years, from the War of Independence [which Palestinians call “the Warof Conquest”] until today, we have been fighting against a populationthat lives in villages and cities,” noting such incidents as the bombing ofthe Jordanian city of Irbid, the clearing of all inhabitants from the Jordanvalley by bombing, driving a million and a half civilians from the SuezCanal area during the 1970 “war of attrition,” and other examples, allundertaken in alleged retaliation against Arab attacks. His remarks wereaccurately summarized by the noted Israeli military analyst Ze’ev Schiff:In South Lebanon we struck the civilian population consciously,because they deserved it…the importance of Gur’sremarks is the admission that the Israeli Army has alwaysstruck civilian populations, purposely and consciously…theArmy, he said, has never distinguished civilian [frommilitary] targets...[but] purposely attacked civilian targets