ABSTRACT
Since World War II dozens of serious regional conflicts have competed for global attention, but none has done so with the persistence of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The natural history of the modern Arab world is one in which supracommunal identities have often been in competition with tribal, ethnic, and local ties. The Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 was an historic watershed whose significance is still not fully recognized in the West. True enough, Israel grossly misunderstood Lebanon, failed miserably in its efforts to install a malleable government in Beirut, and ended up being virtually chased out of most of south Lebanon. The Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) scrupulous adherence—for 11 months in south Lebanon—to the cease-fire negotiated in 1981 by Ambassador Philip Habib was a source of enormous irritation to senior Israeli security officials who saw the PLO gaining legitimacy, and thereby enhancing its pretensions to represent the Palestinians in any international negotiations that might be organized.
