Beware of Small States by David Hirst5/12/2023 ![]() When the last Israeli troops withdrew in 2000 from the slice of territory they still held in south Lebanon, they stole away in the middle of the night, abandoning their local Christian allies to triumphant Hizbullah guerrillas. Within a few years of the invasion of 1982, Israeli soldiers returning home would throw themselves to the ground to kiss the soil as soon as they crossed the border, thankful only to have made it back alive. ![]() Such a picture seemed plausible enough 40 years ago, but it’s turned out that the best day for anybody invading or even interfering in Lebanon is usually the first. ![]() Its Maronite Christian minority was thought an obvious ally for Israel against the forces of Arab nationalism, and the well-earned reputation of the Lebanese for commercial ingenuity and a capacity to survive in all circumstances suggested that they would be unlikely to die in a ditch fighting an overwhelmingly powerful enemy. ![]() Why has Lebanon been the graveyard of so many invaders? In the 1960s Israelis used to say that one of their military bands would be enough to conquer the country sometimes, before Israel and Egypt agreed a peace in 1979, they added: ‘I don’t know which will be the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel, but I do know the name of the second.’ Lebanon, half the size of Wales and with a population divided by communal, sectarian and party hatreds, would be a pushover. ![]()
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