“Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon was a formative moment in Middle Eastern and international history, transforming the fate of Palestinian self-determination; Lebanese and Israeli politics, society, and culture; regional relationships with the United States; Jewish perceptions of Zionism; and, geopolitics across the Arab world,” said Seth Anziska of the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies, University College London. “Yet this war has often been elided in public discourse and historical scholarship—a result of selective amnesia, political convenience, and the difficulty of obtaining sources across national divides. In a contemporary moment of profound rupture for Palestine, Lebanon, and the wider region— given Israel’s ongoing destruction of Gaza and invasion of Lebanon— how can the historian give narrative form to this contested past and its multiple legacies today?”
Describing STIAS as an ideal place to write in this tumultuous time, he said: “It’s been a meaningful few months – in the midst of incomprehensible loss given the unfolding violence and its repercussions. This latest invasion of Lebanon that has occurred during my time at STIAS is a reminder of how history moves at a different timescale from the present moment. The past is resurfacing in troubling and unexpected ways.”
“These are the most significant events since the Palestinian Nakba and the founding of Israel in 1948, reshaping the moral architecture of the 21st century,” he continued. “I’m deeply unsatisfied with reductionist analysis of what is unfolding and the inability to think beyond a singular silo or worldview. There are deep patterns of dehumanisation and destruction emerging over time. Revisiting this earlier war might equip us to confront the shifting political landscape today.”
The project will result in a book. “I’m trying to give it form and structure, and also trying to tell an accessible story,” explained Anziska. “It’s hard to write. I find myself feeling helpless in the face of unbridled suffering, deeply attune to the mismatch between slow historical thinking and fast-paced events.”
His presentation explored the challenges and discoveries of cross-border research alongside shifting approaches to writing about 1982. “In grappling with recurring questions of perpetrator violence and cultures of victimhood, mass dehumanisation and popular indifference to suffering, as well as the role of intergenerational trauma and the meaning of refusal, South Africa has been a laboratory in which to think comparatively about this project while also confronting what it means to dwell in the abyss.”
Long history
Anziska explained that Israel has a long history of intervening in Lebanon.
After ’Black September’ in Jordan in 1970, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) relocated and formed ‘a state within a state’ in Lebanon. This led to a series of attacks and counter attacks as Israel attempted to destroy the PLO’s military structure and support the installation of a Christian Maronite government. The Maronites were given political support by Menachem Begin, the first Likud Prime Minister, who saw himself as the “saviour of a besieged minority”.
“Begin’s rhetoric also invited comparison between the PLO and the Nazis,” added Anziska, “isolating the Palestinian question in an ahistorical frame.”
The 1982 Lebanon War was the second Israeli invasion of Lebanon – the first having occurred in 1978. The invasion, named ‘Operation Peace for Galilee’, was launched with a greenlight from the American government, which openly endorsed and approved Israeli plans. They extended far beyond the forty kilometre mark in the South first suggested by Defence Minister Ariel Sharon, with the military moving to the streets of the capital Beirut.
Anziska explained that the death toll of citizens and combatants rose to over 19 000 in the first ten weeks of fighting, and there was mounting international outrage. “The war has been described as ‘Israel’s Vietnam’, evoking meaningless death and destruction,” he said.
It also became characterised by acts of brutality against civilians, including in September 1982 when the right-wing Christian Phalange militia stormed the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in West Beirut. The ensuing massacre resulted in the rape, mutilation and deaths of hundreds of Palestinian civilians. “The unceasing invocation of the idea that ‘terrorists’ were sheltering in refugee camps, of course, extends to what is happening in Gaza and Lebanon today, and in 1982 Israel clearly misled American diplomats about what transpired,” said Anziska.
Huge pressure, especially by the United States, eventually led to a negotiated ceasefire and evacuation of the PLO. Although the PLO was expelled to Tunis, the war paved the way for greater recognition of the Palestinian struggle for self-determination as well as the emergence of Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Anziska hopes that his book can serve to present a more representative narrative of these events as well as unpack some of the overarching themes underlying Israel’s relationships with its neighbours since 1948. He explained that 1982 blurred distinctions between civilians and combatants; it situated the Palestinian question as a problem for Israel to solve militarily; and, was part of a “longer history of dehumanisation extending to the current moment”
“I’m also interested in understanding the impact of the war beyond the Middle East,” he added, “in the wider trajectory of Jewish-Arab relations and contentious discussions about the emergence of the “new anti-semitism,” targeting Israel as a state and criticism of Zionism.
He pointed to the vast array of literary works and films, particularly from Lebanese writers and filmmakers, “which have broken the silence, making these events part of public inquiry and debate, shifting consciousness away from the perpetrators alone.”
“I’m interested in looking at the same event from different perspectives, and the recording of stories in divergent contexts—especially how people construct the enemy and believe or disbelieve certain things.”
One of these will include the story of a pilot who refused – Israeli pilot Hagai Tamir who refused to bomb his assigned target in Saida when he realised it was a school. Anziska explained that the story was mythologised on both sides of the border and gives an important glimpse into the human experience of war and the role of memory, remembering, and forgetting. The story became the subject of a film installation – ‘Letter to a Refusing Pilot’ at the 2013 Venice Biennale by Lebanese artist Akram Zaatari, who had first heard it as a teenager during the invasion.
“I met the pilot by chance and found the story as told by the artist in the Lebanese archives also accidentally,” said Anziska.
“Why did I choose this event? A mixture of happenstance and the need to grasp at the thread of human intimacy and choice, to engage an audience that might come to this subject with certain preconceived ideas.” “Of course, it brings up complicated questions about the role of the pilot as an agent of history and the reversal of power dynamics. Such stories don’t necessarily change the trajectory of events – the school was bombed by another pilot. So there is a tension between individual stories and the wider impact of refusal.”
“But,” he added, “individual stories can defy the collective impulse. They can describe another, different path – one based on a human capacity for love. Individual choice is a means to challenge the dominant frame, even if it doesn’t change the course of a war.”
Among the broader questions Anziska is grappling with is who gets to write the history of such encounters; the shifts and parallels in media portrayals of violence; what it means to be a historian interested in visual culture; challenges in access to and destruction of archival materials; what a commitment to working on the Middle East means right now; the use of historical thinking in moments of flux; and, the impact of intergenerational trauma.
“Forgetting happens for a reason,” he said. “For accountability and justice, we need historical accounts. A lack of consciousness about the past and the inability to look backward only perpetuates violence.”
Michelle Galloway: Part-time media officer at STIAS
Photograph: SCPS Photography