A Precedent for Kicking Hamas Out of Gaza


The PLO evacuated from Beirut in 1982 

The stated Israeli objectives of this current war in Gaza are to find and destroy attack tunnels, and to neutralise the missile threat.

Neither the Israeli Government nor commentators (I have read) are mentioning regime change in Gaza as an operational objective.

There is a precedent to the idea that Israel's military force can be used to unseat terrorists from their position of entrenched power.

Back in 1982, under the national leadership of Menachem Begin and defense minister Ariel Sharon, Israeli troops retaliated against the PLO for the assassination attempt of Shlomo Argov, Israel's ambassador to London.

On 6th June 1982, under Sharon's military direction, Israeli troops invaded Lebanon and soon surrounded Beirut, bringing the city under siege.

The severe bombardments of the PLO's fallback positions in Beirut, resulted in Yasser Arafat, leader of the PLO, who was based in Beirut, agreeing (effectively surrender) to withdraw his "troops" and organization headquarters from Lebanon, relocating to Tripoli.

During August/September 1982, around 14,000 PLO combatants were evacuated from Beirut by sea.

Of course, there are numerous differences between Lebanon in 1982, and Gaza in 2014...

However, there is a precedent to the idea/objective that Hamas could be kicked out of Gaza by the Israel Army.

Comments

  1. david, obe big difference is that the leadership of hamas seems to be comfortably ensconced in Qatar already

    ReplyDelete

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