The Lebanon Escalation (1977-1982): A Blueprint for Understanding Israeli Strategy in the 2023-2025 Conflict

Beirut: Photos from the Israeli invasion of Lebanon 1982/3

The Doctrine of Strategic Accelerationism

A doctrine of strategic accelerationism—premised on two core assumptions: overwhelming superiority in firepower and the unconditional, permissive support of the United States—has characterized Israeli strategy following the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023. This approach involves a continuous push beyond established norms of escalation, systematically testing the strategic patience of its adversaries. The calculation is that Israel will face no meaningful consequences from its less-equipped regional foes nor any restraining pressure from its American ally.

The 2023-2025 Escalation Ladder

This pattern of escalation began with the assassination of IRGC General Sayyid Razi Mousavi in Damascus (December 2023) and progressed through a series of high-profile targeted killings: Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut (January 2024), Quds Force commander Mohammad Reza Zahedi on Iranian diplomatic grounds in Damascus (April 2024), Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran (July 2024), and Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut (September 2024). It culminated in large-scale aerial campaigns against Iran (June 2025) and Qatar (September 2025).

The underlying logic is straightforward: regional resistance actors lack the conventional military capacity to escalate in kind, a disparity exacerbated by the inconsistent military support from powers like Russia and China when compared to the steadfast American sponsorship of Israel. Furthermore, from this perspective, the U.S. is unlikely to impose restraints, viewing the conflict through a lens that frames the destruction of resistant, independent political forces in the Middle East as a preferable outcome to the current regional order. This creates a punishing dilemma for resistance forces: retaliate and face devastating bombardment, or exercise restraint and still face continued military pressure.

A Historical Blueprint: The 1982 Lebanon War

This strategy, however, is not without historical precedent. It finds a clear blueprint in the Israeli government's meticulously planned escalation that led to the 1982 Lebanon War, a conflict often described as Israel's "Vietnam." As documented by Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman in Rise and Kill First based on extensive interviews with former Mossad director Meir Dagan, the Likud government of Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon began implementing a strategy of tension as early as 1977.

Following Egypt's departure from the conflict sphere after the Camp David Accords, Israel shifted its focus to the northern border with Lebanon. The 1969 Cairo Agreement had legitimized the Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) presence in Lebanon, creating a persistent security concern for Israeli leadership. The stated goal became to create conditions that would justify a full-scale invasion to expel the PLO, even if the organization maintained calm. The strategy was to provoke the PLO into a response that could be used as a casus belli.

The Provocation and Response Cycle

This provocation began with the assassination of senior PLO leader Kamal Adwan in Beirut by an Israeli commando unit—a team that included Ehud Barak, who was famously disguised as a woman. This action was designed to force the PLO into a strategic dilemma: choose a rapid, violent revenge operation that would provide Israel with its desired pretext for invasion, or adopt strategic patience, which risked appearing weak to its constituent base and the wider Palestinian public.

The PLO chose the former. Military chief Abu Jihad masterminded the retaliatory "Kamal Adwan Operation," in which a team led by Dalal Mughrabi infiltrated Israel by sea and hijacked a bus on the Coastal Road, resulting in the deaths of 38 Israeli civilians on March 11, 1978. Israel responded with Operation Litani, a limited invasion of southern Lebanon. However, under American pressure to de-escalate, Israeli forces withdrew to a slim border buffer zone. This outcome frustrated the maximalist objectives of Begin and Sharon, necessitating a new, more covert strategy.

A Strategy of Covert Proxies and False Flags

In 1979, Ariel Sharon authorized Meir Dagan to establish a covert proxy force within Lebanon, the "Front for the Liberation of Lebanon from Foreigners" (FLLF). This Mossad-controlled entity, described by Bergman as a "proto-ISIS," conducted bombings against PLO officials and even targeted public spaces like markets, killing ordinary Palestinians. This campaign served two purposes: it provided Israel with plausible deniability for its attacks, and it aimed to goad the PLO into a retaliatory strike—either against Israel or against the Lebanese Phalange, a Christian militia allied with Israel—that would finally justify a full-scale invasion.

Recognizing the trap, PLO leaders Yasser Arafat and Abu Jihad imposed strict discipline on their factions, refusing to retaliate for three years. During this period of imposed calm, Israel continued its campaign of targeted assassinations, killing Abu Hassan Salameh, a key PLO liaison with the U.S., in 1979. This move mirrored contemporary strikes on figures like Ismail Haniyeh, aiming to sever channels for diplomatic negotiation and make a military solution appear inevitable.

The pretext for invasion finally arrived in 1982 from an unexpected source: Abu Nidal, a Palestinian splinter leader operating as an agent for Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Abu Nidal's attempted assassination of the Israeli ambassador in London (who was wounded) provided the trigger. While the Begin-Sharon government knew the mainstream PLO was not responsible, they publicly blamed Arafat and launched a massive bombing campaign against PLO targets in Lebanon. This time, the PLO retaliated with rocket fire into northern Israel, giving Begin and Sharon the domestic political justification needed to launch a full-scale invasion in June 1982, which culminated in the siege of Beirut.

Parallels in the Modern Conflict

A textbook repetition of this strategy appears to be unfolding in the 2023-2025 conflict, albeit on a larger, regional scale. Each significant Israeli escalation—particularly strikes on Iranian soil or the assassination of Hezbollah leadership—presents Iran and its allies with the same double-bind: retaliate forcefully and risk a catastrophic regional war against a U.S.-backed Israel, or absorb the attack and risk appearing weak, thereby inviting further strikes. Iran's responses have oscillated between these poles: its rapid but measured drone and missile barrage in April 2024 ("True Promise 1") demonstrated a capacity for direct retaliation, while its subsequent hesitation to launch larger-scale strikes ("True Promise 2 & 3") reflected a calculus of strategic patience. This hesitation, whether born of diplomatic engagement with the U.S. or a strategic decision by Supreme Leader Khamenei to cast Israel as the unambiguous aggressor to galvanize domestic unity, ultimately served to consolidate national morale once the wider war began in June 2025.

The lesson from both cases—Lebanon 1977-82 and the ongoing regional conflict—is that in the absence of either military parity or consistent, reliable sponsorship from a superpower to counterbalance American support for Israel, resistance leaderships are forced to navigate an extraordinarily narrow path. The "long game" school of thought, exemplified by Arafat, Nasrallah, and Khamenei, posits that time is on the resistance's side, and that avoiding existential confrontations while gradually building capacity is the surest path to eroding Israeli dominance. In contrast, the "accelerationist" school, embodied by figures like Yahya Sinwar and Abdulmalik al-Houthi, argues that only a dramatic and violent show of force can alter the regional calculus, forcing external powers to take the resistance axis seriously as an immutable geopolitical reality and ultimately demonstrating that Israel, for all its power, cannot survive in a region engulfed in flames. This fundamental strategic tension continues to define the response to Israeli escalationism.

• This article is written by Abu Dhar al-Bosni (lokiloptr154668 on X) and does not necessarily reflect the views of A.E.P. (the owner of the website), nor does it necessarily represent an agreement with these perspectives.