Israel’s wars repeat the 1980s on steroids
By James M. Dorsey
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Appalled by Israel’s carpet bombing of Beirut during the 1982 Lebanon war, US President Ronald Reagan didn’t mince his words with then-Israeli Prime Minister Menahem Begin.
“I was angry. I told him it had to stop, or our entire future relationship was endangered. I used the word holocaust deliberately & said the symbol of his war was becoming a picture of a 7-month-old baby with its arms blown off,” Mr. Reagan noted in his diary.
The August 1982 phone call between Messrs. Reagan and Begin provides a template for the United States’ ability to twist Israel’s arm and the limits of America’s influence.
Mr. Begin wasted no time in halting his saturation bombing of the Lebanese capital in response to Mr. Reagan’s threat.
Yet, he rejected the president’s demand that he allow an international force to enter…
