Word: shies
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...preparing ourselves to defend the northern part of Israel from Israeli territory. We shall maintain a mobile defense. No serious Israeli ever suggested that we should remain in Lebanon forever. Also, our presence in Lebanon has not made it a more balanced country. It is becoming more and more Shi'ite, and the Shi'ites are becoming more and more militant...
...some point, that pattern will have to include Syria, which has the muscle to hinder any settlement attempt. The Syrian Cabinet last week declared its intention to undermine the Mubarak-Hussein-Arafat initiative. Anyone who doubts Syria's resolve need only look at south Lebanon, where Shi'ite Muslims, inspired in part by Damascus' tough line vis-a-vis Israel, continue to attack Israeli forces. The Israelis, who are in the midst of withdrawing from south Lebanon, retaliated last week by staging raids on several Shi'ite villages suspected of harboring guerrillas. Against the backdrop of such continuing violence...
Israel decided unilaterally in January to pull out of Lebanon because attempts to work out a security agreement with Lebanon had failed. Plans call for a total withdrawal by this summer. Israel's Prime Minister Shimon Peres believes that the continuing occupation serves only to build the Shi'ite resistance and to increase Israeli losses. Those fatalities now total 621, more than 40% of them since the Palestine Liberation Organization was expelled from Beirut in August...
...illusion of national unity vanished the next day, however, when thousands of armed Shi'ite militiamen held angry antigovernment demonstrations. The gunmen staged marches, chanted "Death to Gemayel!" and called for the establishment of an Islamic republic in Lebanon. Though the demonstrators stayed only for the day, they infuriated the local Sunni Muslims. Said one community leader: "We just got rid of the Israelis, and now we have these people...
Though the first withdrawal phase has been completed, the Israelis are still occupying the heartland of Shi'ite resistance, dozens of hill villages to the northeast of Tyre. So far, two senior Israeli officers and a sergeant have been killed behind the new lines. A pro-Israeli militia, the South Lebanon Army, once estimated to number over 2,000, has lost a third of its members through defections in recent months, and could disintegrate completely once the Israelis have pulled back behind their border. Israel has faced a dismal choice: to stay on in Lebanon, sustaining more casualties and serving...