LETTERS FROM LEBANON
Samuelson, Arthur
What follows is excerpted from letters and postcards written, during the first four weeks of the war, by an Israeli tank officer while serving in Lebanon. They were addressed to his wife, who...
...The guys are already asking when we are going to reach the Dardanelles...
...Not hysterically, not because of a sudden pain, but out of a burning sadness within me . . . Sadness is the only personal thing that's left to me...
...I feel like a hero in a Greek tragedy...
...Arik continues to pursue his grandiose ambitions...
...The Israeli army information office has lost all credibility...
...As for the war itself, it was quite a tactical and logistical achievement...
...16 June 24, 1982 [Letter] . . . . THE WAR is entering its fourth week...
...June 20, 1982 [Letter] . I BEHAVE like a real soldier—with my feet on the ground, diligent and experienced...
...Gradually, the economy will feel the absence of the reservists, the reservists will slowly tire, and who knows if our government will know how to exploit our "victory...
...I guess the army cannot reveal facts as they really are...
...a hero who knows his destiny, and performs his job up to its tragic end...
...Interesting how a monster is created out of a heap of stones and then is engaged in battle...
...How did we get into this situation where the reportage of the Israeli army, once known for its credibility, now resembles Pravda more than Radio Lebanon...
...I'm a hero because I don't believe in what is being done here, and yet I function—thoroughly, dependably, and skillfully...
...No one can say that I am a "treasonous intellectual" who has never seen a battle field...
...And in order to do that, we must be able to rule the whole world...
...That war, however, was imposed upon us suddenly, thus sparing us the necessity of having to define a political objective short of survival...
...Again, I am prepared to stand behind every word I have written...
...How can Jewish children go to school happily, as our prime minister has promised, if their fathers have been killed in the war...
...They count on people not adding up the figures...
...The army has found a new way to report our losses...
...Translated by ARTHUR SAMUELSON...
...Since June 6, the government has been operating without any political definition, while the army creates facts that achieve political objectives according to what is happening at the front...
...So it follows that we must drive the PLO from the universe...
...They release the facts one at a time...
...My protest is written by a soldier, in the shadow of a tank that is ready to resume fire...
...June 8, 1982 [Postcard] There is a feeling of security that comes from the mighty power we have at our disposal, and from a desire to be at the center of events...
...This war has no clear objective...
...This bothers me and I do not understand it...
...Once again, Mr...
...After all, how can the army announce that we have exploited a small violation of the cease-fire in order to move our position further north, as we had planned to do all along...
...Maybe Begin is our Don Quixote, creating a monster out of his breath...
...June 13, 1982 [Postcard] NOTICE How they are trying to persuade the people that the principal danger to our existence has melted away...
...When I write these things, they cannot say that I'm an intellectual lacking in national pride, as they did about Adi Tzemach and Dan Miron and others...
...No one here knows where things will lead us...
...If our goal is to drive the PLO out of Lebanon, they still can escape to Turkey, Syria, Iran...
...Maybe it will last longer than the Yom Kippur War...
...Hope to see you soon...
...But . . . the principal question remains unanswered: Who is the enemy with whom we are to conduct negotiations for a cease-fire...
...Meanwhile, the days pass...
...How much longer...
...The army spokesmen are silent...
...They were addressed to his wife, who published them in the Israeli daily Ha'aretz, and with whose permission these excerpts, a small part of the whole correspondence, are here printed.—Ens...
...Despite this, I'm bothered by the lack of any rational basis for this mess...
...As time passes, the more I see how right I was in my predictions and how right I was when I wrote that there is no spectrum of opinion here [on the front], only two opposing plagues...
...then I get in my tank and perform like a professional...
...The names of the dead are periodically announced...
...All that is left of me is squeezed into these letters...
...Maybe Arik [Ariel Sharon] has a clear goal in mind, but he has set this war in motion without sharing his objectives with our political leadership...
...and very few know why...
...Notice how the Beaufort Castle, which was never anything but a meaningless point on the map, has become a symbol of this war . . . a paranoid symbol [of our] problems...
...In contrast, Radio Lebanon is a very reliable guide to what is happening...
...No one knows how long...
...June 13, 1982 [Letter] . . . . THE MORE the fog of battle clears, the more I am convinced that I knew what I was talking about when I strongly opposed any military action on such a massive scale...
...And our soldiers continue to bleed...
...Why...
...With whom will we negotiate...
...Begin has sold the nation with those homilies that roll so fluently off his tongue...
...I am strong—a hero...
...I'm not adding anything new to the voices of protest that are now being raised by others...
...If the pretext for starting the war is the assassination of our ambassador [in London], we may even be driving them further away, on into Europe, where they can kill some more of our ambassadors...
...With the fog of battle lifting, the price of victory seems very high, and questions multiply...
...By my protest I speak not only for myself, but also for the many silent voices of other experienced officers in the field who carry the burden of this war...
...Sometimes I am close to tears...
...Begin insisted on going to Beaufort, saying, "I want to see the monster routed...
...Even now, as I sit and write to you, I am about to break out in tears...
Vol. 30 • January 1983 • No. 1
