It is an extraordinary sight as you weave your way inland from the Mediterranean coast, across the hills and valleys of southern Lebanon, and it looms above you: the nearly 900-year-old Crusader castle of Beaufort.
But this week, with a pair of newly planted flags atop its turret, Beaufort came under the control of Israel’s military for the first time since it withdrew from Lebanon 26 years ago.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proclaimed that recapturing the castle shows Israel was “stronger than ever” and prepared to push further into a country it invaded in 1982, and a southern Lebanese border area it occupied for a further 18 years.
Why We Wrote This
Israel’s recapture of Beaufort Castle last month has echoes from the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, and the nearly two decades that followed, with Israeli troops occupying parts of the country until withdrawing in 2000.
His defense minister recalled the “heroic battle of Beaufort,” in which Israel’s Golani Brigade seized the hilltop fortress during the 1982 invasion. Images published in news reports reinforced the point: Alongside Israel’s national flag, the Golani banner fluttered above Beaufort.
But Mr. Netanyahu’s upbeat assessment – and his vow to “defeat” Iran-backed Hezbollah forces and end cross-border fire on northern Israel – airbrushed out a more complex reality of Israel’s initial capture of Beaufort and its long military entanglement in Lebanon.
The message that narrative conveys is far more cautionary.
It’s that even overwhelming military superiority might fail to deliver security, much less produce the kind of political change Israel sought in Lebanon not so long ago, and still seeks.
In 1982, the significance of Israeli forces seizing the castle was more symbolic than strategic.
Its topography did give the site military value. Perched more than 2,000 feet above sea level, it had a commanding view not just of southern Lebanon, but the Upper Galilee region that lies across the border in northern Israel.
Israel’s enemy, back then, was Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization, which used Beaufort as a critical vantage point for its spotters to direct rocket and artillery fire into Israel.
The Golani Brigade was geared up to seize Beaufort as soon as Israel invaded in June 1982.
Yet in the broader context of the war in Lebanon – conceived by then-Defense Minister Ariel Sharon with the aim of driving all the way to Beirut and installing a Christian Lebanese ally as Lebanon’s president – Beaufort was of minor significance.
Even if the castle had remained in PLO hands, the Israeli invasion force was due to advance well beyond it within hours, leaving Palestinian fighters isolated and irrelevant.
In fact, Israel’s military commanders canceled the planned Beaufort attack hours into the invasion.
But the order got lost in the fog of war, and the assault went ahead.
And just like this week, the castle’s capture was followed by an upbeat photo op, with Mr. Sharon himself arriving at Beaufort Castle via helicopter.
When he boasted that the operation had succeeded without losing a single soldier, however, a junior Golani officer couldn’t restrain himself. “What are you talking about?” he protested. “Six of my friends were killed.”
The broader story of Israel’s war in Lebanon was full of similar split-screen moments.
Mr. Sharon could claim successes. Israeli troops did advance all the way to Beirut. Mr. Arafat and thousands of his fighters were evacuated from Lebanon under a U.S.-mediated arrangement. And in September 1982, Israel’s ally, Bashir Gemayel, was elected president in Lebanon.
Yet, only days later, Mr. Gemayel was killed in a bomb attack in Beirut.
That, alone, might have put paid to Mr. Sharon’s war plan. But things got far worse when Mr. Gemayel’s supporters, with a green light from Israel’s military, entered the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila and massacred hundreds of civilians.
The outrage following the incident was felt not just internationally, but inside Israel. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis turned out to demand an inquiry into how the killings had been allowed to happen, and to press for an end to the war.
And it did end.
Yet Israel’s solution back then resembles Mr. Netanyahu’s today: the creation of a “security zone” to ensure a definitive end to cross-border fire into Israel. Following the 1982 invasion, the Israeli military held on to Beaufort, and to a broad strip of southern Lebanon, for nearly two more decades.
While the PLO threat was gone from Lebanon, a new anti-Israel force – Hezbollah – benefited from fertile political ground in the majority-Shiite Lebanese south, and from Iran’s backing.
During the 18 years that followed, the Israeli garrison in Beaufort embodied the challenges of turning Israel’s security zone in south Lebanon into a guarantee of true security.
Hezbollah simply fired over Israeli forces in southern Lebanon, across the border, and into northern Israel. It also repeatedly attacked Israeli units operating inside Lebanon, with Beaufort often a target of choice.
Mr. Netanyahu’s current hope appears to be that a deeper, more aggressively enforced security zone will prove more effective.
But it has so far looked as vulnerable as the last one: with Hezbollah deploying new fiber-optic drones the Israelis have yet to find a way to stop.
That’s been a different kind of reminder of Israel’s earlier hold on Beaufort Castle, when its defenders came to feel they were Hezbollah targets more than security guarantors – a frustration powerfully captured in the 2007 Oscar-nominated film, “Beaufort.”
This week, the film’s director, Joseph Cedar, said he was shocked any Israeli with a sense of history would welcome returning to Beaufort – a formula that he feared would lead to a “stupid, futile waste of lives.”