The Lebanon War (review)

Book Reviews 125 succeeded where there was a pre-existing consensus, as in the military withdrawal from most of Lebanon. But no amount of authority bestowed by professionals could compensate for his lack of personal authority, the very public support needed by a political leader in order to take major initiatives. Peres could later take the initiative in the Oslo peace process, but it required the personal authority ofYitzhak Rabin to move that plan forward. Thus Professor Keren has probably produced a useful, though not defmitive, typology for understanding the knowledge-power nexus. Professionals Against Populism is an interesting and important book about Israel. Professor Keren has a clear, lucid writing style, so the material he presents is readily accessible to the reader. The reader will gain both information and insight into the Israeli policymaking process. That, in tum, will be most helpful in helping the reader understand the underlying factors involved in Israel's current attempts to deal with its economy and with the Palestinians and Syrians; in fact, in his last few pages, Professor Keren projects his findings into the present. In sum, close attention to this work will amply repay the general public as well as academics. Martin Edelman Department of Political Science State University ofNew York at Albany The Lebanon War, by A. 1. Abraham. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996. 195 pp. $55.00. The challenge for anyone offering to explain the destruction ofLebanon lies in breaking old habits and shattering illusions. Unfortunately, A. J. Abraham's book fails this crucial test. Instead of fulfilling his promise to offer new insights, particularly into the actions and motives of Lebanon's Christians, Abraham repeats numerous errors and fails to correct old myths. This failing is evident in virtually every facet of Abraham's book. Particularly egregious mistakes occur in his wrong-headed explanation of the nature of Lebanese government and society, in his misleading description ofrelations between Israel and the Christians, and in his inadequate treatment of the tragic American intervention of 1982. In addition the book is marred by the author's failure to consult and exploit many past and recent studies of Lebanon's wars. Abraham begins his book with a description of a Lebanon that never existed, a haven·of calm and good judgment in the eastern Mediterranean. According to Abraham only the cruel intervention of outsiders, chiefamong them the Palestinians, accounts for the downfall of the country. Michael Hudson in his fine study, The Precarious Republic: Political Modernization in Lebanon (New York, 1968), was one ofthe very 126 SHOFAR Fall 1997 Vol. 16, No.1 few analysts to warn of the breakup of the Lebanese state before it occurred. Hudson argued that contrary to popular belief Lebanon was not a successful society, but one caught in a desperate race to develop the political and governmental capabilities needed to cope with the burdens being laid on from within and without. It was a race that Lebanon was tragically handicapped in running for many reasons, not least because democracy was not the result ofstability but the means by which stability was imposed on a divided country whose factions almost always placed their individual interests ahead of the common good. Such a society was bound to resist and to succeed in resisting any major alterations in the status quo, especially if change would require a shift in power-which a growing Muslim population deserved by the rules of dernocracy--or a redistribution ofwealth---demanded by an increasingly self-conscious and previously excluded Shiite minority. Adding the hopes of the Palestinians and Israelis to the mix only multiplied the risks and raised the costs of failure. Acting as if they were invisible or had blindly chosen to re-enact the story of Samson, the Palestinians built a heavily armed statewithin -a-state in Lebanon. Their colossal blunder, akin to erecting an ungrounded lightning rod in a violent thunderstorm, not only undermined the competence and legitimacy of the Lebanese government but assured Israeli retribution. The main Lebanese factions reacted to the growing Palestinian and Israeli threats, not by joining hands to save Lebanon but, all too predictably and disastrously, by refusing to change and courting outside support in Jerusalem...