Israeli Security Zone

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Following the Israeli Government's 1985 decision to withdraw from Lebanon, thus ostensibly ending Operation Peace in Galillee (or the Lebanon War as its critics now called it), a follow-up decision ordered the IDF to maintain a 20KM buffer zone inside of Lebonon. The purpose of this zone, which was dubbed the "Security Zone," was to put Israel's border towns out of range of small arms and mortar fire.

A small contingent IDF units were left to patrol the Security Zone in order to prevent infiltration into Northern Israel, and to provide a deterrent force against any attempt by Palestinian or other militia groups to fire longer range weapons into Israel proper.

Over the following decade, the IDF gradually expanded and institutionalized its presence in the Security Zone as operational imperatives compelled commanders on the ground to establish better fortified posts and more troops. This increased presence was a direct response to the rise of Hezbollah (or Party of God) as a serious political force throughout Lebanon and a potent guerilla army in the south.

Hezbollah fighters engaged in steady low-level confrontations with the IDF. Operations included attacks on convoys and routine patrols; placement of roadside bombs and remote control activated devices; occassional attempts to storm IDF outposts (most famously the attack on the D'lat outpost, in which a Hezbollah fighter succeeded in breaching the walls of the outpost and planting a Hezbollah flag before the attack was repelled); launching ground-to-ground missles, particularly Sagger missles at IDF tanks and outposts; and occassional shelling of Israeli border towns with Katyusha rockets.

Over the course of the conflict a set of unwritten but widely recognized "Rules of Engagement" developed between the sides. It was broadly understood that any Israeli killing of a Lebanese civilians in pro-active anti-Hezbollah operations would be met with a Katyusha barrage on the Northern towns of Israel. COnversely, it was understood that Katyusha fire would be met with massive responses, including the use of IDF war planes and heavy artillery.

Strategically, these Rules of Engagement created a long-standing stalemate in teh conflict. Hezbollah was unable to inflict sufficient damage on either the IDF presence in Lebonon or on the economy of quality of life for Israel's northern towns to force Israel to back down; Israel was never able to inflict sufficient losses on teh Hezbollah to sap the organization of its ability to sustain the conflict.

However, by the late 1990's the dynamic of the conflict was becoming increasingly apparent. While Israel was strategically able to sustain its losses (normally around 2-3 soldiers killed each month), the will of the Israeli public to suffer these deaths was beginning to fade. Conversely, with each loss, Hezbollah assumed ever more heroic proportions in the eyes of the Lebanese public and the rest of the Arab world as one of the first Arab armed forces to ever successfully match swords with the Jewish State.

In February, 1997 two Israeli military helicopters ferrying troops into the Security Zone collided killing over 70 soldiers on board. The event sparked days of national mourning. Out of this trauma, a number of women living on the Northern border with sons serving in Lebanon came together and drafted an open letter to Prime Minister Beyamin Netanyahu calling on him to bring the boys home. The women's letter would, over the coming weeks, evolve into The Four Mothers Movement.

Within days of the letter being published in the nation's newspapers, hundreds of people, mainly mothers, around the country were openly expressing their solidarity with the view expressed by the Four Mothers. While the issue of withdrawal from Lebanon had long been taboo in mainstream political circles, the Four Mothers appeal to core Israeli values open up a flood gate of pent up frustration.

Over the course of the coming two years, the Movement grew from its original core band to a national organization with several hundred active members. The Four Mothers held protests, sponsored advertisements in newspapers, and, perhaps most effectively, held vigils outside the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv the day after an IDF soldier was killed in Lebanon.

THe persistence of the Movement sparked a national re-evaluation of the policy guiding Israel's continued presence in the Security Zone. Polls quickly began to shift. By the time the 1999 election rolled around, a majority of Israelis now supported unilateral withdrawal from the Security Zone.

Recognizing the shift in public sentiment, Ehud Barak, the Labor Party's candidate for Prime Minister announced that if elected he would move to bring the IDF back to the internationally recongized border.

Barak was elected in a landslide. Over the course of two days in May of 2000, the IDF fully withdrew from the Security Zone. The following month, the UN confirmed that ISrael's force deployment was now entirley consistent with the internationally recognized border with Lebanon.