 commander on the fifth day of the war in Lebanon. India Lone Company served religious soldiers from various yeshivas all over the country. The commanders were secular. The request was unusual. A prayer in the network? This is madness. Later on told the deputy commander, Captain Kravitz. However, I realized what this prayer can do for my men, what the meaning is for them. And so for a long minute on the network there was the ancient Jewish prayer and in the background heavy artillery. At the end of it, the combatant who prayed said, well, say amen. And all of a sudden the voice was heard. Here is the headquarters, amen. And then one tank after the other they all responded, amen. It was as if it was an approval of an order and moreover it was an approval of a common fate, an approval to the understanding that everybody was together, part of that whole of that same narrative called Israel. A short time after that the company Alon was caught in an ambush near Beirut and seven of the combatants were killed. The story of these tankers from the Alon Company is an Israeli story, a story about connections, about friendship, about tankers who are tight together, responsible for one another. One human texture that combines faiths and opinions and various perceptions. It's also a story about a heavy price of war. Hundreds of combatants have been lost in the First Lebanon War and later on they left a gap that will never be filled. Captain Dobkin from the Moshev Tkuma in the Negev, the son of Zehava and Nathan, was killed in the first weeks of the war by a Syrian sniper. Before he fell, Haimke wrote, do not mourn for me too many days, not for that did I sacrifice my life. I gave my life so that you will rejoice, so that you will be able to live a life that I so loved and continue to live as usual and fulfill my dreams. The things I loved, the green fields, the open spaces, the state, the country, the homeland, and then you will know that I did not die, I am alive and I accompany you forever because you fulfill everything that I was hoping to fulfill in my life. So wrote Haimke, he left us a life legacy. No decreed us, all those fallen. At the time I was a young officer in permanent service in that horrible war 40 years ago, a war that wanted to put an end to long lives where the inhabitants of the Galilee lived under terror. In the streets, in the kindergartens, in the schools, in the shelters, we did not rejoice to go to work and we are not rejoicing today either. And in the same breath we can say at the time we didn't allow and we will never allow to violate the peace of the settlements in the north. We are determined and strong. We shall continue to protect ourselves with ourselves at any time and we'll take decisive steps against anybody who tries to harm us. I hope this stops, he says, with a close or far 40 years. After the First Lebanon War broke out, the threat from the north still exists. Iran is threatening, it creates chaos and hostility behind our northern border through its long arm, the Hezbollah, and I reiterate there is no unsolved controversy between the State of Israel and the State of Lebanon. Between the people of Israel and the Lebanese people there is no unsolved controversy. Our struggle is against the Iranian influence which is imposed on Lebanon and the Iranian regime that continues to disseminate hate, terror, pain, and suffering, destroys Lebanon and tries to undermine the stability in the entire Middle East. Dear families, the long Lebanon War and the long stay on it left an open wound in the heart of the nation. You, all of you, the sons of the bereaved families, the MIAs and the injured in body and soul are coping day in, day out with the results of the war. Today and every day we are convening in order to embrace you and to say to you to what extents we pain and feel your sorrow, which is our sorrow, and we thank you. During the first Lebanon War the poet Ehud Manor wrote the words to the song, I do not have another country, a song that has become almost an anthem, 40 years have gone by, we do not have another country, and we will never have another country, ever. May the soul of the sons and daughters who gave their lives in the heavy battle be blessed forever. And that was the Israeli president there, Isaac Houtsog, addressing a special ceremony to mark 40 years since the first Lebanese War, that was the president, we'll also hear from Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, and the Defense Minister Benny Gantzal giving speeches at the Mount Houtsal Memorial Center in Jerusalem, a bit of history then, 1217 Israeli soldiers lost their lives in what is considered the country's most controversial war, well with me in the studio Dan Perry is an international affairs analyst and a former Middle East editor of Associated Press, great to have you with us, Dan, and I'm sure you can give us a bit more context on this. It started out as an operation to bring peace to the Galilee, we just heard Houtsog allude there to what life was like in the Galilee with these constant attacks from across the border in Lebanon, it turned into a quagmire pretty much, didn't it? It certainly did, because when you think about the Lebanon War, the first Lebanon War, the issue was not just a 1982 invasion, but the fact that beginning with 84 when they pulled out from most of the territory, they stayed in a security zone that became a genuine quagmire, and that lasted for 18 years, achieved nothing. If it has any legacy at all, it was the creation of Hezbollah that accompanied it, the involvement of Iran in dominating Lebanon and a problem that persists to this day, whereby Hezbollah is now the enemy from the north, and Hezbollah exceeds the PLO and magnitudes of damage it can cause Israel and rocket arsenal and so forth by a tremendous gap. And some analysts say that Israel really overestimated the capacities of the Lebanese population there who were friendly towards Israel and really underestimated the Shia population. Israel thought that they could create Christian hegemony in Lebanon, and Christians were once the majority, and indeed when France left Lebanon, they had a chance to have a smaller country where they would be a permanent majority. They unwisely did not choose that route. By the time Israel got involved, they were already a minority, and Israel tried to make sure they ran Lebanon, that backfired rather spectacularly. Would you say this was Israel's one and only failed attempt at regime change? I can't think of another regime change as such, although the word is a little bit fluid. You could argue that various Israel's misadventures with the Palestinians might also be defined as such, but no, not really. It was, and it taught Israel lesson. It's very difficult to interfere in other countries affairs unless they're willing to pay a bigger price than Israel ultimately proved willing to pay. And Israel did pay a big price, of course. Hundreds of soldiers lost their lives in that conflict. And Israel at the time was, of course, the dominant military power. It probably strengthened Iran in the region. Remember when Israel invaded Lebanon, the Islamic Republic was only a few years old. It wasn't clear that they were going to become the master that they are today. It probably encouraged them to do that by trying to play God in Lebanon. The goal, there were three goals. One was to end the rockets. The other was to kick out the PLO that becomes a slightly less defensible, especially when considering the 10 years, hence they invited them into the West Bank and Gaza. And a third was to change the nature of politics in Lebanon. That proved completely unattainable and backfired, as I say, spectacular. So take us back then, prior to the conflict. What was life like in the Galilee region of Israel then, in northern Israel? Well, what people forget is that the First Lebanon War was in a way kind of the Second Lebanon War because there was also a smaller invasion called the Litani operation, smaller scale run by Defense Minister Azar Reitzman at the time, three or four years before, which also didn't achieve the aims. Fundamentally, every few months there were salvos of rockets fired by the PLO from what was called Fatah Lein because the PLO controlled what eventually became the Israeli security zone, the area just across the border from Israel. And Begin used that, some would say as a pretext to invade Lebanon because he was feeling some pressure from having been two-pieceable and giving up the entire Sinai Peninsula to Egypt just a few years before. Right, of course, all wars are kind of informed by what happened previously, aren't they? Yeah, now the official narrative, and I don't discount it entirely, was that they were aiming to put an end to the rockets. But honestly, I remember at the time there was a very strong feeling they were looking for a pretext. And by the way, the ultimate pretext was the attempted assassination of Ambassador Argov in London. Right, and that was cited as a kind of a case of spell for going to war. Like the next day or the day after they immediately rolled into Lebanon, they were obviously looking for an excuse. But the rockets from Lebanon were not a trivial thing. Of course, very sadly, for the past four decades or so, Israel has been facing rockets from different directions as well, it's a problem that seems to dog Israel over the ages. And right now, the biggest threat comes from Lebanon and Hezbollah, backed by Iran. That's an enemy of an entirely different magnitude, and I'm afraid Israel poked the bear here and may live to regret it. Do you think it was a mistake then? Do you think things could have been different today if that war wouldn't have happened? Yeah, I think the current disaster in Lebanon didn't need to be quite this bad. I think the Iranian involvement in Lebanon didn't need to be. And I know that some are controversial positions. There are some academics that say Iran was planning to do so anyway. I don't really buy it. But primarily, the security zone in Lebanon, the occupation that lasted after the war and only ended in 2000, was an unmitigated catastrophe. Many, many hundreds of Israelis lost their lives. Much of southern Lebanon was rendered dysfunctional, Hezbollah only strengthened from it. And Israel lost tremendous political capital. As I look at the past 40 years, it's hard to see- Can I spell capital in terms of- Well, I mean, it looked very, very bad around the world, especially for example, when it killed about 100 people, Kharkhna, and I believe it was 1996, during one of the- Every now and then, they ratcheted up the situation, and there were little mini wars in Lebanon to preserve the security zone. I just see no benefit deriving from that other than- And this attaches to Israeli politics, saving face for the Likud. Likud simply refused to support a full Poland in order to maintain a narrative that the occupation was necessary of Lebanon. Okay, I think we can- Thank you, Dan, do stay with us. I think we can take you back to Mount Haatzel now, where that ceremony is still underway, and you can hear this soldier is singing a famous song in honor of the soldiers. And you were just listening to a little snippet there of it, forgive my Hebrew, end the eret acheret. Is that right, Dan? Yes. Thanks. Well done. I tried my best. We're waiting for the prime minister, Naftali Bennett, who will be taking the podium shortly. There he is. Let's take a listen. Since we do not have another country, the role of all of us is to see that the earth does not burn, to extinguish the fire. The president, Herzog, and Mrs. Herzog, the deputy speaker of the Knesset, Ginzburg, the chief justice Solberg, the minister of defense, Benny Gantz, chairman of the WZO, the head of transportation division, Benatar, the deputy director and head of the division of the bereaved families in the Ministry of Defense, Mu'alem, the chairman of the organization, Yad Labanim, Eli Ben-Shem, the deputy mayor of Jerusalem, bereaved families, distinguished audience. Even after 40 years, since the First Lebanon War broke out, it's important that we remember that not out of joy did we go to this war, but out of a commitment, a deep commitment of the State of Israel to protect its citizens, out of which to bring an end to years of catechias that were launched at Kiryat Shmonai and the other settlements in the north, which has made the life of the inhabitants there into a nightmare. The war was a heavy price. Hundreds of our dear sons, the brothers, the sons, the spouses, the fathers, they are the ones we miss so much, even today, maybe especially today, 40 years on. They never went abroad for a trip, they never fell in love, they never got married, they never had children, life that was lost. The longer there were so the controversies grew in the Israeli society, these were not easy days to the society, to the state, because when the war advanced, not everybody in the society were convinced of its justification, but it's important to know that apart from a few refusals, most of the combatants in the army in the reserves did recruit themselves to war, even if there were controversies, even in such a great crisis it was obvious to everybody that we are fighting for the state and that the state is above all, and the wholeness of the state depends on compliance to its establishment, even if there's a large privacy, politically. Our best sons in the army, in reserves, came, mobilized, and some of them unfortunately fell in battle. They all went out with their face through those yellow lights of Lebanon and in their back the white lights of the settlements in the north. The fallen dead of the war is exactly the image of this mobilization. They fought shoulder to shoulder and fell together. People from the Kibbutz, from the Moshev, people who were born in Israel, or new immigrants, Jews and Druze, religious and secular, people who are rightists and those who are leftists, people who came from all over the world. And therefore in any challenge that we will still have to cope, internally or external, whether it's health or economic, the best perception has to be that the state together the completion of the people of the state at any cost. The battle on the before was one of the harshest that we ever knew, although their forces had the fire and opposition. They continued to storm and they purified the tunnels and through grenades, the Golan brigade where the leaders of this terrible fierce battle that has become a symbol both in the war and also in the long years of the stay of all of us in south of Lebanon. There wasn't a soldier that didn't see the before fortress when he entered and when he left Lebanon. Unfortunately, six out of those combatants did not come back from the battle, including the commander of the Golan brigade. Captain Tamir Masad was born in a Kibbutz third generation. He was here in one of the pictures. Tamir was a commander in the Golan brigade and he led his men to the before to the fierce battle, but he came out alive. Twenty years later, in October 2002, when he was an officer in reserve, Tamir had some position in the army when a suicide bomber came to the station and they had to fight with him and then the terrorists exploded and Tamir was killed on the spot with two other combatants. From Lebanon to Samaria, from the before to the city of Ariel, our mission has not changed. It hasn't changed because in the 74 years of the state still not all our neighbors agree to our existence. That's exactly the reason, even today, that we in Lebanon, in Samaria, in any place in the country, no matter close or far, we are acting covertly or overtly. There's no alternative to standing fiercely to protect ourselves. These days we are witnessing attempts to harm Israelis in other places in the world. The armed forces in Israel are doing everything in order to thwart such attacks and in order to neutralize a priori the proxies of the terrorists and themselves. We are not going to hesitate to do anything in the world in order to maintain and keep our citizens. My dear, bereaved families, when the First Lebanon War broke out, I was a child of 10 in the fourth grade. I remember that Saturday in my youth movement, I spoke to Noam Solberg just a while ago. He was a neighbor of mine on the eve of Sabat. I remember that all of a sudden, very strangely, a car came to pick me up. I know it wasn't so important, but the one who was in the car was my father and a friend of his who took my father, so we, the three brothers, were in the back. My father was near the driver, and I remember the anxiety, how afraid I was. I was so anxious for my father because I started imagining he may not come back. I remember my mother when we came home, and she tried to hide their concern. I remember how glad I was when my father came back alive from the war. But unfortunately, you, the families, you were not privileged. I remember that day, just a few days in the middle of the day in the school, where I was all of a sudden a knock on the door of the classroom, and one of the kids was called Elie Becher. He was sitting next to me. They took him out, and they told him that his brother, I think his older brother, Israel Becher, we all knew him, has fallen. You were not privileged to have your family members come back alive. They did not come back from the battle. Their anxiety that you had and the great concern have become, all of a sudden, to reality, a painful, awful reality with an emptiness. Even after 40 years, there are no words that can console you, and nothing can heal the pain. However, we continue. In any case, you have to know that we remember the fallen, and we evaluate their courage and their dedication. We are committed to continue to guard the security of the state of Israel, and the togetherness, togetherness of the people of Israel. May the memory of the fallen be blessed forever. And that was the second speaker at this memorial event over at Mount Halsal in Jerusalem. The Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett there, speaking to the families who lost soldiers in that war 40 years ago, the first Lebanese war. I'm joined in the studio by Dan Perry, former Middle East editor at Associated Press. Dan, we were just talking there, weren't we? We were listening to Naftali Bennett talk about his own experience of Lebanon, and indeed remembering as a child what it was like to have his father fighting as well. And we were talking about the difference between the first and the second Lebanese war. How would you characterize those differences? Well, both have weirdly differently mixed legacies. The first Lebanon war succeeded in ending the rockets for a while and kicking out the PLO. It had the unintended consequence of helping Hezbollah come to a rise, which became, I think, a far more dangerous enemy, creating generations of genuine enemies in Lebanon who remember being bombed by Israel, and Israel has no real desire to make an enemy of Lebanon. And of course, the 18-year quagmire being stuck in the buffer zone, which I characterized as pretty useless and highly ill-advised. The second Lebanon war was post-Israel's withdrawal from the buffer zone in 2000. It happened in 2006. Again, Hezbollah was proving to be pesky and a threat and so forth. And that war is extremely unpopular in Israel for reasons which I at least find slightly mystifying. However, it was mishandled in a variety of ways and also exposed some weaknesses in the IDF in terms of training and weaponry and other things. But the fact is... There was a high level of casualties on the other side. A lot of Lebanese civilians lost their lives in that war. Sadly, I don't think that's why it's so unpopular in Israel. I wish I could say it is. But the main thing in Israel is that it's perceived as a failure, whereas the reality is that for 16 years there's been silence on the border of Lebanon and no rockets fired across the border at all. And Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, has been largely in a bunker. So if the goal of that operation was to bring peace to the Galilee, as the first one was named, it manifestly has succeeded despite the image of having been a failure. I think largely it attaches to Edward Olmert, who was unpopular and of course was drummed out of office and ended up in jail. Right. And I wonder what people think victory in Lebanon would look like, indeed. Would people prefer Hezbollah to be wiped out altogether? Yeah, victory in Lebanon would be that Lebanon agrees to be a friendly country, as Israel would like to be towards Lebanon as well. And Lebanon ceases to be a territory that is essentially lawless and from which an armed gang supported by Iran is able to establish a arsenal of thousands of rockets aimed at Tel Aviv. Lebanon should cease to be a danger. That is what Israel would like to have happen in Lebanon. Yeah, and it's hard not to see the contrast between Israel and Lebanon. Here is Israel, you know, with a thriving economy, a high-tech sector making new friends in the region, of course, by the Abraham Accords, Lebanon currently in the grips of the worst economic crisis in history. It's a genuine tragedy. Lebanon is a dysfunctional state. It's a failed state. It has tremendous potential, obviously, but it has done the opposite of realizing that potential. It could be argued that if it acquiesced to Israel and stopped being an enemy of Israel, Israel and its delight would be so generous and would extend such a helping hand that it would benefit them. But I'm not so sure that the 60 to 70% of Lebanon that is Shiites and Sunnis and Druze would play along. Do you ever see that happening then? Can you see any situation where there might be peace between Israel and Lebanon and what might bring that about? How long do you have? I mean, peace maybe not in our time, but eventually, yes, because at the end of the day, Israel and Lebanon have no territorial dispute. Lebanon is, for an Arab country, relatively westernized. It has a very large sector of the population that is mercantile and practical-oriented and highly westernized and even French-speaking. It's conceivable. Yeah, and of course, we've seen the French President Emmanuel Macron visiting several times, trying to kind of see the situation there as well. We're going to head back to Jerusalem now. We are waiting to hear on the Defense Minister, Benny Gantz, who will also be addressing at the audience there. So let's take a listen. President Herzog, Prime Minister Bennett, distinguished audience, bereaved families. When the First Lebanon War broke out, I was in the United States in a special course. When I came back to Israel, I rejoined my unit and I went into the place that actually shaped my service in the IDF, namely Lebanon. That war that was designated to protect the inhabitants of the Galilee helped us to push the fire deep into Lebanon to hit the terror places and also took a heavy place which you have paid, the people of the bereaved families who are sitting here. So each of us, personally, together with the combatants and the comrades at war, also lost my best friend whose family is here with us today, Captain Goldberg, who went together with me to office's course. He also went to the war and he fell when he was leading his men to rescue other people. And that incident accompanies me to today. When I heard of his falling, I was deeply bereaved morning that was mixed with the continuation of the war. My heart refused to believe that we lost somebody with such a brilliant future. He finished school when he was 17. He was an admired commander. But you, people who are here with us today, you know very well that each and every one of the fallen dead had ambitions, a family, friends, and comrades in arms. And all of them we are embracing. And we have the mission and the responsibility to keep contact and to take care of their dear families who are carrying this terrorism and defense and to inculcate the legacy of their fallen dead and to continue with their life, not just with their death. As one who was one of the first to enter Lebanon in the Littani operation and fought in the First World War and was the last one to lock the gate after a long, long stay, I know very well to what extent the lessons of this war are indebted in us. And I also can say that the state of Israel of today knows and has to define qualitatively its goals in wars and in operations if and when they happen. Forty years after that war, Israel is the strongest force in the region. And I look today at Lebanon and the capabilities of the IDF. I have no doubt in my mind that if we are required to act again, our action will resonate and will end with a definite victory. We can act anywhere in Lebanon in any range and any dimension in the air, at sea, cyber, and obviously on land as well. I know it because the capability, the faith and the moral and operational force are getting stronger. Recently, we completed a maneuver of chariots of fire where we checked our capabilities and we will continue to exercise all the scenario and at the same time to also extend to our bitterest enemy our hand for peace. And when peace arrives, it will arrive out of force. In the song that we just heard, Alon Avidar wrote about the war and the loss. A witness forever. You will always know what is the point of being on the ground. And there together, there is no terror, there is no fear, and the taste of tears also tells us about the future. Avner Gadassi, who just sung it, now he said, men are crying at night. Her sound is not heard, there's nothing to hide, as we just heard in a fantastic performance just now. Many of those who served in the Lebanon War or in other wars as well came back scarred. They lost friends, they were injured, they have traumas because of the images and the memories from the battlefield. In their past, this was a shame to talk about it or to share it and it's impossible that this will be the situation today. And from here, I call upon the men and the women, there is no shame in pain, there's no shame in difficulty. It's a great pride to fight for this country and it's a great importance for the country to support those who paid the price. Our moral duty is to support you, to recognize the pain and to help you cope. And therefore, just as we promote our force vis-à-vis our enemies, we are promoting, with the same determination, the reform of the soul for our soldiers. It's a long and complicated process. It's painful and necessary and people from the rehabilitation center are leading it together with the disabled of the IDF and we shall not rest until we finish it. Dear bereaved families, we are standing here, painting together with you and saluting your dear ones and all the other combatants and the heroes. Let us hope that all the members of the families who are here will have moments of happiness and good that we will not know pain and that we will know as a state and as individual to win over every challenge. May the memory of the fallen be blessed. The Defence Minister, Benny Gantz, they're wrapping up that ceremony for the fallen soldiers of the war with Lebanon 40 years ago. I'd like to thank Dan Perry for being with us, giving us a history.