The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) had continued to mount an ineffective but troublesome armed resistance to Israeli occupation and had been forced to relocate from Jordan to Lebanon. Precipitated by an attempted assassination of Israel's ambassador to the UK by Abu Nidal, the IDF invaded Lebanon in 1982 under Defense Minister Ariel Sharon in order to defeat the PLO resistance forces, an operation designated "Peace of the Galilee." Scenes of Israel's bombardment of Beirut, the "Paris of the Middle East" as it was known, motivated Osama bin Laden to later attack the Twin Towers on 9/11. This ended in a U.S.-brokered settlement that allowed the PLO to leave Lebanon, after which it re-established its operation in North Africa.
While in Lebanon the PLO had provided protection for a Palestinian refugee camp and nearby impoverished neighborhood, known as Sabra and Shatila. Following withdrawal of the PLO protective forces, Sharon ordered or at the least permitted (the IDF was responsible for these camps) massacres in both camps conducted by Lebanese Christian Phalangist militias allied with the IDF. A subsequent Israeli commission of inquiry found Sharon "personally responsible" for the atrocities, forcing his resignation as Defense Minister.
Repressed memories of indirect participation in these atrocities by one IDF soldier are reconstructed through surreal animation and one direct, searing set of images in his 2008 film, Waltz with Bashir. Bashir Gemayel, the Phalangist president-elect of Lebanon, had been recently assassinated, for which the PLO was (erroneously) presumed responsible.
