ותשקיט המדינה 40 שנה - השלכותיה ארוכות הטווח של מלחמת לבנון הראשונה

How did the First Lebanon War shape the relationship between the Israeli military,society, and politics? I argue that the First Lebanon War was the most significant formative event in Israel’s civil-military relations since 1948—until the events of October 7. The war’s outcomes provide an etiology of the dominant structural arrangements in Israeli civil-military relations.The war disrupted the existing republican contract between the state and the secular middle class by increasing the military burden without offering compensatoryrewards—quite the opposite. In the short term, the response was a reduction in this burden through military restraint, exemplified by the withdrawal from Lebanon in1985. However, in the long-term context, the state’s response involved renegotiating the contract through structural changes designed to reduce the security burden without imposing military restraint.At the core of this process was the state’s effort to weaken its dependence on the secular middle class for managing military conflicts, thereby restoring its autonomy, which had been undermined by the war. Two key processes facilitatedth is shift: first, the reduction of military expenditures, which aligned with the1985 Economic Stabilization Plan and the neoliberalization it set in motion, and second, the transformation of the military’s social architecture. This restructuring reduced reliance on reservists and conscripts from the secular middle class while increasing dependence on technology. Thus, the war led to structural arrangements with lasting implications, which remain relevant 40 years later