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mandatory authorities had delineated the joint border.
    One small hamlet called Ghajar, lying on a grassy plain between the Hasbani River and the jagged limestone foothills of Mount Hermon, was populated by members of the Alawite sect, an obscure offshoot of Shiism. The Israelis stopped just short of the village because, according to their maps, Ghajar was in Lebanon. But the residents of Ghajar considered themselves Syrian. One group of villagers approached the Israelis asking to be taken into Israel’s newly seized territory, while another delegation asked the Lebanese authorities to formally incorporate their village. The Lebanese refused and, after some hesitation, the Israelis accepted the offer and troops deployed into Ghajar.
    The Israelis faced similar territorial uncertainty just to the east of Ghajar, where the volcanic plateau of the Golan buckles and folds into the pale gray limestone foothills of Mount Hermon. Cutting through these hills is a deep brush-covered ravine called Wadi al-Aasal, the Valley of Honey. In 1967, the terrain on the northern side of the valley contained some fourteen farmsteads populated mainly by Lebanese residents of Shebaa and Kfar Shuba villages. The area today is collectively known as the Shebaa Farms and Kfar Shuba Heights. During the mild summer months, the villagers farmed the flatter reaches of the valley’s upper slopes, growing wheat and lentils and grazing sheep, cattle, and goats. During the cold winters, most of the farmsteads were abandoned as their occupants descended to warmer climes in the valleys below.
    Having seized Ghajar, the Israelis moved east into the adjacent hills, overrunning the farmsteads on the lower slopes of the Shebaa Farms area. The residents fled to Shebaa and Kfar Shuba or to other farms higher up the mountainside.
Fatahland
    With the armies of the Arab world defeated and disgraced by Israel in the 1967 war, the nascent Palestinian armed movement gained traction.In October 1968, fighters belonging to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) began moving out of the refugee camps and establishing military bases in south Lebanon close to the border with Israel.
    The Lebanese government watched this post-1967-war buildup with apprehension. Even before Palestinian raids from Lebanon had begun in earnest, Israel gave the Lebanese a foretaste of what they could expect if the Palestinians were not kept in check. On December 26, helicopter-borne Israeli commandos landed at Beirut airport and blew up thirteen aircraft, including eight airliners belonging to Middle East Airlines, Lebanon’s flag carrier. The subsequent public protests in Lebanon forced the resignation of the government.
    In April and October 1969, violent clashes erupted between the Lebanese army and the PLO in south Lebanon, quickly spreading to the streets of Lebanese cities. The actions of the Palestinians were seriously aggravating the strains of communal power sharing between the entrenched, predominantly Maronite ruling elite and the mainly Muslim and leftist groups. The former resented the growing power of the PLO and its potential to upset the status quo, while the latter viewed the Palestinians as useful allies in the struggle for greater representation.
    A set of understandings known as the “Cairo Accords” was reached in October 1968 between the Lebanese state and the PLO, permitting the Palestinians the right to participate in the armed struggle against Israel “in accordance with the principles of the sovereignty and security of Lebanon.” The fact that the interests of the Lebanese state were incompatible with the right of the Palestinians to armed struggle was left unaddressed.
    The beginning of 1970 marked an increase in Palestinian attacks against Israel, which inevitably provoked harsh retaliation. In July, the Israelis moved to occupy the entire Shebaa Farms mountainside, from where Palestinian spotters had directed artillery bombardments against