LETTER: Israel’s seizure of a castle in Lebanon is like ‘Groundhog Day’
June 16, 2026
By Steve Hindy
To the Editor:
Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu lauded his fighters’ seizure of Lebanon’s 12th Century Beaufort Castle as a “symbol of a heroic battle by our fighters.”
To me, it was a moment of deja vu, reminiscent of the movie “Groundhog Day.
I was in Lebanon in 1982 when Israel’s fighters first occupied the crumbling monument built by European Crusaders. Israel held the strategically valuable strongpoint for 18 years while enduring hit-and-run strikes from Hezbollah. Israel left most of Lebanon in 2000 in a retreat that an emboldened Hezbollah celebrated as the first defeat of Israel by an Arab army.
I would like to ask Mr Netanyahu and his partners Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir what they plan to do with Beaufort and the rest of south Lebanon this time. They have said they plan to obliterate the area like they have obliterated the Gaza Strip, and indeed they have demolished many villages already.
They are doing this in the name of security for the Israel people.
But the amazing development of drone warfare that has enabled Ukraine to fight off Russia and helped Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz and inflict damage on America’s bases in the Persian Gulf states means that Hezbollah will always be able to strike Israeli towns and cities.
In 1982, the threat to Israel came from Palestine Liberation Organization guerrillas holding Beaufort. The PLO harassed Israel’s northern towns with primitive cross border raids that included attacks from hang gliders.
Today, the threat is Hezbollah’s drones and missiles that can reach all the way to Tel Aviv.
Iran is insisting that any settlement of the war launched by the United States and Israel on February 28 include a settlement of the war Israel is waging against Hezbollah. Israel has declared it will not accept any curb on its right to military strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel’s strikes in Lebanon could ruin any attempt to end the US war in Iran.
When Israel invaded in 1982, some Lebanese greeted the Israeli Army with rosewater and flowers, hoping the Israelis would drive the PLO out of southern Lebanon.
But the Israelis soon learned what the Syrian Army learned when it occupied Lebanon in 1976 to snuff out Lebanon’s civil war and what dozens of invading armies have learned over the centuries: It is much easier to take a bite out of the Biblical “land of milk and honey” than to swallow that bite and keep it down.
Steve Hindy
—Hindy was a correspondent for The Associated Press, based in Beirut and Cairo, from 1979-1984. He lives in Brooklin.
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