THE 1982 ISRAELI invasion of Lebanon prompted a spate of "revisionist" scholarship in both Israel and the United States purporting to radically question received truths about the Middle East conflict.  In both cases, the findings were widely publicized and acclaimed in the media.  But in spirit, methodology and consequences, they couldn't have been more different.

Official declarations and many reports in the Israeli media indicate that the Israeli military and political leadership are aiming, eventually, at a total destruction of the Palestinian authority, and, with it, the process of Oslo, which is now dominantly considered by them a 'historical mistake'.  What can they be after?  —Let us trace some of the background for this development.