Arab militants strike across the border from southern Lebanon, provoking a massive Israeli response, with thousands of soldiers pouring into Lebanese territory and airstrikes pounding enemy positions.

The Israeli prime minister says the only objectives of the invasion are to "root out the evil weed" of terrorism. Israel will protect itself by pushing militants beyond the Litani River and establishing a buffer zone along the border. The Israeli incursion is also described as "limited." And though Israel says its strikes are carefully targeted against militants, at least 100,000 Lebanese civilians flee their homes and hundreds die.

That was 1978. A chain of events was set in motion that included a failed United Nation's peacekeeping mission, Israel's larger invasion of southern Lebanon in 1982 to drive out the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), its occupation of Lebanese territory for 18 years, and the emergence of Hizbullah as a dominant military and political force.

While scholars debate the limits of historical analogy – Israel supporters say it's a dramatically different world than 1982, critics say it's déjà vu – the past implies that almost no one comes out a winner from these confrontations. Israel may take lots of casualties and eventually withdraw, leaving a more radical threat behind.

"This is one of the past parallels: In 1982 the Israelis go in to drive the Palestinians out of Lebanon. What happens next is that Hizbullah is created," says Wayne White, who retired as head of the Middle East desk at the US State Department's Intelligence and Research office last year.

"In Lebanon, the entire political spectrum is becoming more radicalized as a consequence of this. I think [Israel] can substantially destroy the existing Hizbullah infrastructure, but how long will it take? And in the end, they'll reconstitute themselves and they'll be turning recruits away by the thousands."

For now, the recent history of Israel and Lebanon's entanglements is being reflected in the strategic decisions of all parties to the conflict – all of whom seem to draw different lessons from the past.

Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah is refusing to accede to any Israeli demands, as it appears he believes his movement's relentless guerrilla attacks on Israeli forces in the 1980s and 1990s were what drove Israel from the country – and today provide a model that can be successfully pursued again.

Based on his comments and his government's actions, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert sees history as evidence that UN peacekeepers can't be trusted to disarm militias, and is seeking to destroy Hizbullah on his own, while somehow avoiding another costly occupation, going much further, much faster than Israel went in 1978.

The US, Israel's closest ally, too, seems to see the UN as ineffectual, but is also leery of committing troops of its own – something that ended in disaster in 1983, when 241 US marines were killed in a suicide bombing on their barracks in Beirut. This time, the US is running diplomatic interference for Israel, seeking to buy time for Israel to "finish the job" of destroying Hizbullah and then find a recipe for the "enduring solutions" that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke of during her trip to the region.

To be sure, the differences between the early 1980s and today are being taken by supporters of Israel's latest action as evidence that it can accomplish more – and do it faster – without taking on as many risks.

Israel's last invasion of Lebanon was spurred by its desire to destroy the military capacity of the secular-leaning PLO, an organization whose militants enjoyed wide support among the Sunni Arab states of the region and that by 1978 had created large enclaves outside Lebanese government control. Today, it's confronting Hizbullah, a Shiite militia whose principal backer is Shiite and ethnically Persian Iran.

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