Appalled by Israel’s carpet bombing of Beirut during the 1982 Lebanon war, U.S. President Ronald Reagan delivered an unvarnished message to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin.

“I was angry. I told him it had to stop, or our entire future relationship was endangered. I used the word holocaust deliberately & said the symbol of his war was becoming a picture of a 7-month-old baby with its arms blown off,” Reagan recorded in his diary.

The August 1982 phone call between Reagan and Begin underscores the duality of America’s ability to influence Israel: its potential to apply pressure and the inherent limits of that influence. Reagan’s threat compelled Begin to halt the saturation bombing of Beirut immediately. However, Begin refused to heed Reagan’s demand to allow an international force into Beirut to protect the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees in the Israeli-besieged city.

Begin’s rejection carried dire consequences. A month later, over 800 Palestinians—many of them women and children—were massacred in their homes in Sabra and Shatila by Lebanese Christian militias. At the same time, Israeli forces turned a blind eye. Outrage over the massacre within Israel led to Begin’s resignation, marking the end of his political career.

More than four decades later, President Joe Biden faced equally high stakes as Israel launched a war in response to the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas militants. Biden, no stranger to leveraging presidential pressure, drew lessons from Reagan’s approach, having employed similar tactics in 2021 during an escalation between Israel and Hamas.

At that time, Biden made four calls to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu within ten days, urging an end to the violence. He advised the Israeli leader that he “expected a significant de-escalation today on the path to a ceasefire,” adding bluntly when Netanyahu pushed back: “Hey man, we’re out of runway here. It’s over.” A ceasefire was agreed upon the following day.

Despite Biden’s success in ending the 2021 hostilities, Netanyahu today operates with a sense of impunity unmatched by Begin’s era. Reagan’s administration, though unwavering in its support for Israel, allowed the United Nations Security Council to pass 21 resolutions criticizing or condemning Israeli policies. In stark contrast, Biden has offered Israel consistent diplomatic cover and military aid, even as its actions surpass the scale of 1982’s violence.

Biden’s failure to constrain Netanyahu this past year reflects his understanding of the history of U.S.-Israel relations and the challenges of confronting Israeli leaders—Reagan’s example of confronting Begin in 1982 highlights Biden’s missed opportunities. The consequences for Palestinians are immediate and devastating, while the broader implications for Israelis and the region are unfolding in ways that could haunt the Middle East for generations.

In 1982, Reagan warned Begin that Israel’s settlement policies risked alienating American support, leading to a heated exchange. Begin, slamming his fists on a table, retorted defiantly, “I am not a Jew with trembling knees.” Four decades later, Biden has largely avoided addressing the stark parallels between Israel’s current wars and its actions in the early 1980s.

Begin’s 1981 bombing of Fakhani, a densely populated Beirut neighborhood home to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), serves as a chilling precedent. The bombing destroyed a seven-story building, damaged adjacent structures, and resulted in some 90 deaths and hundreds of injuries. Begin rationalizing such actions by drawing comparisons between the PLO and Nazi Germany.

In a letter to Reagan during Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, Begin justified the carpet bombing of Beirut by likening it to the Allied destruction of Berlin in World War II. “I feel as a prime minister empowered to instruct a valiant army facing ‘Berlin’ where, amongst innocent civilians, Hitler and his henchmen hide in a bunker deep beneath the surface,” Begin wrote.

Today, Netanyahu employs similar rhetoric, equating Hamas with the Nazis to justify military operations that blur the lines between targeting combatants and disregarding civilian safety.

Historian Rashid Khalidi, who lived through the 1982 Beirut bombings, recalled that while some Israeli strikes were guided by intelligence, many were indiscriminate, leveling entire apartment blocks with no discernible military utility. This strategy, designed to undermine militant organizations, often incited greater resistance among affected populations.

“In certain cases, the Israeli shelling and bombing were carefully targeted, sometimes on the basis of good intelligence. All too often, however, that was not the case. Scores of eight-to twelve-story apartment buildings were destroyed…Many of the buildings that were levelled…had no plausible military utility,” recalled Rashid Khalidi in his New York Times bestseller, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine.

There is little evidence to suggest that Israel’s current wars will yield different results. Gaza, described by former Australian human rights commissioner and United Nations rapporteur Chris Sidoti as a “terrorism creation factory,” epitomizes the cycles of destruction and resistance that have defined the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for decades.

As Biden grapples with the political and moral challenges of supporting Israel, the lessons of 1982 loom large. Reagan’s willingness to confront Begin remains a touchstone of effective, if limited, U.S. influence over Israel. In contrast, Biden’s approach risks entrenching a legacy of unchecked violence, ensuring the region’s wounds remain open for another generation.