The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership (70 page)

If the amber light for the war in Lebanon flashed on when the
PLO
persisted in its terrorist attacks in direct violation of an American-sponsored ceasefire, it turned red on 3 June 1982, when an assassination attempt was made against one of Israel’s most senior and gifted diplomats
–
Israel’s ambassador to Great Britain, Shlomo Argov, who was shot in the head as he left a banquet at the Dorchester Hotel in London. In the words of one pundit, not since the shooting of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914 had a hit squad
–
this one Palestinian
–
made war such a likely outcome.

The morning after the shooting, the prime minister sought out Dr. Yosef Burg, head of the National Religious Party, and invited him to his office for an urgent consultation. He wanted to persuade him to support the plan drawn up by Defense Minister Sharon for a massive
IDF
incursion into south Lebanon to drive the
PLO
terrorists out. Begin wanted unanimous cabinet consent, and he knew that Burg, an influential minister, had sharp reservations.

“Strike them by all means,” said Burg, “but not a full-blown ground invasion.”

Dr. Yosef Burg was a witty man, with chubby cheeks and a permanent twinkle in his sharp eyes. He was also an ordained rabbi, a doctor of philosophy, a master of eight languages and a Knesset member since the founding of the state. He had headed multiple governmental ministries under six prime ministers. With credentials like those, he knew enough to know that once the Lebanon curse struck it would be hard to get rid of it.

Beautiful Lebanon, once a tranquil country, had years before become bitterly factionalized, smitten with ethnic and religious insanity. Havoc, slaughter and treachery were by then a way of life: Shiite against Sunni; Sunni and Shiite against Druze; Christians against Sunni and Shiite; Druze and Christians against Syrians; in short, Lebanon had become a cursed land where the PLO had found it easy to carve out a formidably armed fiefdom – literally, a state within a state.

“We’ve already carried out air strikes against their bases in Beirut, and yet they are still bombarding our towns and villages along the border relentlessly. It’s intolerable!” Begin replied in response to Burg’s cautionary advice.

“But full-scale war will be even more intolerable,” said Burg with determination.

“Yosef, we simply cannot allow an attack on our ambassador to go unanswered,” countered Begin with impatience. “Ambassador Argov was chosen as a target because he is a Jew, because he is an Israeli, and because he is a symbol of the state. An attack on an ambassador is tantamount to an attack on the state itself.”

“That’s as may be, but we are not dealing here with international protocol,” said Burg, in a tone of biting irony.

Begin gave him a solemn look: “And I tell you, we would have to bury our heads in shame were we not to respond in force and clear the killers out.”

A thought drifted across Burg’s face and his eyes darkened. “Supposing I support the plan,” he said, “what are the casualty estimates?”

Begin stared back at him sadly. “My feelings of trepidation are no less than yours, believe me. We will suffer casualties. Only a fool would say this is a cut-and-dried affair. The
PLO
thugs have modern Soviet-supplied armaments, and they will put up a fight. But our
IDF
will put up a stronger fight, and we’ll vanquish them.”

“Yes, we shall. But again I ask, at what cost?”

In slow, solemn tones, Begin answered. “Everything will be done to prevent casualties. Given the limited nature of the operation, which is to remove our towns and villages from beyond the range of the terrorists’ fire
–
that is to say, to push the enemy back forty kilometers from our border
–
I am assured the casualty rate will be relatively small. But nobody can deny that military action means losses, and losses mean bereavement and orphans. If Operation Peace for Galilee
–
that is the code name of the intended operation
–
succeeds in freeing northern Galilee from perpetual threat, that in itself will be a worthwhile accomplishment, even if the quiet doesn’t last indefinitely.”

“But how can you call it an accomplishment when, once we’ve withdrawn, the terrorists will regroup and come back to harass us?”

Begin’s eyes went hard. “I tell you that even though I cannot promise anything conclusively, by launching this operation now we will make sure to destroy and uproot the bulk of the terrorist infrastructure. If thousands of terrorists are killed in the process that, too, will be an accomplishment.”

“And what of the Syrians?” argued Burg. “They have thirty thousand troops in northern and eastern Lebanon, as well as ground-to-air missiles.”

“Our intention,” said Begin cautiously, “is to make every effort to avoid confrontation with the Syrians, unless the Syrians decide to confront us.”

“Fine! And what about the day after Operation Peace for Galilee? Where do we go from there?”

“None of us can answer that question now. I am not going to play charlatan. I certainly cannot give a guarantee of what will come after. Perhaps our intervention will enable the Lebanese Christians to gain the upper hand. Perhaps it will break the back of the Nazi-
PLO
organization altogether. All I can say now is that once we’ve completed Operation Peace for Galilee we can then review how best to consolidate it. One thing for sure, we’re not in Lebanon to stay. Israel certainly does not seek a single centimeter of Lebanese territory.”

Burg threw him a melancholy smile, and said, “And have you put our American friends on notice so that they won’t complain we’re taking them by surprise again?”

The prime minister breathed an exasperated sigh, and said, “Yes and no. Sharon was in Washington last month and he all but forewarned Secretary of State Haig and others that they shouldn’t feel we’ve taken them by surprise if we respond massively to the incessant violations of the ceasefire which they themselves brokered.”

“And what was their response?”

“Haig is certainly sympathetic to our problems. He doesn’t doubt our inherent right to self-defense. But he gave us no green light. Perhaps he gave us an amber one, but I wouldn’t count on that either.”

Burg mulled this over in silence, his face studying the framed map on the wall by the prime minister’s desk. Its uppermost sector, marking the Galilean mountains, was colored a deep brown, which merged into the even deeper brown of southern Lebanon, with its craggy slopes, deep ravines, and dry stream beds. Perhaps Burg was thinking of his son, Avrum, a parachutist officer in the reserves, who would almost assuredly be conscripted to fight in that forbidding and fractured terrain.

Begin, as if reading his colleague’s mind, fixed his eyes unblinkingly on him, and in a voice full of the irrepressible drama always present in his rhetoric, said, “Yosef, the question is, who is going to prevail
–
the brutes over us or we over the brutes? The decision is ours to make. I don’t believe we have a choice. We will be nobody’s cowering Jew. We won’t wait for the Americans or the United Nations to save us. Those days are over. We have to defend ourselves. Without our readiness for self-sacrifice, there will be another Auschwitz. And if we have to pay a price for the sake of our self-defense, then we will have to pay it. Yes, war means bloodshed, bereavement, orphans – and that is a terrible thing to contemplate. But when an imperative arises to protect our people from being bled, as they are being bled now in Galilee, how can any one of us doubt what we have to do?”93

On Saturday night, 5 June, the prime minister convened the cabinet for a final vote on Operation Peace for Galilee, set to begin the following morning. There were three abstentions, one of them Dr. Burg’s. The next day, Ambassador Samuel Lewis rushed to Jerusalem to hand the prime minister an urgent letter from President Reagan:

Dear Menachem,

Following the abominable shooting of Ambassador Argov and the subsequent escalation of violence, I am sure you are aware of our efforts with the interested parties in Europe and the Middle East to urge that no actions be taken against Israel that could worsen the situation. As we continue our efforts, I hope you will…do what you can to avoid military steps that could lead to a widening of the conflict and even greater Israeli casualties.

[…]

I hope you will agree on the need to work together to bring about those conditions, which, over time, will recreate a stable and secure Lebanon, and ultimately lead to security on Israel’s northern border. I pray our efforts will succeed to ensure the situation does not go beyond the violence of recent hours. As you know, the security of Israel remains of the utmost concern to me. With warm regards,

Ronald Reagan

To which the prime minister replied:

Dear Mr. President, Dear Friend,

I thank you for your letter. Your words of sympathy, friendship and understanding touched me deeply. I am in permanent contact with the surgeon – a wonderful man – who operated on Ambassador Argov. His last call from London came yesterday evening; the good doctor informed me that he still could not make a definite prognosis. It seems already clear, however, that if the ambassador survives the assassination attempt, he will be left paralyzed. Nothing can be determined as yet about how his intellectual faculties will function.

For the last seventy-two hours, twenty-three of our towns, townships, and villages in Galilee have been under the constant shelling of Soviet-supplied heavy artillery and Katyusha rockets by the
PLO
terrorists. Tens of thousands of men, women, and children remain day and night in shelters. We have suffered casualties…. The purpose of the enemy is to kill
–
to kill Jews. Is there a nation in the world that would tolerate such a situation? Does not Article 51 of the
UN
Charter [the inherent right of self-defense] apply to us? Is the Jewish State an exception to all the rules applying to all other nations? The answer to these questions is enshrined in the questions themselves….

The army has been instructed to push back the terrorists to a distance of forty kilometers to the north, so that our citizens and their families can live peacefully and carry on their daily lives without the lurking permanent threat of sudden death.

I do hope, Mr. President, you will take into consideration the unique situation in which we find ourselves as a result of the repeated aggression against us perpetrated by a Soviet-promoted terrorist organization bent on shedding the blood of our people in our Land and abroad.

We shall do our sacred duty, so help us God.

Yours respectfully and sincerely,

Menachem

Just over a week later, while the war was raging as the
IDF
was advancing and occupying large swaths of Lebanese territory, the prime minister readied himself to travel to the United States. His purpose was to deliver an address at a special session of the United Nations General Assembly on international disarmament, and, more importantly, to meet with President Reagan in the hope of settling their sharp differences over the Lebanon war.

As I busied myself polishing the prime minister’s disarmament speech, he was becoming ever more embroiled in meetings with Defense Minister Ariel Sharon over the war in Lebanon. Clearly, it was not going according to plan. The Syrians had entered the fray, and the fighting was broadening into fierce encounters resulting in an ever-mounting number of casualties. Understandably, he was not happy when he was waylaid by a clutch of Israeli journalists waiting for him outside the airport VIP lounge as he was about to board his flight to the United States:

“Mr. Begin, in view of the fighting in Lebanon and the criticism in the world press about the alleged thousands of Lebanese casualties inflicted by the
IDF
, shouldn’t your U.S. visit be postponed?”

“No, it didn’t even occur to me to postpone it. I received an invitation to address the
UN
General Assembly on the disarmament issue, and I think this an excellent time for the prime minister of Israel to deliver such an address to such a forum. Moreover, the president of the United States, Mr. Ronald Reagan, has invited me to the White House. We have much to talk about and to clarify, not least the grossly exaggerated claims concerning Lebanese casualties. So, yes, this is a visit of high national importance.”

A second journalist stepped up. “Mr. Prime Minister, our forces are now in Beirut, and
–
”

“Correction, our forces are not in Beirut, they are at the approaches to Beirut.”

“Sorry, at the approaches. This is far beyond the forty-kilometer security line which was the officially declared goal of Operation Peace for Galilee
–
to push the
PLO
weaponry beyond the range of our towns and villages along our northern border.”

“Correct. But this was a necessary maneuver to outflank the enemy. It is not a strategic goal.”

“But now that the enemy has been pushed northward, what do you intend to do with their bases and command centers in Beirut itself?”

Menachem Begin pondered for a moment, stared hard at his shoes, and not without self-consciousness, answered, “I would like to answer your question, since I don’t like evasion, but there is a matter of field security involved, and in a few days’ time you will find out.”

“How do you intend to respond to President Reagan’s general criticism of this war?” asked a third man.

“Well, it’s true, we have some differences in nuance, but there is also a basic agreement that the situation that existed in the past in Lebanon should not be restored. And now you will please excuse me, I have to address a
UN
disarmament conference on the eighteenth of June, and that is tomorrow, and I don’t want to keep the good passengers of El Al waiting. Thank you. Shalom.”