Sharon hurt by Lebanon accusation

PATRICK COCKBURN

Jerusalem

Did General Ariel Sharon lie to the Israeli prime minister about his plans 14 years ago to take the Israeli army all the way to Beirut? He denies it but the fact that it is made by the son of Menachem Begin, prime minister during Israel's disastrous invasion of Lebanon in 1982, is reopening a feud in the right-wing Likud party, in which both men are leading figures.

The dispute centres on the allegation by Benny Begin that Gen Sharon, then Israel's defence minister, used permission for a limited incursion across the Lebanese border to launch a full-scale invasion. In the two years of fighting that followed, 600 Israelis and more than 11,500 people in Lebanon were killed, including 800 Palestinians massacred in the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps.

The claim resurfaced this week - at a deeply inconvenient moment for Likud in the run-up to the general election on 29 May - when testimony by Benny Begin in a libel case brought by Gen Sharon was made public. He quotes his father, whose political career was ended by the Lebanese war, as saying there was "no truth to the statements" made by Gen Sharonthat the cabinet had been informed about plans to go all the way to Beirut.

Gen Sharon, who will hope for a senior cabinet post if Likud wins the election, called a press conference to rebut the accusations.

He said: "For 14 years I have been hounded by this libel that I lied to Menachem Begin." He says that the cabinet knew about his plans to send the army across a line 40km north of the Israeli border.

There is more at stake here than an historical argument about what happened in Lebanon between 1982 and 1984. It was the least successful war fought by Israel. Its aims were to marginalise the PLO and end Syrian predominance in Lebanon. In both of these objectives it wholly failed.

Likud, hoping to win some advantage out of the present government's problems in Lebanon, does not want memories of the invasion revived.

The scandal resurfaced because of Gen Sharon's fondness for litigation, particularly against the press, which led him to sue the daily Haaretz for libel over an article, originally published in 1991, which said: "Menachem Begin knows very well that Sharon deceived him."

Other testimony in the case is also damaging to Gen Sharon. General Amram Mitzna, in charge of Israel's northern command in 1982, says that in the first days of the war he remembers Gen Sharon saying he did not want the government provided with very detailed maps. He wanted them rather to be on "a scale so that the national leadership wouldn't be able to see where the arrows were pointing".

A problem for Gen Sharon is that Menachem Begin, who died in 1992, was a national icon for Likud supporters, so he needs to show that he had good relations with him. For the same reason, he needs to pull his punches in criticising Benny Begin, who has inherited some of his father's popularity.

The best history of the invasion, Israel's Lebanon War, by Zeev Schiff and Ehud Yaari, long ago concluded that Gen Sharon originally persuaded the cabinet to allow him to carry out a 48-hour, 40-km attack and that he then escalated it into an all-out war, using tactical developments on the ground as an excuse.

They conclude: "Born of the ambition of one wilful, reckless man, Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon was anchored in delusion, propelled by deceit and bound to end in calamity."