Sharon praises accused officers

Press, 10 February 1983, Page 6

Sharon praises accused officers

NZPA Tel Aviv The Israeli Defence Minister. Mr Ariel Sharon, in his first public appearance since the State commission on the Beirut massacres published its findings. yesterday praised the Army officers, indicted by the commission. A defiant Mr Sharon told members of the governing Herut Party that they had given their hearts and souls to the defence of Israel.

To loud applause, Mr Sharon read the names of the four senior officers criticised by the commission fpr not forseeing and stopping the massacre of hundreds of Palestinian civilians in two Beirut refugee camps in September. He said that the list — the Chief-of-Staff, Lieutenant General Rafael Eitan: the northern front commander. Major General Amir Drori; the chief of Military Intelligence, Major General Yehoshua Saguy; and the Beirut forces commander. Brigadier-General Amos Yaron was an honoured one. The commission recommended that Mr Sharon should resign or that the Prime Minister, Mr Menachem Begin, should dismiss him.

Israeli television reported that Mr Sharon had no intention of resigning and that he believed Mr Begin would be unable to dismiss him without endangering the Government's existence.

Mr Sharon attacked what he called “the weakness of mind that sweeps sections of the Israeli public from time to time." He said that this weakness was a threat to Israel’s most vital national interests and made it more difficult for the Government to stand firm against foreign pressure to make concessions in Lebanon and on the occupied West Bank.

Mr Sharon appeared to be referring to Opposition calls for him to resign.

The three-member commission which reported on events surrounding the massacre was appointed by the Cabinet on October 1 after intense public pressure in Israel.

The retiring President of the Israeli Supreme Court, Mr Justice Kahan, was appointed chairman, with Mr Justice Barak and Reserve Major-General Yona Efrat as members.

The commission began its

hearings on October 20 in a small classroom on the campus of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and met a total of 114 days to hear and then consider the oral and written evidence presented to it.

In Amman, the Jordanian capital. the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, yesterday called for an international war crimes trial for Israelis and Americans who he said were responsible for the massacre.

"I’m asking the whole international public opinion to take it into consideration and to have an international court, like the Nuremburg court (that tried Nazi war criminals after World War II). not only for the Israelis but for the Americans, too.” The Palestinian news agency, Wafa, reported Mr Arafat as saying that the conclusions of Israel’s inquiry into the massacre were important but incomplete. They were incomplete “because they did not include a decisive condemnation of Menachem Begin and members of his Government who are involved, with American support, in the shameful massacre.”