Israeli Minister lashes Sharon

Press, 7 June 1983, Page 10

Israeli Minister lashes Sharon

NZPA Tel Aviv The Israeli Cabinet argued the merits of the Lebanon war on the eve of its first anniversary yesterday, and a senior Minister accused the former Defence Minister, Ariel Sharon, of repeatedly deviating from Cabinet war policy. A Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Simcha Ehrlich, alleged that there had been “many examples of deviations, sometimes acceptable and tolerable and sometimes intolerable and unacceptable.”

In an interview with Israeli television, Mr Ehrlich suggested that the Israeli Army had provoked Syrian forces last year to create a pretext for moving beyond the limits set by the Cabinet and capturing the strategic Beirut-Damascus highway. Mr Ehrlich, who was standing in for the Prime Minister, Mr Menachem Begin, when he was in Washington in late June last year, said that the information given to him then had been that the Syrians had opened fire. That data “was proved to be inaccurate, at least to me,” he said.

He later had received “reports from the field that fire was opened not only by the Syrians, i.e., there were provocations.” Mr Ehrlich was reacting to assertions by Mr Sharon, now a Minister without

Portfolio, that his Cabinet colleagues had failed to back him during the war, and lately were turning against him because the prolonged Lebanon campaign was becoming unpopular. Mr Sharon insists that all his moves had been approved by the Cabinet. But Mr Ehrlich quoted Mr Begin as saying that Mr Sharon sometimes had failed to brief the Cabinet until after the fact. “Many things were done which we only knew about afterwards,” said Mr Ehrlich. “He (Sharon) confronted us with faits accomplis.” . Mr Ehrlich has long been known for his moderate views, but it was the first time that any Minister has openly criticised a Cabinet colleague for his role in the war. Apart from the BeirutDamascus highway episode,

Mr Ehrlich refused to give other examples, saying: “This is not the time to go into them.” Mr Ehrlich rejected Mr Sharon’s assertion that he was deserted, saying: “We showed a great deal of loyalty and comradeship in the very fact that he stayed on as a Cabinet Minister.” Mr Sharon lost the defence portfolio after a judicial inquiry had found him indirectly responsible for the Sabra and Shatila refugee camp massacres committed by Israel’s Lebanese Christian allies.

Hopes for a troop pullout were dealt another blow yesterday when the Syrian President, Mr Hafez Assad, said that he would never accept the Israeli troop withdrawal accord which Lebanon signed with Israel last month.