Israel Should Have Killed Arafat When It Could, Sharon Says
Ariel Sharon, the former Israeli defense minister, was quoted by the French magazine VSD today as saying that Israel should have killed PLO leader Yasser Arafat when it had the chance in late 1983.
“There was only one major error in Lebanon that we should never have made: allowed Arafat to escape when he was besieged by the Syrians,” Sharon was quoted as saying. “We should have seen to it that he was killed. I say it clearly. We made a mistake in letting him live.”
Sharon, who masterminded the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June, 1982, said the Israelis had another chance later to kill Arafat in Beirut. “But we had given an undertaking to let the (Palestine Liberation Organization) go and we kept our word. . . . We should not have let him get out alive,” he was quoted as saying.
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