Transcripts For CSPAN2 Booknotes 20140111

Ariel sharon died today at the age of 85. The former Prime Minister of israel discussed his autobiography, warrior on booknotes in 1989. Warrior chronicles mr. Sharons life from his childhood as the son of parents who worked on a collective farm to his enlistment at age 14 in the underground military organization to mr. Sharons resignation as minister of defense following a government commissions conclusion that he was indirectly responsible for the september 1982 massacre of palestinians at refugee camps. This is about an hour. Cspan general ariel sharon you have a book called warrior. Why did you write the book . Guest i thought it would be important to tell the story of the history of the state of israel. It struggles, its happiness, its agonies, its victories and defeats. It was a long story, a long struggle. I felt that looking forward one should emphasize some of the for the jewish people in the future in order to develop and continue. Cspan one of the most interesting things i learned when i looked through your book was that you were born and raised in israel. How many people that live in israel today that you were involved within the government government were actually born there . Guest i think in the government generally i would say 3. 8 Million People in israel, i believe its about 2 million emigrated to israel and the rest were born there. Cspan what was it like in those early days . Guest i was born on a village, on a farm. My father was in the agronomist agricultural scientist and a defenseless farmer. He was a zionist born in russia and came to the jewish homeland. My mother came straight from the university, finishing four years of medicine. She saw then that she would be able to finish her studies in israel more than it would be possible first of all didnt have university and secondly life was very hard. I would like to describe my use would say the materialistic point of view it was real poverty. From the spiritual part of the life, life was very rich. The people were educated, having a strong zionist ideologues ideology and i remember on one hand very hard work, very poor life and on the other hand i remember my father playing the violin and painting. I remember people coming to participate and we used to play and read poetry. So from this aspect, i would say life was very rich. I remember my mother walking without shoes for years, but they were highly motivated people, worked very hard. Physical labor was very important part because we had to work and we started to work, myself very early. But it was regarded also as an important thing and it was always i remember what my parents used to say, its important to work. Physical work is important. And that way it was how i was raised in the village. I was always surrounded by arabr with arabs. We were never afraid of the arabs and looking back to my childhood i always believed that wed be living with arabs and myself i believe that we could live together with some complications. Righto where was the village . Guest the village then was in the center of the country, not far from tel aviv which is one of the main towns in israel. It was a small village with 56 pay families altogether. It was very hard to cultivate land there. No water. For eight years water had to be brought from the closest river, about six miles away, and then in the winter from the swamp about three miles away. I would say it was a hard life. My father was a vision is. He learned many new things. My father introduced many new things. For instance my father in the 30s spoke about the avocado as the fruit of the future. Nobody knew about that. People laughed and joked that he himself tried to do things that he recommended to others first of all on his own farm. We had a round of both farm of course having all the Security Problems. We had always Security Problems and nowadays we speak about philistine and terror but philistine in terror started much earlier. It started more than 100 years ago. Cspan 61 years ago if i calculate correctly, you were born. Are you 61 years old . When reborn in wetland for you born into and how much time, you remember the years before it became an actual country . Israel was at the 1948 decision. Guest i remember israel dwell in the 30s and of course i remember israel very well in the 40s. How this country looked . It was a small community. In 1948 when the war of independence started, the Jewish Community was then 600,000 people. A strong community. A highly motivated, hardworking people. People that didnt have any doubt about the right to the land. I remember my parents always saying, all the rights over the land of israel, then palestine, all of the rights belong to the jewish. All the rights to the land, all the rights over the land are jewish rights. At the same time all the inhabitants in the country should have all the rights. But they made very very clear distinction. The war of independence was very hard work. Israel suffered heavy casualties. About 1 of the total Jewish Population were killed during the war of independence. Myself, i found myself so when i was a child and never saw that we soldier. I doubt that i would be following my parents as a farmer and i thought to and even started to study in the faculty of the agriculture of agronomy in the Hebrew University in jerusalem. At the war started and i found myself a soldier. I started as a private first class and became a corporal. Maybe the hardest thing was for me to be promoted from a private first class to a corporal. And i did all my way in the army. I went through the ranks to the rank of general during the war of independence. I commanded a platoon and then at the end of the war, a company. I was very badly wounded in the battle to open the siege of jerusalem in may of 48 and spent several weeks in the hospital and came back. That is how it looks then. I never thought, i never felt and suffered heavy casualties. I dont remember even though one day that we lost our selfconfidence. People then saw goals ahead of them. We at the beginning of the war, we knew that independence was knocking at our gate and the u. N. Resolution to place on the 29th of november 47. The british left and we knew they were going to leave on the 15th of may 48. So we knew that independence was coming. We knew that hundreds of refugees were waiting in the refugee camps in europe and others for them by the british in cyprus so we knew that the door should be open and so having all those goals and targets, though they were very hard, i dont remember even one day of kind of a crisis or that we lost our selfconfidence although it was a very dangerous work. Cspan are you still in the military . Guest no, i left the military after started filling the underground in argonaut during the british time. Altogether he served for 28 years and i left in 1973, just three months before the yom kippur war thats it twice in october 1973. My last function was the commander. I commanded the stewards up front. Maybe the hardest part of the war attrition. In midjuly 73 i left the army and it became a commander of the reserved armored division. I commanded this Division Three months later was called together with my division. I was called the reserve general Major General to command this division and i happen to cross the suez canal for the turning point of the union and the war. Cspan family. You have been married twice . Guest i got first married in 1953 to a beautiful and charming girl who was a nurse who i knew since she was i think 15 years old. And she was a psychiatric nurse. We had a wonderful son and then in 1962 she was killed in a Road Accident while driving her car to jerusalem. She was a supervisory psychiatric nurse. Very successfusuccessfu l, very young, very successful. Then i was left with our son. He was a wonderful boy with all the difficulties. I still remember the hardest thing i had was how to tell a boy who was five years old about the death of his mother itself a very complicated thing and i remember to those tiers to start telling him about his tragedy. Then i got married with lilly, my present wife who is the sister of my wife my first wife and two boys were worn and then after a few years, i think five years to my first wife was killed, my oldest son was killed in a terrible accident when he was shot by another void who played with a shotgun, very old shotgun, maybe 100 years old. Cspan let me stop you just a second so i can show this picture. Can you tell us who these are . Guest yes, the one who is close to me there is my son who was killed. Cspan the one over here . Guest yes, that was a short time before he was killed in the second one is omri who was an officer in the paratroopers and the younger is july the who is also an officer in the paratroopers and just came back to the farm now and is running the farm. Cspan what impacted the loss of your first life wife and your son have on you . Guest these were of course very hard defense in every aspect. But i managed to overcome and to make life again. It was a terrible thing when my first wife was killed and then it was a terrible thing when my son was killed and he died in my arms when i was rushing him to the hospital. It was no hope because he was wounded in his head and i knew that i saw, i had seen this kind of went before and knew that there was no chance whatsoever. But of course you always have hopes. We were rushing into the Hospital Hospital but he died in my arms. Then i thought for a while that i wouldnt be able to overcome that. He was a wonderful boy, really wonderful. But i managed. I did manage. Cspan how many languages do you speak . Guest hebrew of course, my mother language. And some english. We learn english in school. I understand russian quite well because my grandmother used to speak to us in russian and so i understand russian. I try now to listen to the news and i would understand even in a lecture if it was not too complicated. I understand and speak arabic. I have been living with arabs all of my life created. Cspan it seems like i hear a little bit of french accent under english. Guest no. No french. Im afraid thats the israeli accent. Cspan what about the United States . When was the first time he you came here . I sonia book that you were thinking that one time about going to the university of colorado and agriculture. Guest yes, the first time i came here after the war of independence i had terrible malaria. I caught terrible malaria and i couldnt find couldnt get rid of that. The doctors could not find any solution and they decided it would be a change of climate maybe that id be able to overcome that. So i left than when i was a young mayor, very young. I think then when i left at 23 years old and went to europe first and then i came to the United States. Of course it was the first time when i left the village, are pillaging came to the world. It was, i have many times seems but of course i always remember my first visit coming to manhattan, going with my head up like that in ching those Tall Buildings and of course i remember paris. I remember london and rome and so on. And coming here the first thing that i was encouraged to do by my aunt, susan yardeni, my aunt and she encouraged me then to immediately go to and get a drivers license here. I got it i started to drive and i went on a trip down to up to texas then. I saw then this giant country. I left new york. Remember it was heavy snow and i became i went to florida and tennessee and it became hotter and hotter and i spent new years eve than from louisiana back along the mexican gulf to palm beach, florida where a spent the new years eve. It was so hot and i was completely surprised by the amount of water and bridges. I took so many films that when i came home i found most of the films of the pictures i took were riches. I was so fascinated coming from our dry country and israel. We have rains only through a very short period from the end of november through march. And then everything, in the winter its green and beautiful with beautiful flowers that very short. Then everything is getting yellow and then gray and then in autumn you can see already is becoming brown. So for me those bridges for maybe the first surprise i saw in this country. I should admit i got rid of the beleria but i also was fascinated with what i saw. I thought about studying. I went to the university in jerusalem in november of 47 but the war started than so i had to leave. I thought then to study agronomy as my father did, but i checked here and i wrote to a university. I was mostly interested in the erosion and land preservation. And the center was then i think in denver, colorado. I wrote to them but life developed differently there. I came home and served as an Intelligence Officer and the Northern Command for a mad general leon the commander in chief of norton command. Meanwhile we were facing a wave of palestinian terror coming across the boundaries of the occupy territories by jordan and egypt to the west bank and the gaza district. I was then called to form a special unit to fight terror while the 101st unit, a very small unit at a unit that had tremendous influence on the israeli army. And then i became the commander of the paratroopers. I managed to go back to study much later and i did, then i went to study law and i got my law degree. Cspan you are a member of the knesset. Guest im a member of the knesset and im a member of the government for more than 12 years now. I served as minister of agriculture, minister of defense and now as minister of industry and. Write. Cspan how many members are there just take a couple of minutes here. How many members are in the knesset . Guest in the knesset there are 120 members. Cspan how many of them are a member of the likud party . Guest we have 40 members. We are the largest party. Cspan member of the labour party. Guest 39. Cspan and how many other parties are there . Guest there are some other parties. There are smaller parties. Some religious parties and some other parties from the left and from the right. Altogether 120 members. Cspan how long were you elected for . Guest for years. Cspan how many people did you represent . Guest we dont have this system. Ours is what he called the proportional system. Its the same system that you have here though they are thought about changing and moving into Regional Elections were similar to one that you have here. Cspan who elects new . Guest we are a lot dead there is a list of candidates. The candidates are elected by the Party Convention. The Party Convention is something similar to what you have here. Well likud which is the largest party. Its the Democratic Party having 2600 members and they elect the candidates for the parliament designate. Cspan when someone goes into the voting booth as an israeli citizen and boats, who did they vote for . Guest they vote for a party. They vote for a party. And they call in the number of votes and the number of seats in parliament that a party will get. Of course elections are secret and so on but there is thought about changing the system in israel. Cspan so you do not have to serve the constituency per se . You do not have to go back and shake hands with the end individual district voters . Guest well i have to shake hands with the whole country. Israel is a small country and i will generally speak about israel being almost daily in the headlines. People get the impression that we speak about a giant. Israel is a tiny country. It will take the distance from the river jordan to the mediterranean including the west bank. Its 47 miles. So i speak about a small country. A beautiful country, beautiful country and of course its ours. And everywhere where you did you will find something. Not oil and not any other Natural Resources besides the dead sea. Its 1200 feet below sea level. Israel, this is so close that you can be in jerusalem and the Beautiful Mountain of jerusalem which is 27 hundred feet above sea level. The dead sea is 1200 feet below sea level. If you know your bible and then you dont need a guide book. The place is kept the old name jerusalem the capital of the jewish for the last 3000 years. Islam has been using this name for almost 4000 years. The river jordan he called by then the same amount hop for and not carmel. Cspan we are talking with ariel sharon in talking about his book called warrior published by Simon Schuster. In the middle there we can see that this book was written with david is it chamitoff . Who is he . Guest david is a young writer from boston introduced to me by Simon Schuster. I hate to tell the story. I had to tell the story to somebody. I met with some people and they were very kind to do that. And i decided that i would be able to talk to david. So i worked on this book i think about two and half years but never could take him the real interval so i used to work. We used to see, i used to talk, he used to write and then of course i had to read and read it again and it was very interesting. It was not easy because the man when he started to write, his knowledge about israel was very little and now i can assure that he knows a lot about israel. I enjoyed very much working with him. He wrote several books and i enjoyed working with him. Cspan did you do most of the work here in United States . Guest know, most of the book was done in israel. Cspan is the book written primarily for the american citizens . Guest this book was written for an american reader. In this book there are things that in israel, because the book is translated now and edited for the israeli reader. There are things that israel doesnt have and there are things that should be emphasized more. So we tried to do it in a way that would suit the american reader and might understand the problems of israel, the problems of the state of israel. What we are facing, but might be in the future and tried to attract the interest of people and jewish and nonjewish. Israel is a special country. Cspan there is a lot that has been written about you in several publications and i want to ask you about a couple of them in a second that one of the ways we got to know you was through the Time Magazine libel trial. The best i can can count their only two pages devoted to it in your book. How come so little . Guest it was for that there were many many stories that i could not tell here. There are battles that were not described. There were many issues that i could not describe. We thought about not such a big book but what would happen. So many things had to be decided. The side that it was the book published by Simon Schuster called book libel written by an israeli writer and journalist who describes the trial in detail. It was a hot trial and it was not an easy thing to come over here thousands of miles away and tried to soothe this empire. In their backyard, in their own backyard. But i saw then that it was very odd when they publish that, that was the day when i had my last day in the ministry of defense and when i read that i decided that i must hault, turn turned back and start fighting in order to try and show and prove it was a lie, it was a lie. It was not an easy thing from any aspect and it was a very long trial. I can hear i remember for the position in the summer. The trial started in autumn. The leaves were bred in the winter came and it was snowing and i even remember the beautiful, beautiful girl that was there and she told us that she was getting married. Then she found out that she was pregnant and of course the trial ended before she gave birth but all that happened during the trial. It was a long struggle. A legal struggle. It was very hard from a financial point of view. Its very hard to conduct a trial in the United States. Cspan what itd cost you you . Guest the law firm, very nice and very good and they took only outofpocket expenses. That itself was almost three quarter of a million dollars. One front with the legal front in the second front was the financial front. Then it was the kind of nonstop press. Of course i took advantage that to tell about israel and to tell about our life and about the middle east and the various issues in the region and so on. Im glad that i did because its real important my wife and myself, we came here and together at their 12 what we manage to prove was that they lied about the facts. I never instigated and never encountered, i never talk to anyone about the atrocities that took place. And i was very glad this i regarded it to something that i could not have except did. Cspan theres a bestseller in this country thats number one on the bestseller list and the audience knows what this is. We have this gentleman is a New York Times reporter, tom friedman here the week before your interview with your book and i thought it might be interesting because he writes a lot about you. I went to the index and i looked under the name sharon and i went through and i just underlined what he said. I want to read you some of this and get your reaction to it. To give you a chance to answer direct way some of the things that tom friedman you know the man by the way . Guest i knew tom friedman for many years. I met with him. I used to come to the farm. He used to come to our apartment in the city of jerusalem. I have not read the book. But i heard something about the book and i found, i have to admit, several inaccuracies. Cspan let me just read this. It all still comes down to the houma rules, rule or die. One man triumphs, the other weeps. The rest is just commentary but theres there is only one man in israel ever feared and that is ariel sharon because assad knew that sharon was ready to play by houma rule. Again, rule means to rule or die. Would you at relook back . Guest first i think its a good thing that assad is afraid of me. It may avoid a dangerous war in the future but i think the comparison is not the right one. I never believed in not. I dont believe in that. I think that all this comparison is something that is outrageous and i cannot accept that. I never believed in the violence and terror when we speak about a man, assad to in order to overcome certain internal resistance destroyed maybe one of the oldest cities in the world. He leveled the city and killed at least 25,000 people. He was the man who rules the country. Fsoc is a tyrant. He will not speak about democracy. Cruel. I can see what they are doing now to the christians in lebanon. Cspan do you think he fares you . Do you think assad fears you . Guest that is what tom friedman writes. If assad fears me, maybe its a good thing because i could have advocated to the arabs not to underestimate the strength of israel and not to misjudge israel as a result of the way we deal with the present time with the violence and terror. We restrict ourselves and we restrain ourselves but when it comes to military strength and determination, i think its better that the syrians will be careful. One cannot compare entirely different things, entirely different people, entirely different. We never believed in their matters. We never believed in a dictatorship and never believed in these things. We live in a democracy. Israel is a stable democracy. We are members of a democratic government, the Democratic Party and that is the significant in israel. Cspan chapter 6, ariel sharon never sent Yassir Arafat flowers. What everyone thinks of the former israeli general, and defense minister sharon did not play games with his enemies. He killed them. Guest well now 50 years after the breakout of the second world war, i think maybe its good to remember what Winston Churchill said to the british people in june of 1941. He said then, we will never negotiate with hitler or with any of his gang. I personally believe that if you believe in a free society you should never negotiate with sadat and his gang. We signed an agreement with sadat and i backed this agreement i supported this agreement that there arent many enemies with whom you never sign any peace agreement. With them you never negotiate. People that the goal is extermination, destruction and elimination of your own country and he speak about a democratic country. A small democratic country in the middle east is real which is and entitled part of the free world. And it is written in the palestinian covenant but it should not be written. We can see these daily events, these are enemies with whom you cannot talk. There are people that take an example. There are people that their activities cannot be tolerated by the People Living in the free world. One of these people is gadhafi. The United States tried to kill him. Arafat is in the same category. Cspan quote ariel sharon and this is tom friedman again epitomized the ruthless singlemindedness of the european zionists. Now in the jacket, to your look it even calls you ruthless. Do you like that when he heard the word ruthless . Maybe it would be fair to read this if i can find it. I will find it while you respond. Here it is. It says visionary and ruthless pragmatists. The jacket to your book. Guest i dont know if you mean by ruthless merciless or not. You speak about determined, about determined and daring, yes. And i remember what the late ben gurion that i had the privilege privilege. Cspan david bing gurian. Guest david bing gurian our first Prime Minister when i was a young officer. He likes me very much. He used to invite me and talk to me and i remember that he told me the greek saying that said, to dare is to succeed. The story of our people and the land of israel is a story of daring. Its a story of daring. That is the story. And without daring, i dont think we could have achieved anything there. Right so why do people like to write the word ruthless when they talk about ariel sharon . Guest maybe i should use discretion but i learned that once you believe in something you have to fight for it. That is how i was taught at home and our home never anybody was accepted and you know without being checked in so long. My parents used to say always, never accept anything, never take anything for granted. Check it. If you accept that, its along the line that you believe, back and support it. If not, fight it. That is how i do and maybe i have the strength to struggle for those things i believed in. I dont think i ever gave the. I did struggle. And maybe that was a mannerism. Maybe i saw some of the things earlier than others. And i was not i was not overcome by their mocking or anything like that and i was determined to implement them. Cspan your book, which you have published and we are talking about here ariel sharon, warrior what kind of reception have you received around the United States for this book and how much traveling have you done to promote it . Guest i did not do too much. I came here for 10 days, the very act of days. Ive been in new york and washington. This time i dont think i can do more. Maybe in a future, maybe ill be able to do more. Ive been to this country many times. I like to come the United States. I like this great democracy which we know is the traditional friendship to israel and its a mutual friendship. And we know the contribution of this great democracy to the world and i like to come here. Its also an experience. Its a new experience that we have to pass. Right so you appeared on the phil donohue show. Guest yes. Cspan wellwisher reaction to the aggressive nature of that program . Was that comfortable or uncomfortable . Were you ready for it . Guest it took me a while to realize that and then of course it was the way it was done. It took me several minutes and i managed to control the stage there. Had to be done would say. I dont see any reason if somebody looks at you or shouts at you that you have to give up. I mean i never before it was important and it was an experience. Right so do you have programs like that in israel . Guest not of this kind. We have some other programs. It was interviewing is allowed so it might be aggressive. But this kind, we dont. Ive never participated in a program like that. Cspan maybe it was a couple of days before that you are scheduled to go on the larry king show. Guest there was this discussion. Cspan George Stallings and another catholic priest. My question for you is did it irritate you that you were asked to come to the show and then because of this disagreement that broke up a rescheduled you . Guest no, its normal. One may understand particularly that may happen. I dont think it was a personal thing that happened. Cspan what has been the overall reaction from what you have seen by the media to you and this book lacks. Guest i felt very good here and i dont have any complaints. I am glad to be here. I hope that the book will help people understand the struggles for israel and the people there. From every aspect. I tried to make it interesting. Sometimes i found it easier to do the things been bent to write about those things. But it was interesting. Cspan i have a cover story in insight magazine which is published by the Washington Times in the cover story looks like this. We will show the the audience a couple of people that you probably know pretty well. Just incidentally we talked about the fact you were born in israel 61 years ago. How about these two gentlemen that we are looking at here . Mr. Perez and mr. Shamir. Were they born in israel . Guest first, of course i know them and know they were not born in israel. Cspan what countries did they come from . Guest both of them were born in poland. Cspan what about some of the other people that we know, its awkward being . Wheres he from . Guest rabin is born in israel. Cspan golda meir was born here wasnt she . Guest golda meir was born here. Actually born here or in russia and came here. Cspan you have been here all your life. As a matter to you or others that you came from another country whether or not you can be part of the government . Guest know, first of all it doesnt make a difference. We live in a democracy and everyone might be a lot did and they call it the democratic way. Altogether i dont think there is a major difference. All of us are jewish. Myself, first of all i am jewish before anything else. If something really worries me about that, the future of the jewish people that was one of the reasons for writing the book. Im looking for a situation where israel will be able to provide those needed challenges for the jewish and israel. Cspan when you say you are jewish, are you religious . Guest no im i am not religious but i am jewish. I am a jewish and that is more than anything else. Cspan what is that . How much does religion play a role in the whole exercise of government do you think . Guest i think that you know its a different thing when you speak about religious here or there. In israel when you speak about religious, you speak about the jewish orthodox community. Because i mean there are other people who may be keep tradition but would not call them orthodox. You can speak about i believe fit teen, one fifth of the total population would call them orthodox jewish. Cspan so most of the people that are leaving the state of israel are not religious . Guest yes you are right. Cspan i want to redo this first paragraph. Rumor has it that Prime Minister its chalk shamir and industry and che. Minister ariel sharon heavens open for more than six. The defense minister itzhak rabin tried to punch or wrong for impugning his character in a cabinet meeting. Banning cabinet meetings when ministers passed notes have the time they contained derogatory jokes about fellow cabinet members. Thats the opening paragraph of a cover story in one of our weekly magazines. What do you say to that . Guest i think thats been exaggerated. Like in every party, like in political life everywhere there are struggles so i think its been exaggerated. Cspan have you spoken to mr. Shamir in six months . Guest of course. Im a member of the government. I speak to mr. Shamir white often. I talked to him in the government meetings and i talked to in meetings of the elected ministers. I have talked to him on many of the issues which are important for which can along to the minister that im in charge of for any of the things i believe it should be discussed. I believe that altogether it might be different differences in views but mostly on the tactics not over strategy. Cspan are you friends . Guest no, we are not personal friends but should you be afraid with everyone . Guest okay in a recent likud minister earl meeting ministerial meeting area sharon asked why he has not been informed Prime Minister yitzhak shamir. Other ministers can keep a secret. Sharon, the content of what he said. Shamir, you create an ugly atmosphere and hatred. Sharon, i left that the statements. Guest you dont expect me to say that its terrible. Cspan heres a picture of you and itzhak. Guest know thats not me. Im on the other side. Cspan oh no, i know. Heres a picture view. The audience is going to see right now. Here you are, mr. Shamir and mr. Laffey. They say in the event that this man doesnt continue to be Prime Minister one or the other of you might come. Are you still interested in being Prime Minister . Guest israel is democracy. I believe that i can contribute. I believe i can contribute in a setting needed goals for israel and i believe that i could contribute to the peace process. Maybe the warrior will become the peacemaker. Cspan can we go back and discuss in the time remaining the invasion or however you want to characterize it come into lebanon, the whole issue that eventually became the subject of a libel suit and let you tell us your side of the story. And if you would, explain to us us it was back in 1982. Why did you go into lebanon . Guest we first, a very dangerous situation along our northern border. In lebanon, those days it was the plo, an independent kingdom of terror headed i Yasser Arafat and if course all the other murderers like paul bosch responsible for tragedy. Our northern civilian population, civilians of our northern towns and villages became hostages in their hands. They took advantage of the ceasefire which was not kept completely. That was one of the mistakes in the book because it has been mentioned in Tom Friedmans luck during the year of the ceasefire there were altogether 290 terrorist that goodies that took place. Though most of them not along the northern border but to license side of israel or along other orders or incur up against the and Israeli Citizens all instructed from lebanon. And they had their labor, tremendous infrastructure. They had their more than 500 guns and rockets. Tremendous depos of ammunition, about 100 tanks and 15,000 terrorists information. Thousands of our people left the northern border and moved southward. We could not take any of dignity against the terrorists because once we did they started immediately to shell our civilian population. Life was unbearable. We could not have accepted that and of course we could not have accepted the situation where jewish people would be murdered. It was all the time, it was a position. The u. S. Representatives and the people were using the time to say that the ceasefire did not include the jewish in europe or any other places and we could not have accepted that. The situation became harder and harder until our ambassador in london was shot in the head. He was dead. And then israel made the decision to send our air force to attack terrorist targets in lebanon and start heavy shelling and it was decided by the government much earlier on the 16th of may of 82. It was not the first time we discussed it. The government discussed it. Dozens and dozens of times what to do because we faced a very dangerous situation and the government decided then on the fifth to move into lebanon in order to destroy the plo terrorist infrastructure and that is what we did. Those tragic events that took place later, which you mentioned before, neither myself nor any other israili was involved in these atrocities. Not a soldier, not officer, not a politician. And even the inquiry commission, they found a fault in me, not anticipating that such a tragic event could happen. And they found it in hindsight. But nobody did participate in it we never knew it. We never thought it might happen. Cspan tom friedman writes a paragraph here and i want to read it and get you to respond to the context of the whole thing because it goes right to, write to this whole issue. He said sharon knew how strong israel was. And he believed wrongly that this military strength could an almost mechanical fashion solve a whole not of complex deeplyrooted political problems. That tiny israel could drive the plo out of lebanon, installed bashar jamal as president , neutralize syria and the lebanese muslims, get lebanon to sign a peace treaty and then force the palestinians living in the west bank and gaza strip to accept the israeli rule. Unlike hafez assad, sharon did not know when to stop. He did not understand the limits of power in a fragmented project doubleplay such as lebanon. Guest i cannot find even one thing which is correct. Also i would like to say, to mention the thing that this book of tom friedman whom i do appreciatappreciat e, like for instance about the 67 war that Israel Attacked in jerusalem or attack the jordanians is kind of a preemptive strike. All of us know that what happened was then that king hussein instructed his forces to attack jerusalem. But that is another thing. I dont find even one thing which is correct. We never thought about crowning a shield smile. Its a place in lebanon that was not the target and not the goal. We went to lebanon to destroy the plo, a terrorist independent kingdom of terror headed by arafat. That was the purpose. It was an expressioexpressio n of life and death for us. I knew lebanon. Not only that i learned about lebanon, i read about lebanon and i met with lebanese. Myself, i decided five months before the war, i have a thought maybe i was misjudging. Maybe i dont understand well. I decided to go to lebanon secretly. And about five months before the war, i landed in june you north of a root and i spent there about 306 hours meeting with lebanese leaders. These were the lebanese forces, going to the mountains to see the forces, their stronghold there. I wanted to see them at home. In their homes. How they look there. How they spoke, how they behaved. In order to be more sure. We made other reparations. And we made all the preparations. Myself talking to the father of president shamong. I tried to convince them they were to give a certain amount of weapons to the shiites in order to try, in order to try and have more cooperation with them. I personally believe that goal was not the goal of our war. Cspan this is your wife in the middle. Guest yes, my wife and myself visited beirut and meeting with pierre after the assassination of his son. I was not anymore the minister of defense. We just meant to meet some friends. Cspan and this is a picture of you and bashar . Guest that was my first visit to beirut five months before the war. I personally believe that it was not the goal for the war. It was as a result of the war. The situation in lebanon could have been entirely different and once it would have been more understanding. On the american side i think american representatives then misled the president because i dont think they really gave the rights description about the situation. We knew lebanon. It was a major mistake to try and solve other issues through lebanon. Or to use lebanon as leverage to solve other problems like bringing syria to the american side were trying to solve the palestinian problem. Those attempts by habib as he used to call it to make the plo political