Word: ariels
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Whether Israel intended from the beginning of its "Operation Peace for Galilee" a month ago to press on to Beirut remains uncertain, but its primary aim, as Defense Minister Ariel Sharon put it bluntly last week, was "to destroy the P.L.O." In addition, the Israelis were after the top leadership. A Knesset member who belongs to the ruling Likud coalition last week told TIME'S Robert Slater, "We were definitely after Arafat. Whenever we knew he was heading for a certain bunker in Beirut, we sent planes to that bunker in the hope that he would be harmed...
...Israelis want a new Lebanese government dominated by the faction with which they feel most comfortable: the right-wing Christian Phalange, led by the Gemayel family. Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, the hard-liner who planned and directed the sweep into Lebanon, has even envisaged turning the country into a Phalangist-controlled state. Other Israeli officials, however, are more flexible and see the necessity for forming a broad coalition of all significant Lebanese political groups?including the Muslim leftists led by Walid Jumblatt, head of the so-called National Movement, which has been loosely allied with the P.L.O...
After discussing strategy with Phalangist leaders over tea at Baabda's town hall, Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon issued a call for Syria's 85th Brigade to withdraw from the Beirut vicinity and join the bulk of Syrian forces in the Bekaa Valley to the east. Damascus abruptly rejected the demand, insisting that unlike the Israeli occupation troops, Syrian forces had been dispatched to Lebanon as part of an Arab peace-keeping contingent in 1976 with the approval of the local government. Sputtered an angry Syrian official: "We do not, I repeat, do not tolerate ultimatums from that...
...Thursday night, presumably after meeting with Defense Minister Ariel Sharon and other key Cabinet members, Begin called Haig in Bonn to assure him that the Cabinet would approve a unilateral decision the next morning. It did, and the cease-fire took effect at noon on Friday. But Israeli officials made it clear that it applied only to the Syrians, who also agreed to halt their fighting. The Israelis said they would continue cleanup operations against the P.L.O. in Lebanon. Only on Saturday did Jerusalem announce that it would observe a similar cease-fire toward the Palestinians...
...York Times Bureau Chief David Shipler had a different complaint: military censorship. "It's pretty frustrating," he said. "We can go in and ask the spokesman what's going on, but we won't get very much." At the outset of the campaign, Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon placed a blanket over news from the front, censoring film and dispatches and issuing only sparse communiqués. Israeli correspondents called it a "fogout" or "grayout," but at times it seemed more like a blackout. In past Middle East wars, Israeli editors were given deep background briefings. "This...