Premier Menachem Begin today expressed his personal opinion against prosecuting some three score onti-withdrawal die-hards arrested by police during the Yamit evacuation. At the weekly Cabinet meeting (according to unofficial reports) Begin said he would favor “forgiving them.”
Attorney General Yitzhak Zamir said the state and the army must not, in his view, “Forgo its honor” regarding the alleged miscreants who had deliberately assailed the government, the Knesset and democracy. Begin said he did not want to “interfere” with the judicial process and it was not immediately clear how the episode would end.
After the Cabinet meeting Begin released the warm letters of congratulations he had sent to Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, Chief of Staff Gen. Rafael Eitan, the officer in charge of the southern command and the superintendent of police.
To Sharon, Begin wrote that there had never been a more complex and delicate challenge posed to a Cabinet minister in Israel, and it was largely thanks to Sharon that not adrop of Jewish blood had been spilled during the evacuation of Yamit. To Eitan, Begin wrote: “Happy is the man who is in overall command of such an army.” Begin also wrote to Jihan Sadat, recalling her late husband’s role in bringing this day to pass and also recalling Sadat’s famous pledge: “No more war, no more bloodshed.”
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