Israel registered strong objections today to a United Nations plan to evacuate Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasir Arafat and his supporters from Tripoli in northern Lebanon where they are under siege by Syrian-backed PLO dissidents.
The plan to rescue Arafat by sea, aboard a vessel flying the UN flag, was approved unanimously by the Security Council. The matter was discussed at today’s Cabinet meeting here but no formal decision was made to officially challenge the Security Council resolution.
Nevertheless, Cabinet Secretary Dan Meridor told reporters later that “It is not the UN’s role to transfer a band of terrorists from one place to which they have brought death and destruction to another place from which they intend to continue to sow death and destruction.”
Energy Minister Yitzhak Modai reportedly urged the Cabinet to authorize an Israeli effort to capture Arafat and his chief henchmen. But sources close to Modai said he was not proposing that Israel assault a UN ship but that it should act before Arafat boarded the vessel. It was not clear what Modai thought Israel should do with Arafat in the event he was captured.
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