The Labor Party said today that Premier Menachem Begin erred when he claimed last week that the opposition fully supported the Likud government’s policies in Lebanon. Labor Party Secretary General Haim Barlev observed. “On ten things we do not agree and there is maybe one or half a thing on which we do agree, and around this to build it up as a national consensus is out of proportion.”
According to Barlev, “The only thing which is really vital for Israel in the whole Lebanese affair is not to let the PLO come back into southern Lebanon and the area adjacent to Israel. And in this matter, we feel that the forces of Maj. (Saad) Haddad are an important element.”
Begin told a closed meeting of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Security Committee that the Labor opposition backed the government’s position that there must be no concessions over the role Haddad is to play in south Lebanon. Barlev charged that “The government has maneuvered itself and with it all of Israel, into a real blunder” in Lebanon.
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