Sharon: Israel Has No Plans to Attack Southern Lebanon

Defense Minister Ariel Sharon affirmed last night that Israel had no plans to attack southern Lebanon but said it would react sharply to any threat from across the Lebanese border or Syria.

Sharon, in a television interview, defended Deputy Premier Simcha Ehrlich who has come under attack from both Likud and Labor MKs for allegedly leaking Israeli plans to invade Lebanon to Israeli reporters and claiming his intervention caused their cancellation.

Ehrlich could not have “leaked information about a government plan and claimed credit for having stopped it because there was no such plan,” Sharon said. Ehrlich, who is also Agriculture Minister and a leader of the Liberal Party wing of Likud, vehemently denied leaking any plans and offered to tale a lie detector test. Premier Menachem Begin has reportedly given Ehrlich his full support.

But both the coalition and opposition party whips, Ronni Milo of Likud and Moshe Shahal of the Labor Alignment, accused Ehrlich of leaking State secrets. Milo demanded that Ehrlich resign. Labor Party circles said Ehrlich made his remarks at an off-the-record meeting with Israeli reporters last week and called on the reporters to submit sworn statements to that effect.

SPECULATION ABOUT A PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKE

Speculation that Israel planned a pre-emptive strike against Palestinian terrorists in south Lebanon increased two weeks ago when a band of terrorist infiltrators was captured on the West Bank. Although they had entered through Jordan, Israeli officials insisted this was a violation of the ceasefire which has been in effect along the Israel-Lebanese border since last July.

Israeli officials, including Sharon, have been providing the media with reports of a major Palestinian military build-up in south Lebanon. Last week Begin sent a personal emissary to Washington to convey Israel’s grave concern over the build-up.