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White House Diaries
June
21
1982
June 21, 1982
Monday, June 21, 1982
Whatever else happened this was P.M. Begin day. He & I had almost an hours 1 on 1 with first our 2 Ambassadors present. I was pretty blunt regarding whether even a savage assassination attempt which will probably turnout to be successful (if not the Ambas. will be paralyzed) warranted the retaliation which has taken so many lives in Lebanon. He came back with a defense based on the shelling of Israeli villages by P.L.O. elements in Lebanon. It’s a complex problem. While we think his action was overkill it still may turn out to be the best opportunity we’ve had to reconcile the warring factions in Lebanon & bring about peace after 7 years. In the larger meetings with his people & ours we went at it again. He’s adamant against our proposal to sell arms to Jordan. My argument is we’re trying to create more “Egypts” who’ll make peace with Israel. He refuses to believe another Arab state will do what Egypt did. Frustrating.
