Snow Ball

A new book raises ghosts

Almost from the moment the first tank rumbled across the border on that bright June day in 1982, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon has been passionately debated within Israel. As the acknowledged first war in which the country's life was not at stake, it also became the first war to be widely questioned for both motive and consequences. The debate will be revived with this month's publication of Snow Ball, by Shimon Shiffer, 36, diplomatic correspondent for the Voice of Israel. (The acronym in Hebrew for the invasion's official title, Operation Peace for the Galilee, is SNOW.) Shiffer's 420-page book is almost certain to stir national discussions, pain and anger.

The dark star of Shiffer's story is Ariel Sharon; the central theme, how Sharon pressed for the invasion from the day he became Defense Minister in 1981. That is not news, of course, but Snow Ball amply documents Sharon's zealous lobbying in Cabinet meetings and among his generals. Sharon plumped for the attack, according to Shiffer, despite the fact that Israeli military intelligence concluded that the skirmishing between Palestine Liberation Organization forces and Israeli soldiers along the Lebanese border in July 1981 was provoked by the Israelis, not by the P.L.O. The Begin government, which used the threat of P.L.O. attacks as a pretext for the invasion, refused to make the report public.

Shiffer also underscores Sharon's frequent and close meetings with Bashir Gemayel, the Christian Maronite warlord who was assassinated only nine days before his scheduled inauguration as Lebanese President in September 1982. In Shiffer's account, Bashir asks Sharon if Israel would object to the Lebanese sending in bulldozers to flatten "the built-up areas," four weeks before the massacres at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps near Beirut. Sharon's reply: "This is not our business."

Shiffer says that the conversations in his book are distilled from transcripts, notes and minutes of meetings, all from the Israeli side. Conversations that took place in English have all been translated into Hebrew. Even if the quotations were indisputable, the interpretation by participants would not be. For example, Snow Ball contains a lengthy exchange between Sharon and Alexander Haig, supposedly showing that the former Secretary of State gave Israel the green light for an invasion.

Meeting with Haig in Washington two weeks before the attack, Sharon reportedly asserts, "We do not see any other way but to enter and clean up the area." In a long, rambling reply, Haig is quoted in the Hebrew text as saying, "We understand your goals ... As your allies, we are in no position to tell you not to take care and protect your interests ... I hope that you will be sensitive to the international implications ... A way should be found in order to solve the matter."

According to Shiffer, Sharon took Haig's monologue as the go-ahead signal. Haig insisted to TIME through a spokesman last week that he never gave Sharon the encouragement implied. According to Haig, moreover, the former Defense Minister has assured him he never took his words as approval. Even if the Secretary of State did deliver the speech cited in Sniffer's book, it at best constituted not a green light but an amber one, full of the normal ambiguities of diplomatic discourse.

The book sheds little new light on Menachem Begin. Since his retirement last September, the former Prime Minister has become a virtual recluse, and is unlikely to share publicly his thoughts on the invasion. Shiffer does state that Begin feels deceived by Sharon about the chances for a swift, complete victory in Lebanon. The book does not say whether the majority of Israelis feel deceived as well.