Former Israeli premier Ariel Sharon was planning on assassinating Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) chairman Yasser Arafat in the 1980s and gave orders to down commercial passenger planes according to a New York Times Magazine article published last Tuesday.
In the book “Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations” investigative reporter Ronen Bergman writes that Israel intended to bomb a plane Arafat was aboard in 1982.
Bergman detailed years of abortive Israeli attempts to kill Arafat. The PLO leader evaded bombings and military operations either through secret means or because the Israeli military called the attempts off for unknown reasons. Arafat finally died in 2004 at age 75.
In one of those assassination plans Bergman reports that Sharon ordered Israeli agents to plant a “massive set of bombs” under a VIP area at a stadium in Beirut where the PLO was set to hold a celebration. The explosives were in place and “with the push of one button they would achieve the destruction of the entire Palestinian leadership.”
But the plan was called off after senior officials voiced concerns to then-Israeli premier Menachem Begin.
In another plan Sharon considered downing commercial flights that Arafat was scheduled to be aboard according to the article citing three Israeli officers familiar with the plot:
“When Mossad reported that Arafat was flying more commercial flights with the PLO often buying the entire first-class or business-class cabin for him and his aides Sharon decided that such flights would be legitimate targets. The plane would have to be shot down over the open sea far from the coast so that it would take investigators a long time to find the wreckage and establish whether it had been hit by a missile or had crashed because of engine failure.”
In 1982 particularly Sharon then war minister gave orders to shoot down an aircraft he believed Arafat was aboard. The air force acting on information from the Mossad intelligence service hesitated and soon realized the plane was not carrying Arafat but his younger brother Fathi. The passengers also included 30 injured Palestinian children survivors of the infamous Sabra and Shatila massacre a month after the end of the first Lebanon war.
“Since World War II Israel has used assassination and targeted-killing more than any other country in the West in many cases endangering the lives of civilians” Bergman wrote.
