Operation Salt Fish - Part Two
Sharon's and Eitan's deep desire to assassinate Arafat squares off against military ethics as the Salt Fish team gets caught in the crossfire, and an unbelievable team takes off for a bombing sortie
Continued from Part One.
Civil War
Israeli troops in south Lebanon
Sharon's shallow incursion into Lebanon had mutated into a full-blown civil war. Events had not gone quite according to his and Raful Eitan's ambitious plan of remaking the middle east. As international pressure mounted on Israel to withdraw, Sharon and Eitan leaned harder on the Salt Fish team to get Arafat by any means necessary.
Every now and again, people from the Mossad or AMAN would show up at Canary [the air force command post located in a bunker deep underneath Tel Aviv] and tell us that Arafat was here or there. Sharon or Raful would order us to bomb those places immediately.
--Major General David Ivry, then an air force commander
Ivry was concerned about civilian casualties, however, and did not authorise bombing sorties whenever there were apprehensions of such casualties. His concerns were shared by Uzi Dayan who was then commander of the General Staff Reconnaissance Unit, popularly known as Sayeret Matkal, the unit tasked with covert observation on the ground. Ivry's refusal to authorise sorties incensed Eitan, and the former faced considerable blowback from the Chief of Staff.
Not ripe
On occasion an exasperated Eitan even called up Dayan and demanded to know why, despite intelligence about Arafat's presence, jets had not been dispatched. When Dayan explained that it was impossible because of the potential for civilian casualties, Eitan blew up at him and assured the Sayeret Matkal commander that he would take responsibility for the consequences. But Dayan wasn't easily persuaded.
I wasn't prepared to allow it. Raful would not teach me the ethics of war.
-- Uzi Dayan
When Eitan pressed further and reminded Dayan that he wasn't authorised to decide whether to drop a bomb or not, the latter chose a different tack. He was responsible for the intelligence gathered on the ground - the corroboration that was critical to Salt Fish's operations. So, when he apprehended large civilian fatalities from a bombing sortie against Arafat, he simply reported that the target was not ripe from the intelligence angle. It seemed that Arafat had more lives than all the cats in Beirut.
An unusual navigator
By the beginning of August, Raful Eitan was frustrated with the lack of progress made by the operations side of Salt Fish. On 4 August, he sent for the head of the air force's operations department. Aviem Sella met Eitan the next morning at Hatzor air force base and, incredibly, Sella took off as part of a group of four Phantoms, with Lt Gen Raful Eitan - the chief of staff of the Israel Defence Forces - in the navigator's seat.
Lt Gen Rafael ‘Raful’ Eitan, centre
Salt Fish had received credible intelligence that Arafat would be attending a meeting at a specified location in Beirut, and that's where the four Phantoms headed. With Eitan acting as navigator and operating the munitions systems, they made two bombing runs over the target building, followed by another run to assess damage.
Israeli Air Force’s F-4 Phantom aircraft
Raful was happy, and we flew home to Israel.
-- Aviem Sella
The bombs destroyed part of the target building. Arafat's luck held firm, though. He arrived at the location just moments after the bombing runs had ended.
Concludes in the final part.
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You will also enjoy reading my spy novels: Let Bhutto Eat Grass & Let Bhutto Eat Grass: Part 2 deal with nuclear weapons espionage in 1970s India, Pakistan, and Europe.