- Israel is asking the United States for $8 billion (£5bn)
in loan guarantees - and has sent to Washington one of the former army
officers implicated in the 1982 Sabra and Chatila massacre of Palestinian
civilians to persuade the Bush administration to grant the money.
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- Amos Yaron, who is now director general of the Israeli
Ministry of Defence, was the Israeli military commander in Beirut when
Lebanese Phalangist militiamen entered the refugee camps and slaughtered
up to 1,700 Palestinian refugees. He ordered flares to be dropped over
the camps, at the request of the Phalange, and Israeli soldiers blocked
the exits to prevent civilians from leaving the area. Israel is pleading
for the money - along with an additional $4 billion in military aid - on
the grounds that a US invasion of Iraq will provoke further attacks against
Israel.
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- It argues that some of the aid should be given to anti-missile
defence systems for El Al airliners. Al-Qa'ida members tried to destroy
an Israeli civilian aircraft with missiles at Mombasa last year, but narrowly
missed it.
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- The Israeli delegation to Washington is led by Dov Weissglass,
from the private office of the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, who
was found "personally responsible" for the Sabra and Chatila
massacre by the Israeli Kahan commission of inquiry in 1983. Mr Yaron was
appointed to the post of Defence Ministry director by the former prime
minister, Ehud Barak. The two men are accompanied to Washington by the
Israeli Ministry of Finance accountant general, Nir Gilad. The Israeli
team is negotiating the new loan with Condoleezza Rice's National Security
Council but little has emerged about their visit in the American press.
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- The US response is likely to be made public within a
month - before the expected invasion of Iraq. The State Department spokesman,
Richard Boucher, has refused to talk about the negotiations, save for a
passing remark that "we always try to help our friends and allies
to the best of our ability".
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- The Bush administration has never referred to the Sabra
and Chatila massacre, nor to Mr Sharon's role in the killings. The night
before he sent the Phalange into the camps to confront "terrorists",
Mr Sharon claimed - wrongly - that Palestinians had murdered Lebanon's
president-elect Bashir Germayel, who was also leader of the Phalange militia.
Civilians trying to flee the carnage pleaded with Israeli soldiers to allow
them to leave the area. On Mr Yaron's orders, they were sent back into
the camps - in many cases to their deaths. The Israeli officers later claimed
they didn't know the Phalange were murdering the Palestinians, even though
individual Israeli soldiers had warned their commanders that the militia
were killing civilians.
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- Israeli officials accompanying the delegation said they
believed the US would respond favourably to their loan request when their
country was facing a global recession as well as "terrorism".
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