In line with the understanding reached with the United States, Mr. Begin said that the problem of Beirut was a Lebanese one; that Israel did not want to capture Yasser Arafat; that a multinational force would be welcomed by Israel, with U.S. participation. He denied Israeli military presence inside Beirut. Following are excerpts from his appearance on the "Face the Nation "program:
Mr. Herman: Prime Minister Begin, what are Israel's intentions toward the P.L.O. forces which are surrounded and encircled in West Beirut? - forces which include Mr. Arafat and his entire infrastructure?
Prime Minister Begin: The problem of those who are now in western Beirut is not Israel's problem. It is that of Lebanon and the Lebanese army, and they should deal with it. Israel actually brought to an end its military operation against the armed bands which used to attack us from Lebanese territory, killing men, women and children; perpetrating atrocities, for instance ordering 18 school children to lay down on the ground and then machine gunning them, and ultimately, for years on end, shelling with long range weapons supplied to the P.L.O. by the Soviet Union (like the Katyusha rockets - range 21.6 kms.) 23 of our villages, towns, townships in Galilee, putting our civilians into shelters.
Mr. Herman: The men who commanded this, you do not intend to try to take them in Beirut?
A: No, no, We decided not to take Beirut, but the problem of those who are in west Beirut, as I said, is for the Lebanese Army to deal with.
Mr. Herman: Yasser Arafat and the entire command - as far as we know - of the Palestine Liberation Organization are surrounded in western Beirut. You say that you have no intention of moving in, but are you encouraging your allies, the Lebanese Christian forces, to move against Arafat?
A: Why should I encourage anything? The Israeli Defense Forces had a task to fulfil. They had to push back the so-called P.L.O., a terrorist organization, and that task was fulfilled. Now starts actually the political campaign, how to make sure that so-called status quo ante, which is intolerable, will not be restored.
But these are Lebanese internal questions. It is for the Lebanese government to deal with them, not for us.
Mr. Faw: You say the military task has been fulfilled. Are you determined, however, to capture Mr. Arafat? Or if, in fact, he is captured, what would happen to him then?
A: We don't want to capture Mr. Arafat because we don't want to deal with him at all. I think it would be a trouble for us. Let him go wherever he wants to.
Mr. Pierpont: It is true that there are 6,000, at least, Palestinians in West Beirut and that so far the fighting seems to have-quieted down. But there is no political settlement yet in Lebanon. You say it's up to the Lebanese. They haven't been able to get a political settlement among themselves for many years now. How long are you willing to have your troops stay in the area if there is no settlement?
A: This question is not being measured by days, only by a criteria of security. I would like to recall our men from Lebanon as soon as possible. We don't want to keep our troops in Lebanon; we don't covet one inch of their territory. We respect their territorial integrity. I completely identify myself with full respect with the statement made by the President of the United States in his speech to the British Parliament: namely, Israel should bring home its soldiers from Lebanon - but it is not enough. I quote, "The scourge of terrorism in the Middle East must be stamped out". I agree with both parts. We want our soldiers back home with their families, but the scourge of terrorism must be stamped out. Therefore, we said yes, we must have a distance of at least 40 kms. - but those terrorists must not appear anymore, never again.
Mr. Pierpoint: Will your soldiers stay there?
A: For this purpose we suggest the creation of a multinational force. If the United States is willing to participate, we shall accept it willingly. If the United States doesn't want to participate, let the multinational force be formed of other units. But it must be a serious force which will not permit nor make it possible for the terrorists to infiltrate its lines and again threaten our civilians with sudden death.
Mr. Pierpont: So the United Nations force that is there now, the so-called UNIFIL, is not sufficient for your purposes. You are asking for another type of peace-keeping force.
A: I agree, that it is not sufficient, and I will explain why. First of all, it is a United Nations force, under the - how is it called? - the "Insecurity" Council's control. As you could have seen the day before yesterday, I came to make a speech about disarmament and peace. Nearly two thirds of the delegations - a majority of the United Nations - were absent because they didn't want to listen to me. As Mr. Reston wrote in The New York Times, they didn't even have the decency to listen to the Prime Minister of Israel. And they should have the control over those troops?
We have had the experience of between 7-8,000 terrorists infiltrating within the lines of UNIFIL, and they threatened us. Therefore, we would like to have a multinational force which will sign an agreement with Israel and with the Lebanese government. Each of the participatory countries will also sign a detailed agreement with us so we shall make sure that there won't be any repetition of infiltration and terrorism. This I call stamping out terrorism from Lebanon. We want peace with Lebanon. We can sign tomorrow a peace treaty with Lebanon. We don't have any territorial questions between Israel and Lebanon. I can go to Beirut and see President Sarkis the day after tomorrow, after my arrival in my country, and he may come to Jerusalem, as President Sadat did, and then we can in Jerusalem sign the peace treaty.
The real problem is for nearly seven years the country was taken over by a Syrian occupation army and by the terrorists of the P.L.O., whom the Soviet Union.. Syria and Libya provided with ammunition and weapons. I want to tell you that we ourselves were taken by surprise. We disclose now the amounts of Russian weapons and ammunition, which will take us six weeks to take out from Lebanon if we use ten big Mack trucks working day and night.
Yesterday we discovered suddenly a store of weapons around Sidon. It will take 500 trucks to transfer that ammunition to Israel. Lebanon became a Soviet base for the whole of the Middle east. We undertook the operation, "Peace for Galilee,' for our own self-defense. But indirectly we did a great service to the Free World. It was a great danger to other countries in the Middle East.
Mr. Herman: Since you have captured this vast amount of Soviet munitions, how do you evaluate the Soviet warning that Israel is beginning to touch on the edges of Soviet interests in the Middle East? What do you think might happen?
A: I can disclose to you that I got a note myself from the Soviet Union, and I answered it very calmly because the Soviet Union, since the days of Litvinov, has proposed an international agreement about aggression. One of its definitions is that armed bands operating from one country against another country is indirect aggression. So whatever happened between the P.L.O. in Lebanon and ourselves is aggression by Soviet definition. I answered them that we don't want to hurt Soviet interests or their embassy.
Mr. Pierpont: What did they ask you to do, or what did they say in their note?
A: They didn't ask us to do anything. They only said that their embassy is in the vicinity of Israeli troops. I explained to them that it never occurred to us to attack the Soviet Embassy; that we respect their absolute immunity, as the immunity of any other diplomatic representation of any country.
I then used the opportunity to tell them that our troops are in Lebanon on behalf of the great principle of self-defense against armed bands which operate from one country against another country - thus, committing aggression by Soviet definition.
Mr. Herman: You gave as your main goal a belt at least 40 kms. deep. How do you get from there to the outskirts of Beirut?
A: When we said 40 kms., we meant the line where the security arrangements are made. But they (P.L.O. terrorists) were on the 50 km. line, 10 kms. from our troops shooting at them. What should our troops do then? Lie down and be killed by those terrorists because they are on the 50 km. line?
We advanced and surrounded them. Then they stopped shooting at us. When the military action is completely over, the line will be 40 or 43 km. because that is beyond the range of the Soviet guns. That will be peace for the Galilee.
Mr. Herman: So you got to Beirut not as a target in itself, but simply pursuing troops who were battling with you?
A: We didn't get into Beirut at all. We are close to Beirut and to the airfield of Beirut. Sometimes our men visit Beirut and are being received with great love by the Christian population to whom that operation is salvation.
Mr. Pierpont: What do have as a vision for your great grandchildren, let's say in the year 2000, for Israel in its relations with its neighbors, and how do you intend to achieve that vision?
A: I believe that in my childrens' and certainly of my grandchildrens' time - Israel will have complete peace with its neighbors. We made peace with Egypt. We gave great sacrifices for the sake of that peace treaty with Egypt - the whole Sinai Peninsula, strategic depth, oil wells from which derived already four years 24 percent of our annual consumption. Today, we would have derived at least 60 percent. Now we pay for that oil $1.2 billion per annum, which for a small country like ours is a huge amount of money. We gave up two airfields, considered by Europe as among the most sophisticated in the world. We had to evacuate our civilian population. We gave great sacrifices, but we have peace with Egypt. Now I believe there will be soon peace with Lebanon.
Mr. Pierpoint: And the Palestinians?
A: The Palestinian Arabs are a problem for Lebanon because they are there in numbers. I suppose there are some 300,000. Not all of them are members of the P.L.O. Not all of them are terrorists.
Mr. Pierpoint: Palestinians in Jordan, in Syria?
A: Between 15,000 and 20,000. 1 believe that if there will be an independent Lebanese government without armed terrorists and without a Syrian occupation army, in a very short period of time Lebanon and Israel will sign a peace treaty and live in peace, and it will be a peaceful boundary, as it was for 19 years. Then we shall continue with our peace efforts. I believe we shall have peace with Jordan. Of course, I cannot give you the dates. You need for peace, two, at least two. To start the war, one is enough. But for peace you need two.
Mr. Herman: Tomorrow you meet with President Reagan. One of the subjects I'm sure is going to come up is the question of negotiations for the autonomy of the Palestinians, of whom the largest part still remains within your control, in what you call Judea and Samaria, and what the rest of the world calls the West Bank.
A: What we call properly Judea and Samaria, others mistakenly call the West Bank. The West Bank is the whole territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean...
We produced a document about full autonomy for the Palestinian Arabs in Judea-Samaria and in the Gaza district, which is the most far-reaching autonomy proposal known in our time. I spoke with President Frangois Mitterand about the autonomy given to Corsica. France didn't give statehood to the Corsican people; they gave them autonomy. I spoke with Mr. Colombo about the autonomy of Tyrol, and with Mr. Tindlmans about the autonomy given to the Walloons and the Flemish in Belgium.
Ours is much more far-reaching. For instance, in Belgium, the central government has kept under its authority education, finance and justice. We give all these to the autonomous institution of the Palestinian Arabs.
Mr. Pierpoint: Why don't they accept all of this?
A: The talks are stalled because our Egyptian friends suddenly' proclaimed a boycott of Jerusalem as one of the sites of the talks. We suggested that the talks should take place between the United States, Egypt and Israel - the signatories of the Camp David Accords - in the three capitals of the respective countries - Jerusalem, Cairo and Washington. The Egyptians for the time being say that Jerusalem must be out. That we cannot accept. It's our capital and the talks should take place in all the three capitals.
Mr. Pierpoint: You have embarrassed President Mubarak by your invasion of Lebanon. I'm sure that that was not the intention of the Israeli government, but I'm sure you understand you have done that. Now you are insisting that he go to Jerusalem simply to talk. Is it not possible that you could make a compromise on that?
A: Why do you use the word embarrass? We had to defend our people who were attacked. It was our duty. We didn't embarrass President Mubarak at all. I received a firm letter from President Mubarak and I answered the letter, as it should be amongst friends.
Now about Jerusalem. I don't ask for any privilege. I go to Cairo. Why shouldn't the delegate of Egypt come to Jerusalem? It's our capital. I don't decide where is the Egyptian capital. Let the Egyptians not decide where is our capital. Jerusalem is our eternal capital; it's one of the oldest capitals in history, more than 3,000 years since King David transferred the seat of his Kingdom from Hebron to Jerusalem. Nobody should compromise. You have talks in the capitals of the countries which negotiate.