The Cabinet met in a special session to hear a report from Foreign Minister Shamir, just returned from Washington, and to deal with Security Council Resolution 517. The Israel Government was willing to risk a serious rift with the U.S. and the letter it sent to the Secretary- General of the U.N. was, in fact, a rejection of the resolution. Israel feared that an acceptance would be a signal to the P.L.O. that Israel had lost its resolve and the latter would then drag its feet further on the issue of withdrawal, hoping that world public opinion would force Israel not to enter west Beirut, then called by the P.L.O. its "Stalingrad. " Text:
Meeting in special session this evening, the Cabinet resolved to notify the Secretary-General of the U.N. as follows:
1. Ten cease-fires have been declared in Lebanon and in the Beirut area, since the beginning of Operation "Peace for the Galilee"; and all of them have been violated by the terrorist organizations. Israel has always scrupulously observed the cease-fires, on the axiomatic condition that it be reciprocal and absolute. In the absence of reciprocity, Israeli response to violations of the cease-fire is inevitable.
2. United Nations observers can in no feasible or practical manner monitor the activities of the terrorist organizations in Beirut and its environs.
3. The presence of these United Nations observers in Beirut would signal to the terrorist organizations that they are not obliged to leave Beirut and Lebanon, despite the explicit and urgent demand by the President of the United States that they do so with all possible dispatch, and despite the demand of the Lebanese government.
4. The arrangement for the deployment of the Israeli forces will be determined after the departure of all the terrorist organizations now in Beirut beyond the borders of Lebanon, on the basis of the principle by which all foreign forces will leave the sovereign territory of Lebanon.