THE LAST thing the opposition Likud Party needed on the eve of its campaign launch for Israel's May 29th election was the rekindling of a bitter feud between two of its leaders over one of the more painful episodes in the country's recent history.
But that's what it has to contend with, after a decision by a Tel Aviv court to permit public access to statements made by the Likud's Mr Benjamin Begin, son of the late prime minister, Mr Menachem Begin. Mr Begin accuses another Likud member, Mr Ariel Sharon, of lying to his father and misleading him about the ultimate goals of the war in Lebanon from 1982. Mr Sharon, who was defence minister in Menachem Begin's government during the war, and Mr Begin are both considered likely ministerial candidates if the Likud comes to power.
Mr Begin's statement was used by the defence in a libel suit Mr Sharon has brought against the daily Ha'aretz newspaper and one of its journalists, Uzi Benziman.
The Likud leader and prime ministerial hopeful, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, has refused to comment on the Begin Sharon feud, but sources close to him have made it clear that Mr Sharon will not be defence minister in any future Likud led government.
Likud insiders were also hoping that Mr Netanyahu's lack of a role in the Lebanon war would leave him undamaged by the fallout.
Since the war, which deeply divided Israeli society and cost over 600 soldiers their lives, there has been controversy over how far the army was supposed to advance into Lebanon. The military operation given the go ahead by Mr Begin and his government, many argue, was supposed to be a limited 48 hour thrust into southern Lebanon to destroy guerrilla bases from which Katyusha rockets were being fired into northern Israel. But others have insisted that from the outset the aim was to advance all the way to Beirut, where Israel ultimately got mired in a protracted struggle.
In his statement, Mr Begin refers to a 1987 lecture given by Mr Sharon in which he says the ex defence minister clearly states that it had been the government's intention right from the start to advance all the way to Beirut to wipe out guerilla bases there. When he informed Menachem gin about what Mr Sharon had said, Mr Begin recalls his father being stunned.
In 1983 Mr Begin left politics - many believe ridden by the guilt of having plunged Israel into a protracted war that cost so many young soldiers their lives. Mr Sharon was forced to step down as defence minister by a government commission of inquiry into the 1982 massacre by Christian forces of several hundred Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps in southern Beirut.
Mr Sharon, in a hastily assembled press conference on the day the statements were publicised, immediately fired back, insisting that Mr Begin had misinterpreted his 1987 lecture and that he had never misled Menachem Begin.
But Mr Begin's was not the only damning statement in the libel case. Mr Amram Mitzna, a senior commander during the Lebanon war, stated that during the course of the conflict he came to the conclusion that Mr Sharon was misleading the government, Menachem Begin and the whole of the Israel Defence Force. Mr Sharon, said Mr Mitzna in his statement, specifically ordered that the maps not be too detailed. . . so that the government would not be able to see the direction in which the arrows were pointing."