Arens Announces Decision to Share Lessons
Learned in Lebanon with the U.S.

(March 21, 1983)

Israel decided to share with the U.S. the information and lessons learned in Operation "Peace for the Galilee," the Minister of Defense, Prof. Moshe Arens, said today at a press conference for military correspondents.

"As you know, Israel for some time following the operation collected, classified and processed the data of that war.

In October 1982, my predecessor, Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, sent a letter to the Secretary of Defense, inviting him to participate in studying those lessons, as we did following the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War.

In the end of November 1982, a U.S. delegation visited Israel and initialed an agreement, which essentially resembles previous agreements we had with the U.S. on that subject.

Since then, for the past four months, U.S. and Israeli delegations discussed the execution of that agreement.

Since much time has passed and, meanwhile, some misunderstandings occurred regarding our willingness to put all information at the disposal of the U.S. Government, we decided to enable (the U.S.) to start to study the information on the basis of long-existing agreements between Israel and the U.S.

A first delegation of the U.S. air force will arrive in the beginning of April, which will mark the start of the transfer of information.

Israel is firmly convinced that its interests will be protected, and that the information will be guarded against transmission to outsiders and foreign countries without (prior) consultation with Israel, as obligatory within the framework of existing agreements between the two nations.

Israel believes that this important information in its possession is most valuable to the U.S., and that it will strengthen and add to other security links between the two nations."