[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 41 (Thursday, March 13, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E463-E464]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              SHLOMO ARGOV--A VICTIM OF MINDLESS VIOLENCE

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                           HON. DAVID R. OBEY

                              of wisconsin

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 13, 2003

  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, a good man has died after spending 20 years 
completely paralyzed because of mindless violence perpetrated by the 
Abu Nidal Middle East terrorist faction. Shlomo Argov, the former 
Israeli Ambassador to Britain, who died on February 23 in a Jerusalem 
hospital, was shot as he emerged from a meeting in a London hotel in 
1982. For more than 20 years he was a living example of the tragedy 
that has befallen so many decent people because of mindless hatred that 
is used to justify terrorist acts.
  I first met him when he showed me around Jerusalem on my first visit 
to the Middle East after the 1973 Israeli-Arab war. He was a political 
moderate who in his conversations with me spoke articulately of the 
need for Israelis and Palestinians to come to an understanding about 
their differences, and, yet, he was gunned down by forces of hatred who 
have always been anxious to make a political point regardless of the 
injury done to other human beings or to their own cause.
  Before he was so viciously assaulted, he had a distinguished career 
in Israeli's Minister of Foreign Affairs and served as Ambassador to 
Mexico, the Netherlands, and finally, Ambassador to Britain. His death 
is another demonstration of how close the Middle East is to running out 
of men of good will before it runs out of hatred.
  Mr. Argov paid a terrible price for trying to bring his talents to 
bear to advance the well being of the part of the world from which he 
came. His death should not go unnoticed. Neither should the 
distinguished service that he provided to Israel and the world before 
his life was so cruelly changed by mindless Palestinian militants.
  Thoughtful people in both Israeli and Palestinian circles should view 
his death as another reminder of the need to end the terror, cut 
through the hatred, and give innocent civilians in that region an 
opportunity for the kind of

[[Page E464]]

happy and decent life which was denied to Shlomo Argov.
  I'm sure the sympathies of all of us who knew him go out to his 
family. I am inserting a copy of Mr. Argov's obituary that appeared in 
the Washington Post.

               [From the Washington Post, Feb. 24, 2003]

                   Israeli Diplomat Shlomo Argov Dies

       Jerusalem.--Shlomo Argov, 73, the former Israeli ambassador 
     to Britain who was paralyzed during an assassination attempt 
     by Palestinian militants that triggered Israel's invasion of 
     Lebanon in 1982, died Feb. 23.
       He has been in Jerusalem's Hadassah hospital since the 
     shooting. Hospital officials said he died from complication 
     from wounds that left him completely paralyzed and on life-
     support machines.
       Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced at the start 
     of Sunday's weekly Gabinet meeting that ``this morning, 
     before dawn, Ambassador Shlomo Argov died.''
       Gunmen from the Abu Nidal guerrilla faction, which has ties 
     to Libya, Syria and Iraq, shot Mr. Argov after a diplomatic 
     meeting outside London's Dorchester Hotel. Three Abu Nidal 
     members were convicted in the shooting.
       The shooting was Israel's stated pretext for invading 
     Lebanon four days later and laying siege to Beirut for three 
     months until Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and his fighter 
     were forced out of the country. The invasion also marked the 
     start of an 18-year Israeli military presence in south 
     Lebanon, which ended with Israel's withdrawal in May 2000.
       Reuven Merhaz, a former colleague of Mr. Argov, said 
     Sharon, who was defined minister at the time, had planned the 
     Lebanon invasion, well before Argov was shot.
       ``The war plan was ready,'' Merhav told Israel Radio on 
     Sunday. ``He [Sharon] made no secret of it. He had presented 
     the plan to the Americans some months earlier.''
       Mr. Argov, who was born in Jerusalem, studied in Washington 
     and London and joined Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 
     1959. He served as ambassador to Mexico and the Netherlands 
     before assuming his position as ambassador to Britain in 
     1979.
       The Jerusalem Post described Mr. Argov as ``brilliant and 
     suave'' and ranked him with orator and historian Abba Eban, 
     Israel's first ambassador to the United Nations, who died in 
     November.
       Victor Harel, a deputy director general at the Israeli 
     Foreign Minister, said that at the time of the shooting. Mr. 
     Argov was in his physical and intellectual prime, jogging 
     every day and conversing in fluent English and Spanish in 
     addition to his native Hebrew.
       While he remained lucid after the shooting, he was 
     emotionally devastated by the awareness of his disability, 
     Harel told the radio.
       ``He was fully conscious for the first two or three 
     years.'' he said ``But he couldn't do anything on his own. 
     The paralysis was total. He also got more and more 
     medication, so visiting him became harder and harder.''
       Mr. Argov's survivors include three children.

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