Sharon refused to go to bomb shelter

Former advisers recall PM on tragic day

“This is a crazy country in a crazy world,” prime minister Ariel Sharon told his senior adviser Erez Halfon on September 10, 2001. “There is no day when our schedule goes as planned.”

Halfon, who is now deputy chairman of the Nefesh B’Nefesh aliya organization, promised his boss that the next day would be different, and by 3 p.m. Israel time on September 11, he told Sharon with pride that everything that day was going according to plan.

Less than an hour later, Sharon received a note from his chief of staff Uri Shani informing him that a plane had hit a

tower of the World Trade Center in New York. Sharon stopped a meeting of the security cabinet and went to a side room.

Shani was on the phone with New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s chief of staff Bruce Teitelbaum when a plane hit the World Trade Center’s second tower, and the phone was disconnected.

Moments later, Shin Bet (Israel Security Service) agents rushed in and urged the prime minister to head down to a bomb shelter, because of concerns that a civilian airliner en route to Israel could have been hijacked.

Sharon refused to go to the shelter, but he did cancel a visit to Kiryat Malachi, where then-mayor Lior Katsav was set to award him honorary citizenship, and instead prepared for anything that could happen to Israel following the attacks on the US.

“We got ready for the possibility of attacks on Israel,” said Shani, who now advises Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid. “We didn’t know the extent of what was happening. There could have been planes taken over on the way to Israel. There was chaos in the US, and we didn’t want to be on the way.”

Israel Air Force commander Maj.Gen. Dan Halutz asked Sharon for authorization to shoot down a plane if it were perceived to be on its way to the Tel Aviv’s Azrieli Towers or another sensitive location. He told Sharon that it was important to receive such authorization in advance, because there would not be enough time if it happened.

“Sharon refused to give the order,” Shani recalled. “He was so calm. He told [Halutz]: If there is a problem, come to me.”

Then-Shin Bet chief and current Likud MK Avi Dichter recalled ordering the grounding of Israeli planes around the world. He called to offer assistance to then-CIA chief George Tenet, who later wrote in his autobiography that Israel was the first country to offer to help.

Israel was not attacked that day. But Sharon did not succeed in having a day go according to plan.

“Do you see what I meant?” he told Halfon later on that day. “See how crazy Israel and the world are?” •