Shlomo Argov

Shlomo Argov (שלמה ארגוב; 14 December 1929 – 23 February 2003) was an Israeli diplomat.

Argov was born in Jerusalem in 1929, to a family that had lived in Jerusalem for seven generations.

As a teenager, he joined the Palmach, the elite force of the Haganah.

During the 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine, he was wounded in the Battle of Safed.

When Israel was established and the 1948 Arab–Israeli War broke out, Argov joined the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

In 1950, he completed his military service and went to the United States to study, receiving a Bachelor of Science degree from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in 1952.

While studying, he worked part-time at the Israeli Embassy, where he met his future wife Hava.

Afterwards, he went to study in the United Kingdom, and received an MA in international relations from the London School of Economics in 1955.

Argov then returned to Israel, where he spent several years working in the Prime Minister's Office under David Ben-Gurion.

In 1959, Argov joined the Israeli Foreign Ministry, and was appointed consul-general in Lagos, Nigeria (in 1960, he was ambassador), and was later transferred to the Israeli Embassy in Ghana.

In 1962, he served at the Israeli consulate in New York City.

In 1965, he became Deputy-Director of the American Desk at the Foreign Ministry, and was posted at the Israeli Embassy in Washington in 1968.

From 1971 to 1974, he served as ambassador to Mexico, and was appointed Deputy Director-General for Information of the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem when he returned.

In 1977, he was appointed ambassador to the Netherlands, and served until 1979.

In September 1979, he was appointed ambassador to the United Kingdom by Prime Minister Menachem Begin.

During his three years as ambassador, he "forcefully and articulately put forward Israel's cause to a generally hostile Foreign Office and media".

He was highly admired by British Jews, and often visited Jewish communities.

Argov had three children with his wife Hava: a son, Gideon, and two daughters, Yehudit and Edna.

He was the Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom whose attempted assassination led to the 1982 Lebanon War.

On 3 June 1982, three men, Hussein Ghassan Said, Marwan al-Banna, and Nawaf al-Rosan approached Argov as he got into his car after a banquet at the Dorchester Hotel, in Park Lane, London.

There is another report giving the number of men as four.

Armed with a WZ63 machine pistol, Hussein Ghassan Said shot Argov in the head.

Argov was not killed, but he was critically injured.

He was rushed to the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, where he was transferred to a specialist unit and underwent emergency brain surgery.

He remained in a coma for three months.

The attempted assassins were members of Abu Nidal's organisation, a Palestinian splinter group which was hostile to the PLO.

The attack was ordered by the Iraqi Intelligence Service.

Following the attack, the assassins drove to the Iraqi embassy in London, where they deposited the weapon.

Al-Banna was Abu Nidal's cousin, Said a Jordanian, and Al-Rosan an Iraqi intelligence colonel.

The gunman, Said, was shot by Argov's bodyguard and also sustained serious head injuries and, like Argov, survived.

The two uninjured assassins fled the scene but were arrested shortly afterwards in a London flat.

It appeared that they were next planning to kill Nabil Ramlawi, the PLO representative in London.

The attackers were convicted, and sentenced to terms of imprisonment ranging from 30 to 35 years.

Subsequently two became mentally ill, and were transferred to high security hospitals in the UK.

There was some speculation in Israel at the time that the British security services were aware of the plot.

Lord Alton of Liverpool failed to draw the government into commenting on the speculation when he raised the issue in the House of Lords.

The attempt on Argov's life triggered the Israeli decision to invade Lebanon two days later to rout Palestinian guerrilla bases.

This was intended by the Iraqi authorities, who calculated that an Israeli war in Lebanon would be detrimental to the rival Ba'athist government in Syria—whether Syria intervened on behalf of the Palestinians or not.

Israel invaded Lebanon on 6 June.

Hava died in May 2002.