Posted on 02/23/2003 7:39:17 PM PST by yonif
Shlomo Argov was born in Jerusalem in 1929, the descendant of family which has lived in Jerusalem for seven generations. As a young man and a member of the Palmach, he was wounded in the 1948 War of Independence. Shlomo Argov studied in Washington and London and joined the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1959. A senior and distinguished diplomat, he held a number of positions in the Ministry, serving among others as Ambassador to Mexico (1971-1974) and the Netherlands (1977-1979) before assuming his post as Ambassador to Britain in 1979.
On the night of June 3, 1982, Ambassador Argov was critically wounded when Palestinian terrorists from the Abu Nidal group of the PLO shot him outside London's Dorchester Hotel. He was hospitalized in Jerusalem and remained permanently incapacitated until his death on February 23, 2003 at the age of 73.
A gifted orator, Argov was an eloquent and highly respected advocate of Israel's cause, and of its rightful place among the nations. Those who knew him were moved and inspired to work with him to bring understanding and peace to Israel and its neighbors. In June 2002, on the 20th anniversary of the assassination attempt, Israel Ambassador to Britain Zvi Shtauber said: "Shlomo Argov's life since that fateful evening illustrates the tragic capacity of terror to silence the very diplomacy that is needed to bring peace to all the peoples of the Middle East."
Former Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek wrote in 1982, in a preface to a collection of Argov's speeches writings: "Shlomo Argov has become a symbol of the Israeli diplomat who today not only fights for his country's cause under most difficult circumstances, but also risks his very life in doing so... Shlomo applied himself to the Foreign Service with a particular single-mindedness, regarding it as both a profession and a mission in life. He aspired to perfection and never relented in his efforts in search of new waSys to fight more effectively on the diplomatic front for the just cause of Israel."
Hava, devoted wife of Shlomo Argov, passed away in May 2002. He is survived by a son and two daughters.
What do they mean by incapacitated?
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