JERUSALEM -- Prime Minister Menachem Begin Tuesday defended the Israeli raid on an Iraqi nuclear reactor as a 'supreme moral act' to save the Jewish state from another Holocaust. If the plant is re-built, he said, it will be destroyed again.
Adressing a news conference in an emotional, defiant voice, Begin also rejected international criticism of the air raid on Baghdad Sunday and asserted that Iraq had been planning to build three to five Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs to drop on Israel.
He offered no evidence for the claim but said such an attack would cause up to 600,000 Israeli casualties and be comparable to another Holocaust.
'Never again will there be another Holocaust,' Begin said, recalling the 1.5 million children among the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis during World War II.
'Despite all the condemnations heaped on Israel in the last 24 hours, Israel has nothing to apologize for,' Begin declared. 'It was a just cause. And it shall yet triumph... It was an act of supreme moral, legitimate national self-defense.'
However, opposition Labor Party leader Shimon Peres said the Iraqi reactor posed no immediate threat and accused Begin of ordering the raid for 'campaign considerations.'
Begin faces a tough fight in June 30th elections, although his popularity in the polls has been boosted lately by the bellicose stand he has taken over the Lebanese missile crisis with Syria.
'We must tell the people what we feel: that the action was an election stunt,' Peres said. 'The reactor in Iraq has not yet posed a risk that required action at such an early stage.'
Although Iraq has not released casualty information, Israeli intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Yehoshua Sagui said 'at most three persons were killed' in the raid, including a French technician.
Calling Iraqi President Saddam Hussein a 'meshugana (crazy person),' Begin warned that Israel 'will use all the possibilities at its disposal to destroy the reactor' if the Iraqis rebuild it.
Asked if Israel would deal a similar blow to Libya's attempt to develop atomic power, Begin said: 'Let us deal first with that meshugana Sadaam Hussein. The others we will deal with another time.'
The Israeli prime minister, whom aides described as angry at U.S. criticism of the raid, said he had sent letters of explanation to President Reagan and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.
Western diplomats said the raid, in which Israel used U.S.-built F-15 and F-16 jets to destroy a French-built nuclear reactor on the outskirts of Baghdad, was a keen embarrasment to Sadat, who only three days earlier met Begin at the Israeli leader's request to discuss the Lebanese missile crisis.
The diplomats also said the raid undercut U.S. envoy Philip Habib's efforts to defuse the Lebanese crisis by creating more distrust of the United States and enraging the Saudis, on whom Habib had been counting to negotiate with the Syrians.
Earlier, Begin briefed his Cabinet on the raid with the help of a color film that one aide called 'a great show.'
Maj. Gen. David Ivri, the commander of the Israeli Air Force, also disclosed more details of the surprise attack, for which he said Israeli pilots had been training for 'many months.'
Ivri said the raid itself lasted less than two minutes and completely destroyed the reactor with the aid of a 'new type of technique... based on operational and professional excellence.'
He refused to elaborate or disclose operational details but said the mission was letter-perfect. 'The debriefing was relatively boring because everything was done according to plan,' he said.
International condemnation was as unanimous as it was swift.
Egypt called it an act of 'international terrorism.' France, one of whose technicians was killed in the raid, lodged an official protest and announced it was recalling most of the 150 French personnel working on the Iraqi reactor project.
Some Arabs spoke of an oil boycott against the United States, whose jetfighters were used in apparent violation of the terms under which they were sold to Israel.
Noting that its reactor plant was open to international inspection whereas Israeli nuclear plants are not, Iraq said the raid showed that 'no Arab country is safe' from Israel or 'outside the scope of its aggression.'
A Pentagon official said the attack presented the Reagan administration with its 'first major foreign policy crisis.' Other U.S. officials said there were no plans to cut military aid to Israel, althoughthey suggested some shipments could be delayed.
