Avraham Shalom

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Avraham Shalom Ben-Dor ( Hebrew אברהם שלום בנדור, English transcription Avraham Shalom Ben-Dor ; * July 7, 1928 in Vienna ; † June 19, 2014 in Tel Aviv ) was an Israeli intelligence officer and from 1981 to 1986 head of the Israeli domestic secret service Schin Bet .

Early years

In 1946 he entered the Palmach and fought in the battle of Mishmar HaEmek in the first Arab-Israeli war . In 1950 he started to work at Schin Bet, of which he became director in 1980.

Kav-300 affair

On the evening of April 12, 1984, an Israeli Egged bus on line 300 (Hebrew קו 300 / kav 300) Tel Aviv - Ashkelon was kidnapped by Palestinians and the 41 passengers were taken hostage. The bus was directed to Egypt in the Gaza Strip, but stopped before the border at Dair al-Balah when the tires were shot at. The kidnappers demanded the release of 500 prisoners and safe passage to Egypt. During the rescue operation carried out the following morning, the kidnappers were overwhelmed. According to official information, all four bus hijackers were killed. After that, photos appeared - only in foreign media due to Israeli censorship - showing two kidnappers alive and in good shape after their capture. After this information was published in an Israeli newspaper only a week later through the non-prohibited quotation of an article in the New York Times , investigations into the actual process were initiated. It was found that Brigadier General Yitzchak Mordechai had interrogated the two prisoners and then turned over Shin Bet agents. They murdered the prisoners - allegedly at the instigation of Shalom.

Shalom, however, accused Mordecai of being responsible for the murders. In 1985 General Mordechai was questioned in a court of law.

President Chaim Herzog pardoned Shalom and four other Shin Bet agents.

Shalom commented on the affair in 2012 for the first time publicly in the documentary Kill first (Engl. The Gatekeepers of the Israeli film director) Dror Moreh . The film was released in Israeli cinemas at the beginning of 2013 and was broadcast in March 2013 by the Franco-German television station arte and ARD . In the film, he blamed the army for the poor condition ("half-dead") of the two prisoners when they were handed over to the Shin Beth; his agents had "only given them the rest". He gave this order to prevent a media-effective terrorist trial.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Former Shin Bet chief Avraham Shalom dies at 86 , June 19, 2014, The Jerusalem Post
  2. ↑ Michael Keren: Professionals Against Populism: The Peres Government and Democracy. SUNY Press, 1995, ISBN 0-7914-2563-0 , pp. 32-33
  3. ↑ Gidi Weitz: Newly released papers reveal how Shin Bet tried to hide "Bus 300" killings . In: Haaretz . September 27, 2001
  4. ^ Peretz Kidron in Middle East International. Issue 276, p. 5
  5. ↑ Michael Keren: Zichroni V. State of Israel: The Biography of a Civil Rights Lawyer. Lexington Books, 2002, ISBN 0-7391-0316-4 , p. 172
  6. ^ Peretz Kidron in Middle East International. Issue 279, pp. 8-10
  7. ↑ Win the battle, lose the war? in FAZ of March 5, 2013, page 31
  8. ↑ “Our army is brutal” , Die Zeit on March 5, 2013


personal data
SURNAME Shalom, Avraham
ALTERNATIVE NAMES אברהם שלום בנדור; Shalom Ben-Dor, Avraham; Shalom, Avraham
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Israeli intelligence officer and director of the Shin Bet
DATE OF BIRTH July 7, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH 19th June 2014
Place of death Tel Aviv