Lawon affair

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The Lawon affair (also "Lavon affair"), named after the then Israeli Defense Minister Pinchas Lawon , was a political affair following a failed covert operation carried out in Egypt in 1954 under the code name Operation Susannah . A group of Egyptian Jews were recruited by Israeli intelligence to bomb American and British targets such as libraries, cinemas and an educational facility within Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptian communists were then to be held responsible for the attacks, and a climate of violence and political unrest created that would lead the British to continue military control of the Suez Canal . Some of the bombings failed, and arrests exposed the state terrorism of Israel. The affair, in Israel initially as Esek bisch ( Hebrew עסק ביש, "Unpleasant affair"), caused long-term disputes in the Israeli public, led to several secret and public investigations and finally in 1963 to the final resignation of David Ben-Gurion , whose office as Prime Minister was taken over by Levi Eshkol .

Reason and first consequences

In early July 1954, a secret service operation launched by Israel under the code name Operation Susannah in Egypt failed . Bombs were planted in various Egyptian cinemas, post offices and in the American cultural centers in Cairo and Alexandria , with plans to sabotage negotiations between Egypt and Great Britain over the British withdrawal from the Suez Canal . The actions were carried out under a false flag , which means that the blame for the attacks should primarily be blamed on the Muslim Brotherhood and Egyptian communists. Eleven Egyptian Jews who had acted on behalf of Israel were arrested and tried in Cairo. Two suspects, Josef Karmon and Meir Max Bineth, who grew up in Cologne, committed suicide in prison. The trial lasted from December 11, 1954 to January 27, 1955. Two defendants, Moshe Marzouk and Shmuel Azar, were sentenced to death and hung to death, and two were released for lack of evidence. The remainder received prison terms ranging from seven years to life, although President Gamal Abdel Nasser had promised that no heavy sentences would be imposed. Israel refused to officially admit ties to the unsuccessful operation and did nothing to stand by the 11 defendants. The main question in Israel at the time was whether the order for the failed operation, which was carried out without the knowledge of Prime Minister Moshe Sharet , had come from Defense Minister Pinchas Lawon or from the head of the military intelligence service Binjamin Gibli. To date there is no clear answer to this question. It is clear, however, that for almost ten years political life was severely affected by the effects of this affair, mainly because David Ben-Gurion, who at the time of the event was living in seclusion in Sde Boker , did not want to let the affair rest. Then chief of staff, Moshe Dayan, claimed that Lawon gave the order, but others expressed different opinions.

Soon after the court case in Egypt, Sharet appointed a committee consisting of Chief Justice Yitzchak Olschan and the first Israeli chief of staff, Yaakov Dori . However, the committee did not have any clear results. On the other hand, Lawon was forced to resign as Minister of Defense and Ben-Gurion took office on February 21, 1955. Gibli has been released from the secret service.

In 1957 an investigation began in Israel against an Israeli spy who was responsible for the network in Egypt, but which had little to do with the operation in Egypt. At the time he was referred to as "the third man" and later turned out to be Avri Elad. In the course of the secret trial, the full details of which have not yet been published, Elad confessed to having committed perjury and to having provided the Olschan-Dori committee with false information at Gibli's request. In August 1960 Elad was sentenced to twelve years in prison for illegally obtaining classified documents.

In 1958 a secret commission of inquiry was set up by the military to examine all evidence. Although the Commission found that documents had been forged and false affidavits had been made, no action was taken. In May 1960 there was a meeting between Lawon and Ben-Gurion, whereupon the latter instructed his aide-de-camp to investigate the matter, who in turn confirmed the forgery of documents and the false affidavits. In September 1960, on behalf of Ben-Gurion, a committee chaired by Chief Justice Chaim Cohn was convened to examine the allegations against Gibli. After the publication of the report of this committee on October 23, 1960 Gibli resigned from his functions in the army. Prosecutor Gideon Hausner recommended investigating the possibility of legal proceedings, but the governing bodies of Mapai were not interested in legal proceedings. With the exception of Lawon, the names of most of the people involved were not mentioned in the press at the time.

Ben-Gurion versus Lawon

For years Ben-Gurion tried to pursue the affair, always convinced that Lawon had given the order for the operation in Egypt. But Lawon also had important supporters, including Golda Meir and Pinchas Sapir . Ben-Gurion convinced Gibli to ask Chief of Staff Chaim Laskow to set up a committee of inquiry to review responsibility for the incidents in Egypt. Lawon insisted that the issue should be dealt with in the Knesset's Foreign and Defense Committee . Contrary to the wishes of Ben-Gurion, the government decided on October 30, 1960 at the request of Justice Minister Pinchas Rosen , supported by Finance Minister Levi Eschkol, to convene a further committee of seven ministers to investigate the matter. In his testimony before the committee, Lawon said that Defense Department officials had started a conspiracy against him at the time of the Olshan and Dori investigation, and accused Shimon Peres , then a senior official in the Department of Defense, of lack of loyalty. The committee came to the clear conclusion that Lawon had not given the order and recommended that the matter be closed. The committee's report was approved by the government on December 25, 1960. However, Ben-Gurion refused to accept the report and now himself demanded a review by a judicial body, which, unlike the previous committee , was able to oblige the witnesses to testify under threat from Subpoena . Although a censure motion by the opposition failed in the Knesset on January 30, 1961, Ben-Gurion's stance was heavily criticized. The next day he submitted his resignation, and his government served as the interim government until new parliamentary elections were held in August 1961 .

Ben-Gurion now appeared to be waging a personal vengeance against Lawon. Although some prominent intellectuals, including Martin Buber and Hugo Bergman , publicly described his behavior as anti-democratic, in February 1961 he was able to convince the Mapai Central Committee to dismiss Lawon as general secretary of the Histadrut . Sharet described this dismissal as dishonorable, and criticism of Ben-Gurion grew noticeably, although he was able to form a new government in November 1961. He resigned as Prime Minister for the last time in June 1963, and was succeeded by Levi Eschkol on his recommendation. Eshkol endeavored to finally bring the affair that had burdened the Mapai party for almost ten years to a close. But in October 1964, Ben-Gurion made another attempt to raise the issue, and submitted documents to Justice Minister Dov Yosef and Prosecutor Moshe Ben Seew about the Lawon affair. The Justice Minister rejected Ben-Gurion's renewed motion to open an in-court investigation, but recommended that a full official investigation be conducted. This recommendation was rejected by Eshkol. After Eshkol met with vehement rejection from Ben-Gurion's supporters in the Central Committee of the Mapai, he submitted his resignation and called for the formation of a new government that should have the right to decide the matter without partisan interference. In December 1964, Eshkol formed a new government, and in 1965 Ben-Gurion left Mapai with seven of his supporters and formed their own parliamentary group called Rafi .

epilogue

After the Six Day War , Israel could have demanded the release of those agents who were still in Egyptian captivity. However, no such request was made and it was not until 1968 that the remaining prisoners were released.

In 2005, three survivors of the action in Egypt were publicly honored by President Moshe Katzav in a ceremony in Jerusalem .

literature

  • Encyclopaedia Judaica . Second edition. 2007, Vol. 12, pp. 533-534.
  • Shabtai Teveth: Ben-Gurion's Spy: The Story of the Political Scandal that Shaped Modern Israel . Columbia University Press, New York 1996, ISBN 0-231-10464-2 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Shabtai Teveth: Ben-Gurion's spy: the story of the political scandal that shaped modern Israel , p. 81. Quotation: “To undermine Western confidence in the existing [Egyptian] regime by generating public insecurity and actions to bring about arrests, demonstrations , and acts of revenge, while totally concealing the Israeli factor. The team was accordingly urged to avoid detection, so that suspicion would fall on the Muslim Brotherhood, the Communists, 'unspecified malcontents' or 'local nationalists'. "
  2. ↑ a b Into the desert . In: Der Spiegel . No. 28 , 1965 ( online ).
  3. ↑ Ben-Gurion resents the politicians DIE ZEIT, 13/1961.
  4. ↑ The third man . In: Der Spiegel . No. 15 , 1972 ( online ).
  5. ^ Israel honors 9 Egyptian spies . Jedi'ot Acharonot , March 30, 2005.