Lavon Affair
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The Lavon Affair
refers to a failed Israeli
covert operation,
code named Operation Susannah, conducted in Egypt in the Summer of
1954. As part of the false flag
operation,[1] a group of Egyptian Jews were
recruited by Israeli military
intelligence for plans to plant bombs inside Egyptian, American and British-owned targets. The
attacks were to be blamed on the Muslim Brotherhood,
Egyptian Communists,
"unspecified malcontents" or "local nationalists" with the
aim of creating a climate of sufficient violence and instability to induce the
British government to retain its occupying troops in Egypt's Suez Canal zone.[2] The operation caused no casualties, except for those members of the
cell who committed suicide after being captured.
The operation became
known as the Lavon Affair after the Israeli defense minister Pinhas Lavon, who was
forced to resign because of the incident, or euphemistically as the Unfortunate
Affair or The Bad Business (Hebrew: העסק ביש, HaEsek Bish
or העסק הביש, HaEsek HaBish). After being denied for 51 years, the surviving
agents were in 2005 officially honored with a certificate of appreciation by
the Israeli President Moshe Katzav.[3]
Operation
Susannah
Aim
In the early 1950s, the
United States initiated a
more activist policy of support for Egyptian nationalism; this was often in
contrast with British
policies of maintaining its regional hegemony. Israel feared that this policy,
which encouraged Britain to withdraw its military forces from the Suez Canal,
would embolden Egyptian
President Nasser's
military ambitions towards Israel. Israel first sought to influence this policy
through diplomatic means but was frustrated.[4]
In the summer of 1954
Colonel Binyamin Gibli,
the chief of Israel's military intelligence, Aman,
initiated Operation Susannah in order to reverse that decision. The goal
of the Operation was to carry out bombings and other acts of espionage in Egypt
with the aim of creating an atmosphere in which the British and American
opponents of British withdrawal from Egypt would be able to gain the upper hand
and block the British withdrawal from Egypt.
According to historian Shabtai Teveth, who wrote
one of the more detailed accounts, the assignment was "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]
[edit]
The
secret cell
The top-secret cell, Unit 131[5], which was to carry out the operation, had existed since 1948 and under
Aman since 1950. At the time of Operation Susannah, Unit 131 was the subject of
a bitter dispute between Aman
(military intelligence) and Mossad
(national intelligence agency) over who should control it.
Unit 131 operatives had
been recruited several years before, when the Israeli intelligence officer
Avram Dar arrived in Cairo
undercover as a British citizen of Gibraltar called John Darling. He had
recruited several Egyptian Jews who had previously been active in illegal
emigration activities and trained them for covert operations.
[edit]
Operation
commenced
Aman decided to
activate the network in the Spring of 1954. On July 2, the cell firebombed a post office in Alexandria,[6] and on July 14, it bombed the libraries of the U.S. Information
Agency in Alexandria
and Cairo and a British-owned
theater. The homemade bombs, consisting of bags containing acid placed over nitroglycerine, were
inserted into books, and placed on the shelves of the libraries just before
closing time. Several hours later, as the acid ate through the bags, the bombs
would explode. They did little damage to the targets and caused no injuries or
deaths.
Before the group began
the operation, Israeli agent Avri Elad
(Avraham Zeidenberg) was sent to oversee the operations. Elad assumed the
identity of Paul Frank, a former SS officer with Nazi underground
connections. Avri Elad allegedly informed the Egyptians, resulting in the Egyptian
Intelligence Service following a suspect to his target, the Rio
Theatre, where a fire engine was standing by. Egyptian authorities arrested
this suspect, Philip Natanson, when his bomb accidentally ignited prematurely
in his pocket. Having searched his apartment, they found incriminating evidence
and names of accomplices to the operation.
Several suspects were
arrested, including Egyptian Jews and undercover Israelis. Colonel Dar and Elad
had managed to escape. Two suspects, Yosef Carmon and Hungarian-born Israeli Meir Max Bineth committed
suicide in prison.
[edit]
Trials and
jail
The Egyptian trial
began on December 11 and lasted until January 27, 1955; two of the accused (Moshe Marzouk and Shmuel
Azar) were condemned to execution by hanging, two were acquitted, and the rest
receiving lengthy prison terms.
The trial was
criticised in Israel as a show trial,
although strict Israeli military censorship of the press, at the time, meant
that the Israeli public was kept in the dark about the facts of the case and,
in fact, were led to believe that the defendants were innocent.[7] There were allegations that evidence had been extracted by torture.[8]
After serving seven
year jail sentences, two of the imprisoned operatives, Meir Meyuhas and Meir
Za'afran, were released in 1962. The rest were eventually freed in February
1968, in a secret addendum to a prisoner of war exchange.
Soon after the affair,
Mossad chief Isser Harel
expressed suspicion to Aman concerning the integrity of Avri Elad. Despite his
concerns, Aman continued using Elad for intelligence operations until 1956,
when he was caught trying to sell Israeli documents to the Egyptians. Elad was
tried in Israel and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. In 1980, Harel publicly
revealed evidence that Elad had been turned by the Egyptians even before
Operation Susannah.
[edit]
Political
aftermath
[edit]
Denial
and first inquiry
In meetings with prime
minister Moshe Sharett,
minister of defense Pinhas Lavon denied any knowledge of the operation. When
intelligence chief Gibli contradicted Lavon, Sharrett commissioned a board of
inquiry consisting of Israeli Supreme
Court Justice Isaac Olshan
and the first chief of staff of the Israel Defense
Forces, Yaakov Dori
that was unable to find conclusive evidence that Lavon had authorized the
operation. Lavon tried to fix the blame on Shimon Peres, who was the
secretary general of the defense ministry, and Gibli for insubordination and criminal negligence.
Sharett resolved the
dilemma by siding with Peres, who along with Moshe Dayan testified
against Lavon, after which Lavon resigned, 17 February 1955. Former prime minister David Ben-Gurion succeeded
Lavon as minister of defense. A short time later, Sharett, who did not know
about the operation in advance, and who had strongly denied Israel's
involvement, resigned as Prime Minister and was replaced by Ben-Gurion.
[edit]
Subsequent
revelations and inquiries
In April 1960, a review
of minutes from the inquiry found inconsistencies and possibly a fraudulent
document in Gibli's original testimony that seemed to support Lavon's account
of events. During this time, it also came to light that Elad (the Israeli agent
running Operation Susannah in Egypt), had committed perjury during the original
inquiry. Elad was also suspected of betraying the group to Egyptian authorities;
though the charges were never proven, he was eventually sentenced to a jail
term of 10 years. Ben-Gurion scheduled closed hearings with a new board of
inquiry chaired by Haim Cohn,
a supreme court justice.
This inquiry found that
the perjury indeed had been committed, and that Lavon had not authorized the
operation. Sharett and Levi Eshkol
tried to issue a statement that would placate both Lavon and those who had
opposed him. Ben-Gurion refused to accept the compromise and viewed it as a
divisive play within the Mapai
party.
Another investigative
committee took up the matter and sided with the Cohn inquiry. Ben-Gurion then
resigned from his post as defense minister. This led to the expulsion of Lavon
from the Histadrut
labor union and an early
call for new elections which changed the political structure in Israel. The
specifics of Operation Susannah were kept secret from the Israeli public at the
time of the political upheaval.
[edit]
Public
debate
Due to Israel's strict Military
Censorship the details of the affair could not be openly discussed
in the media. Despite this, debate did occur but with the use of code words
such as the "Senior Officer", to refer to Gibli, and the
"unfortunate business" to refer to the Egyptian operation.[9]
[edit]
Legacy
Operation Susannah and
the Lavon Affair turned out to be disastrous for Israel in several ways:
▪ Israel lost significant standing and credibility in
its relations with the United Kingdom
and the United States that would take years to repair. (The encyclopedia of the
Arab-Israeli conflict: a political, social, and military history. ABC-CLIO,
2008. p. 610)
▪ The political aftermath caused considerable political
turmoil in Israel that affected the influence of its government. (Beinin, Joel.
The dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: culture, politics, and the formation of a
modern diaspora, AUC Press. 2005. p. 111)
In March 2005, Israel
publicly honored the surviving operatives, and President Moshe Katsav presented
each with a certificate of appreciation for their efforts on behalf of the state,
ending decades of official denial by Israel.[10]
[edit]
References
1. ^ Global terrorism
James M. Lutz, Brenda J. Lutz 2004 ISBN
0-415-70051-5 pp46,Retrieved 7 June 2011
2. ^ a b S. Teveth, Ben-Gurion's
spy: the story of the political scandal that shaped modern Israel. Columbia
University Press, 1996, ISBN
978-0-231-10464-7, p.81.
4. ^ Hahn, Peter L (2004). United States, Great
Britain, and Egypt, 1945-1956: Strategy and Diplomacy. UNC Press.
p. 187. ISBN 978-0-8078-1942-5.
"In late 1954, the Anglo-Egyptian base agreement and American plans to
promote a Northern tier security arrangement generated tension between Israel
and Egypt. Israeli officials feared that British troop withdrawal from the
Canal zone ... would encourage Egyptian aggressiveness toward Israel and remove
Western leverage to modify Egyptian behavior on issues such as Suez Canal
restrictions"
5. ^ Lappin, Yaakov (08/20/2008). "Binyamin
Gibli, Lavon Affair figure, dies at 89". Jerusalem Post.
Retrieved May 25, 2012.
6. ^ Black, Ian;
Morris, Benny (1 June
1992). Israel's secret
wars: a history of Israel's intelligence services. Grove Press.
p. 111. ISBN 978-0-8021-3286-4.
Retrieved 19 June 2011.
7. ^ Shlaim, Avi (2000). The Iron Wall. Penguin
Books. pp. 117–119. ISBN 978-0-14-028870-4.
"Sharett knew that a death sentence would have a disastrous effect at home
because the Israeli public had been led to believe that the defendants were
innocent"
9. ^ e.g. Teveth, Shabtai (1974) Moshe Dayan. The
soldier, the man, the legend. Quartet Books. ISBN
0-7043-1080-5. Pages 265,266. Still used twenty years later.
10.
^ "After half
a century of reticence and recrimination, Israel ... honored ...
agents-provocateur." Reuters, 30th March 2005. Accessed 2nd July 2007.
[edit]
Further
reading
▪ Aviezer Golan, Ninio Marcelle, Victor Levy, Robert
Dassa and Philip Natanson (As told to Aviezer Golan) (Translated from Hebrew by
Petretz Kidron) (Fwd by Golda Meir):
Operation Susannah, Harper & Row, NYC, 1978 ISBN
978-0-06-011555-5
▪ Joel Beinin: Nazis and Spies
The Discourse of Operation Susannah, ch 4 in The Dispersion Of Egyptian Jewry
Culture, Politics, And The Formation Of A Modern Diaspora
Berkeley: University of California Press, c1998. Amer Univ in Cairo Pr, 2005, ISBN
978-977-424-890-0
▪ Joel Beinin: Egyptian Jewish
Identities. Communitarianisms, nationalisms, nostalgias Stanford
Humanities Review, 1996
▪ Ostrovsky, Victor; Hoy, Claire (1991). By way of deception. St.
Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-92614-4.
[edit]
External
links
▪ The Lavon Affair by David Hirst, Excerpts from his book: The Gun and
the Olive Branch, 1977, 1984, Futura Publications
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavon_Affair
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