Newspaper Page Text
Southemi 1
Israelite
The Weekly Newspaper For Southern Jewry
'Since 1925'
Vol. LXII
Atlanta, Georgia, Friday, July 18, 1986
No. 29
Police probe probable
into Shin Bet scanda.
Yaacov Ben Yosef
had been taken alive in the wake of
an April 1984 bus hijacking in the
Gaza Strip.
Apparently worried that any in
quiry would probe the political
level, Shamir cannot be pleased at
the prospect that a police inquiry
will now take place for that too
may touch on the political side.
Previously, several Cabinet min
isters had threatened to resign if a
probe were not set up into the Shin
Bet Affair, among them Commun
ications Minister Amnon Rubin
stein and Minister Without Portfo
lio Ezer Weizman. It now appears
there will not be any resignations
despite the vote since there will be a
police inquiry.
Given the likelihood of a police
inquiry, the feeling among politi
cians after the Cabinet vote was
that the rotation, scheduled for
Oct. 25, was now likely to go
through smoothly. On that date
Prime Minister Shimon Peres and
Shamir will switch jobs.
If Harish had decided against a
probe, it is likely the crisis would
have continued, leaving rotation in
doubt inasmuch as one possibility
might have been the fall of the
Peres government, thus nullifying
rotation and requiring perhaps new
elections.
For Prime Minister Peres, the
Sunday Cabinet vote is a mixed
blessing. At first he had opposed
an inquiry on the same grounds as
Shamir: that it would harm the
inner workings of the Shin Bet
whose secrets might now be dis
closed in such a probe. But Peres
later changed his mind to favor a
probe.
He will get a probe despite the
Cabinet vote but undoubtedly he
would have preferred the Cabinet
to have been the sponsor of the
inquiry. So the vote represents
something of a setback for him
personally: he was not able to
obtain a majority of the 25-man
Cabinet for a judicial inquiry.
The government had been given
until this week by the Israel
Supreme Court to explain why it
should not set up an inquiry into
the Shin Bet Affair. Harish will
respond to the court and declare
that he will ask for a police probe.
That will apparently satisfy the
court.
Whether it calms the scandal is
uncertain.
Meanwhile, other scandals rose
in the past week to embarrass
Israel, the latest one involving alle
gations in Washington that Israel
had smuggled industrial equipment
from the United States to htr/p in
the building of cluster bombs.
During the Lebanon War in 1982,
President Jimmy Carter ordered a
ban on the sale of cluster bombs to
Israel after reports that Israel had
been using them against populated
areas in the war.
Cluster bombs are dropped from
a plane and when they explode, on
the ground or just above it, dis
perse hundreds of lethal bomblets,
similar to hand-grenades, over a
wide area.
The latest claims last week were
sharply denied by Israel’s Ministry
of Defense. Defense Minister
Yitzhak Rabin indicated that Israel
had indeed purchased industrial
equipment to be used in the manu
facture of cluster bombs (which
Israel now makes herself) but that
the purchase was completely legal,
and not prohibited in the presiden
tial ban of 1982.
Political officials here were
deeply worried that, in the wake of
the Jonathan Pollard espionage
case, some American officials in
the Justice Department, the FBI,
and the Pentagon might have de
cided to “get” Israel—and these
allegations are the result.
Apart from scandals, Israel had
to deal last week with a new wave
of terror. Four armed guerrillas
tried to mount a terrorist attack
against the Mediterranean seashore
town of Nahariya in northern Israel.
They came by rubber dinghy
from Lebanon but before they
reached the Israeli shore they were
detected by the Israeli Navy and
forced ashore inside southern
See Scandal, page 28.
Biblical inspiration
Yaakov Heller, American-born Israeli sculptor, puts the finish
ing touches on his interpretation of Samson bringing down the
Philistine temple. Heller has gained an international reputation
with his depictions in silver and gold of biblical characters and
scenes. Although his vivid imagination has created animals and
figures of all description, his main source of creative inspiration
remains the Bible.
by Yaacov Ben Yosef
Special to The Southern Israelite
JERUSALEM—The Israeli
Cabinet, hoping to put a quiet end
to the Shin Bet Affair, voted Sun
day against the establishment of a
judicial inquiry to look into the
two-month old scandal.
But the 14-11 vote, taken after
a day-long Cabinet debate, will al
most certainly not end the affair.
Attorney General Yosef Harish de
clared after the vote that he would
press for a police inquiry.
Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir
and his Likud colleagues had hoped
to avoid any inquiry into the affair
which related to accusations that
Avraham Shalom, head of the Shin
Bet, Israel’s General Security Ser
vice, ordered the killing of two
Palestinian Arab guerillas after they
Shultz scolds journalists
about terrorism coverage
by Joseph Polakoff
TSI's Washington correspondent
WASHINGTON—Secretary of
State George Shultz, the world’s
foremost advocate against state-
supported terrorism, carried his
campaign directly to foreign cor
respondents based in Washington,
advising them that terrorists are
“beasts” and not “freedom fight
ers” and the problem of countering
them involves all nations, not
America and Israel alone.
Against the advice of his own
public affairs specialists who cau
tioned against invoking the news
media into suppression of terror
ism, Shultz said, “just as a private
citizen,” that “the free press” has
“an obligation” to report and ana
lyze terrorist acts but it also has
responsibility not to help terrorists
through publicity “that makes it
more difficult to execute” moves
against them.
“People get fascinated by terror
ists and they do all kinds of things
to get interviews with them,” Shultz
said. “In the process of doing that
they have to be careful that they
don’t encourage terrorism by mak
ing the act of terrorism a means for
publicizing whatever it is some
body wants to publicize." He
pointed out “we have to be careful
that we don’t make it impossible”
for governmental action against
terrorists “by reporting so fully
senting 320 news organizations in
65 countries. It operates similar
centers in New York and Washing
ton.
Noting the legal system dealing
with terrorism “is processing al
though it has its distinct limita
tions,” Shultz informed the cor
respondents that “it is clear in our
country and in other countries that
the terrorist murder of a U.S. citi
zen or citizen of another country in
a third country can be a crime in
our country.”
Sweeping away some concepts of
terrorism, Shultz said, “First of all,
sometimes people get the idea that
this is somehow an American prob
lem or an Israeli problem. Just to
look at the statistics shows how
wrong that is.” In 1985, he observed,
some 800 international attacks took
place in 90 countries. Of 877 men,
women and children who were
killed last year, 28 were American
and the same number were Israeli.
“While the problem hits us, mostly
it hits others and very little of it
takes place in the U.S.," he said,
adding, “so it is an international
problem. We all have it.”
Saying “many of the victims are
Arabs,” Shultz said terrorists from
Libya and elsewhere seek to intim
idate and disrupt “moderate Arab
governments.” He noted “Tunisia,
Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait have all felt
See Shultz, page 28.
George Shultz
exactly what the government is
doing.”
Shultz spoke at a seminar ar
ranged by the U.S. Information
Agency at the State Department
for 30 invited correspondents from
18 countries stationed in Washing
ton. The all-day seminar was ad
dressed by 14 U.S. and media offi
cials, including Lawrence Gross-
man, president of N BC News which
was recently involved in contro
versy over its interview with Abu
Abbas, the top PLO figure in the
Achille Lauro case. USIA’s For
eign Press Center in Washington
registers 540 correspondents repre-
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