Deeper and Deeper

The finger of political responsibility in Israel’s Shin Bet scandal now points directly at Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who was prime minister in 1984 when the domestic intelligence service killed two captive Palestinian terrorists and then launched the process of covering up the crime. Legal papers filed before Israel’s supreme court reveal that Avraham Shalom, the former head of Shin Bet, claims to have taken illicit actions with the “permission” of higher political authority. The head of the security service reports only to the prime minister. Shalom has thus implicitly accused Shamir of knowledge and approval of his misdeeds.

Israel’s political future may well turn on this accusation and on other evidence indicating that Shamir and, later, Prime Minister Shimon Peres knew of attempts to hide the truth about the killings. Under the agreement that formed the present coalition government, Shamir is scheduled to replace Peres as prime minister in October. The government this week easily survived no-confidence motions in the Knesset prompted by the Shin Bet case. But now the high court has before it challenges to the executive clemency granted Shalom, even though he has been convicted of nothing. And demands for a full judicial inquiry continue to be made.

Shamir, who has never denied possible complicity in the affair, accuses his accusers of simply trying to break up the coalition government before he has the chance to reclaim its leadership. Peres, who may have learned about but then ignored the cover-up after he became prime minister, says that he won’t fight further investigation but worries about the effects on Shin Bet’s vital counterterrorism activities. Shamir is not wholly wrong; there are many who do not want him or any other member of his right-wing Likud Party installed as prime minister. Neither is Peres wholly wrong; exposure of all the facts could compromise certain security efforts.

Balanced against and greatly overweighing these consideration, however, is the central issue of whether the rule of law is to be upheld with the full support of Israel’s political leadership. The law forbids the killing of unarmed prisoners, and two unarmed prisoners were deliberately killed. The law forbids lying under oath and suborning witnesses, and it is clear that lies were told and witnesses suborned. The evidence is compelling that this assault on legal processes involved one or more high political officials. Now a smelly deal has been cut to try to protect those officials. The test for Israel is whether political expediency or justice will prevail.