Eban Questions Israeli Account of Pollard Affair

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said Thursday that the Jonathan Jay Pollard spy affair was a “regrettable mistake” that he hoped would never happen again.

But Abba Eban, a senior member of the Israeli Parliament from Peres’ own party, publicly questioned both the official government account of the incident and whether Israel’s leaders had really learned a lesson from it.

Both politicians were replying to reporters’ questions a day after Pollard, a former U.S. Navy intelligence analyst, was sentenced by a federal judge in Washington to life imprisonment for passing military secrets to Israel.

‘Difficult Moment’

Eban, who has served as Israel’s ambassador to both Washington and the United Nations and also as its foreign minister, called the Pollard affair “the most difficult moment in the history of Israel’s international relations.”

In an interview on Israel radio, Eban said the incident stemmed from the “negligence of senior figures who evinced an alarming lack of responsibility and harmed Israel’s most essential interest.”

In challenging the official contention that Pollard was part of a “rogue” spying operation unknown to the top leadership, Eban asked: “How is it possible that a most ramified activity is conducted within a ministry and it is claimed that ‘we saw nothing, knew nothing and heard nothing?’ ”

The espionage agency that Pollard served, known by its Hebrew acronym as Lekem, reported to Israel’s Defense Ministry, which is headed now--and was led during most of the time that Pollard spied for Israel--by Yitzhak Rabin. Rabin, Peres and Eban all belong to the Labor Alignment political party and have at various times been rivals for its leadership.

Spy Figures Promoted

When asked if he thought Israeli leaders had drawn “conclusions” from the Pollard affair, Eban told the Israel radio interviewer: “I don’t believe so.” He pointed to the case of former Lekem head Rafi Eitan, who was appointed director of the giant Israel Chemicals concern after the Pollard spy affair became public, and to Col. Aviem (Avi) Sella, the air force officer who allegedly recruited Pollard and who last week was given a prestigious new command.

U.S. officials have criticized those appointments as undermining Israel’s contention that the spying operation was unauthorized. They are particularly angry about Sella’s promotion, which occurred just four days before he was indicted in Washington for conspiracy in the Pollard case. Sella has refused to give evidence in the affair on terms acceptable to American investigators.

“There is hardly a stage in the handling of this issue where there hasn’t been a hitch,” Eban concluded. “I do not feel that there is a tendency (among Israel’s leaders) to engage in moral stock-taking.”

In the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, Eban is chairman of both the Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee and of its intelligence subcommittee. Subcommittee sources told The Times on Wednesday that the panel is expected to reopen an investigation into the Pollard affair within days.

‘Regrettable Mistake’

Later Thursday, Peres rejected any interpretation that Israel had been, in effect, in the dock beside Pollard. “A man was sentenced, not a people,” he told reporters. “Even before the trial, Israel saw the whole affair as a regrettable mistake, and I hope it won’t happen again.”

Peres took issue also with a statement attributed in news reports to U.S. Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger that an Israeli military advantage increased the danger of confrontation in the Middle East.