Israelis Call for Probe of Pollard Case : But Shamir Deflects Ministers’ Request for Formal Inquiry

Several Israeli Cabinet members called Sunday for a government investigation into the Jonathan Jay Pollard spy affair, but Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir strongly opposed any probe and, with the backing of his principal coalition partners, managed to refer the issue to his “inner cabinet.”

“The painful issue called the Pollard affair is closed as far as Israel is concerned,” Shamir told a group of Florida Jewish leaders Sunday night. He spoke just hours after three ministers submitted a formal question to the government in the case of the former U.S. Navy intelligence analyst sentenced to life imprisonment last week for passing defense secrets to Israel.

Seek to Avert Formal Probe

A handful of other ministers said they agreed that an inquiry into the affair is necessary, but by referring the matter to the so-called inner cabinet of 10 senior ministers, Shamir and others clearly hope to squelch any formal investigation.

Meanwhile, senior government sources reported mounting pressure for the resignation of Col. Aviem (Avi) Sella, an Israeli air force officer implicated in the affair.

Sella’s reassignment late last month to a prestigious new post triggered sharp protests from the United States, which viewed the move as undermining official contentions here that Pollard was involved in a rogue espionage operation that was unauthorized by the political leadership.

However, Shamir was quoted by the Israeli media this morning as telling a group of educators at his home Sunday night that Sella had already been punished enough. He said Sella had been a candidate to become chief of the Israeli air force, but because of the Pollard affair now lost all chance for the post.

Reviewing Options

While it remained uncertain here Sunday whether there would be any formal investigation into the roots of the affair, government officials were reliably reported to be anxiously reviewing options for repairing the damage to Israeli-American relations that it has caused.

Characterizing that damage, a senior Israeli official told one American visitor Sunday that while the ties between the two nations remain strong, the “intimacy” has disappeared.

Because Pollard is Jewish, the case is also seen here as potentially damaging to other American Jews by raising suspicions in the minds of some about “dual loyalty.”

“They cannot leave us in the dark about this--not any more,” Communications Minister Amnon Rubenstein said of the country’s top leaders. “To place, or to agree that an Israeli spy should be placed, in the heart of the defense Establishment of the superpower that is friendly to us and to endanger U.S. Jews--whoever decided on this is deficient in his decision-making ability. And I’m speaking in understatement.”

Rubenstein, who was one of the three ministers who formally introduced the unscheduled debate at Sunday’s regular meeting of the full Israeli Cabinet, said that while security considerations may make it impossible to disclose all the details of the affair, the government must be told who was responsible.

Senior statesman Abba Eban, chairman of the Knesset (Parliament) Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, agreed that the Pollard affair had gone too far to be ignored. Referring to Shamir’s opposition to an official investigation, Eban commented: “It’s quite unrealistic to think you can get away without an inquiry.”

Eban characterized the prime minister as among those people who “have kind of an endemic resistance to any kind of exposure.” He added: “But exposure of difficulties and failures is the very essence of democracy.”

‘Cooperated Fully’

Shamir contended that there is no point in conducting an inquiry because nothing has changed since the affair was originally exposed with Pollard’s arrest in November, 1985. He noted that Israel had admitted its mistake and contended that it “cooperated fully” with U.S. investigators.

American officials were allowed to come here last year to interview four Israelis named as unindicted co-conspirators in the Pollard affair. However, investigators say that the four tried to hide Sella’s role and that subsequent attempts to interrogate him were unsuccessful.

Responding to what it saw as Israeli stonewalling, a federal grand jury in Washington last week indicted Sella for conspiring with Pollard to steal U.S. defense secrets. It was the first time that a high-ranking official of an American ally has been formally accused of espionage against the United States.

The U.S. government has also banned contact by American officials with Sella.

Responding to U.S. news reports that Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin had prevented Sella from giving evidence, the Defense Ministry issued a statement Sunday night saying that Sella had been given the go-ahead to talk with U.S. investigators on condition that he be granted the same immunity from prosecution that the other four Israelis enjoyed. However, according to the statement, “the United States refused.”

sh Photograph Published

The Israeli press this weekend has featured several unusual articles detailing some of Sella’s military exploits and even his photograph. Because of the danger that Israeli pilots might be captured in enemy territory while on a mission, military censorship rules normally ban publication of such material.

A former Israeli military correspondent characterized the coverage as intended to “create sympathy for the man.” A headline in the Hebrew-language Maariv newspaper said: “Col. Sella ‘Spied’ for Americans.” The article noted that he was one of the first pilots ever to shoot down a Soviet MIG-21, in a 1970 dogfight over the Suez Canal and that the “lessons of this battle” were immediately relayed to the United States.

He was also reported to have been the first Western pilot to take aerial photos of Syrian SA-6 missile batteries. The photos enabled a study of the missile’s characteristics, data that was also shared with the United States, according to the Israeli media.

Strong support for Sella among the Israeli military was reportedly one of the reasons senior defense officials approved his reassignment on Feb. 27 to the command of the country’s second largest air base. Top officers reportedly argued that to do otherwise would be like abandoning a wounded comrade.

Nevertheless, some Israeli politicians would clearly like to see Sella resign to pacify the United States.

Emphasis on Public Welfare

“I would not be surprised if even before the (inner) cabinet convenes Wednesday, the colonel will decide to remove himself,” one senior official commented. “If he reads newspapers, he certainly feels the general mood . . . . And I guess he’s smart enough to realize that sometimes the good of the public stands above the individual.”

This official added that, one way or another, Sella’s removal is now seen “in official Jerusalem (as) the least that has to be done right now.”

Others contend that penalizing Sella would only obscure what they see as the more serious problem of a government that, because of the delicate balance of the current coalition, has effectively fallen into the hands of just three men.

The three are Shamir; Shimon Peres, Shamir’s predecessor as head of the national unity coalition who is now foreign minister, and Rabin, who is also a former prime minister.

The three form what Israelis have come to call “the Premiers’ Club” because of the way they are able to make important decisions, particularly on security-related matters, without consulting either Parliament or the rest of the government’s 25 ministers.

Most to Lose

It is also true that in the Pollard affair, Shamir, Peres and Rabin appeared to be the ones with the most to lose from any formal inquiry. Shamir was prime minister when Pollard was recruited into a then-secret Israeli espionage agency known by its Hebrew acronym as LEKEM (Scientific Liaison Bureau).

Peres is said to have been the man who originally formed LEKEM, and he was prime minister for at least half the time Pollard smuggled secret U.S. military documents to Israel.

And Rabin, as defense minister, headed the government department to which LEKEM reported during the same September-November, 1985, period.