ISRAEL'S SPIES : WHO CONTROLS THEM?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302120022-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 21, 2012
• Sequence Number: 22
• Publication Date: June 6, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/09/21: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302120022-3
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NEW YORK TIMES
6 June 1986
Israel's Spies: Who Controls Them?
By THOMAS I.. FRIEDMAN
Special to The New York Theis
JERUSALEM, June 5? The guilty
plea entered Wednesday by a United
States Navy analyst to charges of
spying for Israel, coupled with the lat-
est domestic intelligence scandal in-
side Israel, has raised some questions
among Israeli officials
and political specialists
about who is in control of
Israel's intelligence serv-
ices.
The specialists say it is
difficult to decide which is worse: to
believe the Israeli Government's ex-
planations that what took place in both
the American and Israeli spy scandals
was done without the knowledge of the
political echelon, or not to believe the
explanations and to assume that in both
cases the politicians have not been to-
tally candid about their involvement.
"There is no doubt that there is a
very basic problem here of control of
the intelligence services," said Nahum
Barnea, editor of Koteret Rasheet, Is-
rael's leading political weekly.
Israeli officials had little reaction to-
day to the guilty plea entered by the
Navy intelligence analyst, Jonathan
Jay Pollard, to a charge of selling clas-
sified documents to Israel. Mr., Pol-
lard's wife, Anne Henderson Pollard,
pleaded guilty to two lesser offenses.
Four Israelis, including an Air Force
officer, were named as coconspirators
but were not indicted.
Justice Department Criticized
News
Analysis
Israeli officials said nothing . dis-
closed in court Wednesday contra-
dicted their statement, made after Mr.
Pollard was arrested last November,
that the Pollard affair involved an "un-
authorized" operation mounted by a
small group of intelligence officials.
A senior Israeli official said Israel
believed that elements in the United
States Justice Department "are trying
to blow the whole business out of pro-
portion."
"We cooperated fully with the Amer-
ican investigators in this matter and
have nothing more to say," he added.
After an internal "investigation"
mounted by Prime Minister Shimon
Peres, Foreign Minister Yitzhak
Shamir and Defense Minister Yitzhak
Rabin, Israeli officials said last
November that the Pollard espionage
ring was a "rogue" operation run by
Rafi Mimi, without the knowledge or
approval of his superiors.
An Adviser on Terrorism
Mr. Eitan, a former chief of opera-
tions of the Mossad, Israel's foreign in-
telligence service, had served as an ad-
viser on terrorism to Prime Minister
Menachem Begin and to Mr. Shamir
when he was Prime Minister. Mr.
Eitan was also appointed in 1981 as the
head of the 'Bureau of Scientific Af-
fairs, a small intelligence unit charged
with gathering scientific information.
Israeli and American officials say it
is not inconceivable that Mr. Eitan,
who had a substantial budget and a
reputation for independence, could
have engaged in an unauthorized
operation.
However, evidence produced in
Wednesday's indictment suggests
otherwise. The fact that Mr. Eitan was
able to use an Israeli Air Force colonel,
Aviam Sella, in his espionage operation
in the United States suggests that the
operation may not have been limited to
Mr. Eitan's intelligence operation.
The Israeli Air Force is probably the
most tightly controlled bureacracy in
Israel. While it is not inconceivable
that Colonel Sella was enlisted by Mr.
Eitan without telling his superiors,
political specialists here said, it does
not seem likely.
Denials by Defense Chiefs
Both Moshe Arens, who was Defense
Minister when Mr. Pollard was recruit-
ed, and Mr. Rabin denied knowing that
a senior air force pilot was being used
in an unauthorized espionage opera-
tion, which would mean a serious
breach in controls.
Moreover, since returning from his
period of study in the United States,
Colonel Sella was promoted to briga-
dier general and put in charge of one of
the largest air force bases in Israel.
The idea that the Israeli Air Force
would hand over such responsibility to
a man who was involved for more than
a year in a puportedly unauthorized es-
pionage operation strains believability,
Israeli analysts said.
Also, although the Israeli Govern-
ment dismissed Mr. Eitan and broke
up his agency after the Pollard affair
was exposed, it later gave Mr. Eitan
the job of chairman of the board of Is-
rael Chemicals, the nation's largest
state-owned industrial organization.
How could Israel reward a spy who
had, in the Government's own words,
violated the basic rules of Israeli intel-
ligence gathering?
Israeli Official Replaced
Officials here ascribe it to the fact
that Mr. Eitan had some powerful sup-
porters in the Israeli Cabinet, particu-
larly Ariel Sharon, the Minister of In-
dustry and Commerce, and the fact
that Mr. Eitan had been a "loyal and
courageous" intelligence officer for
many years and no one wanted to
"throw him to the dogs."
Mr. Pollard's guilty plea followed
closely on the heels of the disclosure in
Israel that its former Attorney Gen-
eral, Yitzhak Zamir, had amassed evi-
dence suggesting that Avraham
Shalom, the head of Israel's domestic
intelligence service, the Shin Beth,
might have ordered the killing of two
captured Palestinians bus hijackers in.
April 1984 and then covered up the mur-
ders before two different Government
commissions of inquiry. Mr. Zamir,
who went against the Israeli Cabinet's
wishes in ordering a criminal investi-
gation of Mr. Shalom, was replaced
last Sunday by Yosef Harish.
Like the Pollard affair, the Shin Beth
case raises questions about the politi-
cians' judgement and control over the
intelligence community. Israeli press
reports say that while Mr. Shamir gave
some kind of approval to the Shin Beth
leadership to cover up their alleged in-
volvement in the murder of the bus hi-
jackers, Mr. Arens, the Defense Minis-
ter at the time, did not know anything
about it. Mr. Shamir has denied any
wrongdoing in the case.
Mr. Peres, who replaced Mr. Shamir
as Prime Minister in September 1984,
apparently found out about the pur-
ported cover-up last November, when
three Shin Beth officials went to him
with the story. Mr. Peres chose not to
inform Mr. Zamir, the former Attorney
General, but sided instead with Mr.
Shalom because he apparently be-
lieved the three underlings were trying
to mount what was in effect a coup
against the Shin Beth chief.
''Shamir is in the mess up to his
neck," said Mr. Barnes, the Koteret
Rasheet editor. "Peres is only into it up
to his knees."
Mr. Peres's ability to restrain the
Shin Beth now that the affair has been
exposed has come into question. Ac-
cording to political sources, the top 9 or
10 officials in the Shin Beth have noti-
fied the Prime Minister that if he goes
ahead with an investigation of their or-
ganization they will resign, leaving it
without leadership and leaving Mr.
Peres open to charges of having
stripped Israel of its main shield
against terrorism.
A Narrow Security Margin
Every democratic government has
found it difficult at times to control its
intelligence services. But Israel seems
to have suffered this problem more
than most, particularly recently.
"One reason," said Shlomo Avineri,
a political theorist at Hebrew Universi-
ty, "is that because the security mar-
gin here is so narrow it sometimes
pushes Israel, more than other demo-
cratic societies, into hard choices."
Moreover, Mr. Avineri said, Israel
has a tradition of individualism and in-
dependence of action in military mat-
ters. "When. it goes right you have na-
tional heroes," he said. "When it goes
wrong, you have catastrophes."
Israeli political specialists also note
that Israel has been plagued by weak
governments over the last few years.
"The kind of governments we have
had in the past few years do not
produce a unity of command," Mr.
Avineri said.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2912/09/21: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302120022-3