Lavon Affair
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- For other meanings of "Lavon", see Lavon (disambiguation).
The Lavon Affair refers to the scandal over a failed Israeli false flag covert operation in Egypt known as Operation Suzannah, in which Egyptian, American and British-owned targets in Egypt were bombed in the summer of 1954. It became known as the Lavon Affair after the Israeli defense minister Pinhas Lavon, who was forced to resign because of the incident, or cryptically as The Unfortunate Affair (Hebrew: עסק הביש Esek HaBish).
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[edit] Operation Suzannah
In the early 1950s the United States began pressuring the British to withdraw from the Suez Canal[citation needed], and thereby abandon two operative treaties, the Convention of Constantinople and the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936 that made the canal a neutral zone under British control. Israel was strongly opposed to the British withdrawal, as it feared that it would remove a moderating effect on Nasser's military ambitions, especially toward Israel, but diplomatic methods failed to sway the British. In the summer of 1954 Colonel Binyamin Gibli, the chief of Israel's military intelligence, Aman, initiated Operation Suzannah in order to reverse that decision. The goal of the Operation was to carry out bombings and other acts of sabotage in Egypt with the aim of creating an atmosphere in which the British and American opponents of British withdrawal from Egypt would be able to gain the upper hand and block the withdrawal.[1]
The top-secret cell, Unit 131, which was to carry out the operation, had existed since 1948 and under Aman since 1950. At the time of Operation Suzannah, Unit 131 was the subject of a bitter dispute between Aman and Mossad over who should control it.
Unit 131 operatives had been recruited several years before, when the Israeli intelligence officer Avram Dar arrived in Cairo undercover as a British citizen of Gibralta called John Darling. He had recruited several Egyptian Jews who had previously been active in illegal emigration activities and trained them for covert operations.
Aman decided to activate the network in the spring of 1954. On July 2, a post office in Alexandria was firebombed, and on July 14, the U.S. Information Agency libraries in Alexandria and Cairo, and a British-owned theater were bombed. The homemade bombs, consisting of bags containing acid placed over nitroglycerine, were inserted into books, and placed on the shelves of the libraries just before closing time. Several hours later, as the acid ate through the bags, the bombs would explode. They did little damage to the targets and caused no injuries or deaths.
Before the terrorist cell was activated Israeli agent Avraham Seidenberg (Avri Elad ) was sent to oversee the attacks. Seidenberg assumed the identity of Paul Frank, a former SS officer with Nazi underground connections. Avraham Seidenberg allegedly informed the Egyptians resulting in the Egyptian Intelligence Service following a suspect to his target, the Rio Theatre, where a fire engine was standing by. Egyptian authorities prematurely arrested this suspect, Philip Natanson, when his bomb accidentally ignited prematurely in his pocket. Having searched his apartment, they found incriminating evidence and names of accomplices to the operation. Several suspects were arrested, including Egyptian Jews and undercover Israelis. On July 21 agents still at large attacked four more targets.
Colonel Dar and Seidenberg had managed to escape. One suspect was allegedly tortured to death in prison and Hungarian born Israeli Max Bennett committed suicide. The trial began on December 11 with all arrested pleading guilty and lasted until January 27, 1955, two of the accused (moshe Marzouk and Shmuel Azar) were condemned to execution by hanging and two acquitted with the rest receiving lengthy prison terms. Following the executions Israel went into official mourning. Several streets were named after the men and Israeli delegates to the Egyptian Israeli Armistice Commision refused to attend its meeting. In New York there were bomb threats against the Egyptian consulate and a sniper fired four shots through its windows.
The trial was widely criticized as a show trial, and there were credible allegations that evidence had been extracted by torture. [1]
The imprisoned operatives were eventually freed in 1967, in a secret addendum to a prisoner of war exchange.
Soon after the affair, Mossad chief Isser Harel expressed suspicion to Aman concerning the integrity of Avraham Seidenberg. Despite his concerns, Aman continued using Seidenberg for intelligence operations until 1956, when he was caught trying to sell Israeli documents to the Egyptians. Seidenberg was tried and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. In 1980, Harel publicly revealed evidence that Seidenberg had been turned by the Egyptians even before Operation Suzannah. If true, this would imply that Egyptian Intelligence was aware of the operation from the beginning.
[edit] Political aftermath
In meetings with prime minister Moshe Sharett, secretary of defense Pinhas Lavon denied any knowledge of the operation. When intelligence chief Gibli contradicted Lavon, Sharrett commissioned a board of inquiry consisting of Israeli Supreme Court Justice Isaac Olshan and the first chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, Yaakov Dori that was unable to find conclusive evidence that Lavon had authorized the operation. Lavon tried to fix the blame on Shimon Peres, who was the secretary general of the defense ministry, and Gibli for insubordination and criminal negligence. Sharett resolved the dilemma by siding with Peres, who along with Moshe Dayan testified against Lavon after which he resigned. Former prime minister David Ben-Gurion succeeded Lavon as minister of defense.
In April of 1960, a review of minutes from the inquiry found inconsistencies and possibly a fraudulent document in Gibli's original testimony that seemed to support Lavon's account of events. During this time, it also came to light that Seidenberg (the Israeli agent running Operation Suzannah in Egypt), had committed perjury during the original inquiry. Seidenberg was also suspected of betraying the group to Egyptian authorities; though the charges were never proven, he was eventually sentenced to a jail term of 10 years. Ben-Gurion scheduled closed hearings with a new board of inquiry chaired by Chaim Cohen, a supreme court justice.
This inquiry found that the perjury indeed had been committed, and that Lavon had not authorized the operation. Sharett and Levi Eshkol tried to issue a statement that would placate both Lavon and those who had opposed him. Ben-Gurion refused to accept the compromise and viewed it as a divisive play within the Mapai party. After another investigative committee sided with the Cohen inquiry, Ben-Gurion resigned from his post as defense minister. This led to the expulsion of Lavon from the Histadrut labor union and an early call for new elections which changed the political structure in Israel.
It should be noted that the specifics of Operation Suzannah were not public at the time of the political upheaval.
[edit] Legacy
While Israeli concerns about Nasser's military ambitions turned out to have some merit, Operation Suzannah and the Lavon Affair turned out to be disastrous for Israel in several ways:
- The Egyptian government used the trial as a pretext for a series of efforts to punish Egyptian Jews culminating in 1958 when, following the Suez Crisis, 25,000 Jews were expelled by Egypt and at least 1,000 ended up in prisons and detention camps.
- Israel lost significant standing and credibility in its relations with the United Kingdom and the United States that would take years to repair.
- The tactics of the operation led to deep-seated suspicion of Israeli intelligence methods, such as agents provacateurs and false flag operations.
- The political aftermath caused considerable political turmoil in Israel that affected the influence of its government.
In March 2005, Israel publicly honored the surviving operatives, and President Moshe Katsav presented each with a certificate of appreciation for their efforts on behalf of the state, ending decades of official denial by Israel.[2]
[edit] See also
- History of Israel (under "Lavon affair")
- Moshe Marzouk
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
- Black, Ian (1992): Israel's Secret Wars: A History of Israel's Intelligence Services, Futura, ISBN 0802132863.
- S. Teveth, Ben-Gurion's spy: the story of the political scandal that shaped modern Israel. Columbia University Press, 1996, ISBN 0231104642.
- Ostrovsky, Victor and Hoy, Claire: By Way of Deception. St. Martin's Press, 1991, ISBN 0-312-92614-6.
- ^ According to historian Shabtai Teveth, who wrote one of the more detailed accounts, the assignment was "To undermine Western confidence in the existing [Egyptian] regime by generating public insecurity and actions to bring about arrests, demonstrations, and acts of revenge, while totally concealing the Israeli factor. The team was accordingly urged to avoid detection, so that suspicion would fall on the Muslim Brotherhood, the Communists, 'unspecified malcontents' or 'local nationalists'." (Ben-Gurion's Spy, Columbia University Press, 1996, p. 81)
- ^ "Israel Honors Egyptian Spies 50 Years After Fiasco", Reuters, March 30, 2005.
[edit] Further reading
- Aviezer Golan (Ninio, Marcelle, Victor Levy, Robert Dassa and Philip Natanson (As told to Aviezer Golan) (Translated from Hebrew by Petretz Kidron) (Fwd by Golda Meir): Operation Susannah, Harper & Row, NYC, 1978 ISBN 0-060-11555-6
- Joel Beinin: Nazis and Spies The Discourse of Operation Susannah, ch 4 in The Dispersion Of Egyptian Jewry Culture, Politics, And The Formation Of A Modern Diaspora Berkeley: University of California Press, c1998. Amer Univ in Cairo Pr, 2005, ISBN 9774248902
[edit] External links
- The Lavon Affair - Israel and Terror in Egypt
- About the Lavon affair
- The Lavon Affair by Doron Geller, JUICE, The Jewish Agency for Israel, Education Department
- The Lavon Affair - By David Hirst, Excerpts from his book: The Gun and the Olive Branch, 1977, 1984, Futura Publications
- The Lavon Affair by Doron Geller
- List of books about the Lavon Affair
