Israel Struggle At the Top

By Michael S. Serrill

It was one of the ugliest incidents in Israel's decades-long war against terrorism: in 1984, two Palestinians captured by Israeli forces after they had hijacked a bus died in custody, under circumstances that have yet to be explained. Last week those deaths had embroiled the Jerusalem government in an increasingly bitter controversy that included charges of a cover-up. The struggle involved a test of wills between Labor Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Attorney General Yitzhak Zamir, who wants an investigation of the chief of Shin Bet, the Hebrew acronym for Israel's general security service, which is primarily responsible for domestic antiterrorism operations.

In a rare show of unity, Peres and Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who heads the conservative Likud bloc in the coalition government, joined forces to oppose Zamir. Peres insisted that the "functioning of the Shin Bet would be undermined by the investigation, and sometimes considerations of state security override legal considerations." Shamir put it more bluntly: "The Shin Bet is a jewel in the crown of the state, and we can't murder it." By week's end several Israeli newspapers speculated openly that Shamir himself, who was Prime Minister at the time, may have had knowledge of the killings and the alleged subsequent cover-up. Shamir's ambiguous response: "I don't have to tell anyone what I knew and what I did not know. I knew what a Prime Minister has to know."

Attorney General Zamir became involved when three disaffected senior officials of Shin Bet came to him with evidence that the agency director, Avraham Shalom, whose name first became public last week when it was published abroad, had covered up Shin Bet's involvement in the death of two Palestinians who had commandeered a bus south of Tel Aviv in April 1984. The two terrorists were photographed being led away from the bus alive but later turned up dead, after being severely beaten. Two of their companions were killed in the assault on the bus, along with a female Israeli soldier.

Two commissions of inquiry and one court-martial looked into the beating deaths. However, Israeli security personnel involved were cleared in part because of contradictory testimony from the military and Shin Bet on the question of when and where the two men died. The charges that Zamir might bring against Shalom are said to include tampering with evidence, suborning witnesses before the investigating commissions and withholding relevant documents. The worst allegation against Shalom: that he may have been responsible for covering up Shin Bet's involvement in the killing of the two terrorists.

Attorney General Zamir described the pressure for him to drop his investigation as "intense." Such a bipartisan effort to sidetrack a legal inquiry, which is not subject to Cabinet control, is most unusual; it reflects the government's extreme sensitivity to disclosures about the inner workings of Shin Bet. Nonetheless, support for Zamir and due process of law mounted steadily. Asked former Foreign Minister Abba Eban: "Should law bow before power? Should it abdicate?" Warned the Jerusalem Post: "The foundations of the rule of law in Israel may be in grave jeopardy."

As public pressure on Peres and Shamir continued, various compromise proposals were considered by both parties. Among them: the appointment of a judicial commission to examine the charges behind closed doors. Meanwhile, Shalom reportedly denied issuing any improper orders and called the charges part of a "mutiny" by his lieutenants to oust him from his post.

With reporting by Roland Flamini/Jerusalem