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NEXT STORY

The spy cell is exposed

RELATED STORIES

The Lavon Affair - idiotic from beginning to end
Uri Avnery Social activist
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 אי-אפשר להפסיק בלי לדבר על פרשת לבון. בן גוריון פרש בשנת 1953, בשיא שלטונו, לשדה בוקר עם פולחן שלם. עם צריף בשדה בוקר. אף אחד לא לגמרי הבין מדוע הוא עשה את זה. עד היום זה לא כל כך ברור, אבל השאיר אחריו שדה מוקשים: מינה לשר הבטחון את פנחס לבון, שהיה ההיפך המוחלט ממערכת הבטחון, היה שייך לאגף השמאלי של מפא"י, אנטי-מיליטריסט עד אז שהפך בן-לילה למיליטריסט משוגע. מינה לרמטכ"ל את משה דיין, ששנא את לבון, ולסגן שר הבטחון את שמעון פרס, ששנא את שניהם. והצמרת הזאת, שכל השלושה שנאו אחד את השני, אבל שלושתם שנאו עוד יותר את ראש הממשלה משה שרת. באותה תקופה היה תא ריגול במצרים, שהוקם על ידי איש מודיעין ישראלי מיהודים מצריים צעירים, שזאת הייתה שערורייה בפני עצמה. אתה למעשה סיכנת את כל יהודי מצרים על ידי כך שאתה מקים תא ריגול ישראלי מתוך בני המקום. אבל זה שכב בשקט. תא ריגול. ואז, ב-1954 הייתה התקרבות בין גמאל עבד אל נאסר והאמריקאים. עבד אל נאסר כאמור, בהתחלה מאוד לא היה ברור מה הוא בדיוק. אני חושב שגם לו עצמו לא היה ברור. הוא גישש. היה קצין צבא, פתאום הוא שליט של מדינה? הוא גישש. גם בעניין ישראל, גם בעניין המערב-מזרח והכל. הוא מצא חן בעיניי האמריקאים והתחיל איזשהו פלירט ביניהם וזה מאוד-מאוד הדאיג את בן גוריון ואנשיו, ואת שרת. בניגוד לאגדה, בין בן גוריון ושרת לא היו חילוקי-דעות אמיתיים לעומק. שרת פשוט ידע ערבית והיה יותר מושרש במציאות הערבית מאשר בן גוריון. ואז למישהו, לא ברור לי מי בדיוק, היה רעיון גאוני: יש לנו אנשים במצרים, מחתרת ישראלית, בואו נגיד לה להניח פצצות בכל מיני מוסדות אמריקאים ואנגליים בקהיר ונטען שזה מחתרת מצרית אנטי-אמריקאית ואז האמריקאים יתרגזו והקשר בין אמריקה ונאסר יתרופף. רעיון די אידיוטי.‏

It is impossible to stop without talking about the Lavon Affair. Ben-Gurion retired in 1953 to Sdeh Boker at the height of his rule with a great fanfare to a hut at Sdeh Boker. No one quite understood why he did it. To this day it is not very clear, but he left behind a minefield: he had appointed Pinhas Lavon to be Minister of Defence, who was the opposite of what a Minister of Defence should be. He belonged to the left wing of Mapai, an anti-militarist until then who became a crazy militarist overnight. He appointed as Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan who hated Lavon, and as Deputy Minister of Defence, Shimon Peres who hated them both. And this leadership, all three of them hated each other, but all three of them hated the Prime Minister Moshe Sharett more.

At that time there was a spy cell in Egypt of young Egyptian Jews set up by an Israeli intelligence agent, which was a scandal in itself. You were actually putting all of the Jews in Egypt at risk by setting up an Israeli spy cell composed of locals. But it was quiet, the spy cell. Then, in 1954 there was a rapprochement between Gamal Abdel Nasser and the Americans. Abdel Nasser, as I said, at the beginning it was very unclear what exactly he was. I think that he himself was not sure. He was feeling his way. He had been a military officer and suddenly he was the ruler of a country? He was groping. Also with regard to the matter of Israel, including the West-East and everything. The Americans liked him and started a sort of flirtation with him, and it really worried Ben-Gurion and his people and Sharett. Contrary to legend, Ben-Gurion and Sharett had no real deep disagreements. Sharett knew Arabic and was more rooted in the Arabic reality than Ben-Gurion. Then someone, I'm not sure who exactly, had a stroke of genius: we have people in Egypt, an Israeli resistance force, let's just say they place bombs in various American and English institutions in Cairo and we claim that it was the Egyptian anti-American resistance force. Then the Americans will get annoyed and the relationship between America and Nasser would weaken. A rather idiotic idea.

Uri Avnery (1923-2018) was an Israeli writer, journalist and founder of the Gush Shalom peace movement. As a teenager, he joined the Zionist paramilitary group, Irgun. Later, Avnery was elected to the Knesset from 1965 to 1974 and from 1979 to 1981. He was also the editor-in-chief of the weekly news magazine, 'HaOlam HaZeh' from 1950 until it closed in 1993. He famously crossed the lines during the Siege of Beirut to meet Yasser Arafat on 3 July 1982, the first time the Palestinian leader ever met with an Israeli. Avnery was the author of several books about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including '1948: A Soldier's Tale, the Bloody Road to Jerusalem' (2008); 'Israel's Vicious Circle' (2008); and 'My Friend, the Enemy' (1986).

Listeners: Anat Saragusti

Anat Saragusti is a film-maker, book editor and a freelance journalist and writer. She was a senior staff member at the weekly news magazine Ha'olam Hazeh, where she was prominent in covering major events in Israel. Uri Avnery was the publisher and chief editor of the Magazine, and Saragusti worked closely with him for over a decade. With the closing of Ha'olam Hazeh in 1993, Anat Saragusti joined the group that established TV Channel 2 News Company and was appointed as its reporter in Gaza. She later became the chief editor of the evening news bulletin. Concurrently, she studied law and gained a Master's degree from Tel Aviv University.

Tags: Egypt, Pinhas Lavon, David Ben-Gurion, Moshe Sharett, Gamal Adbel Nasser

Duration: 4 minutes, 13 seconds

Date story recorded: October 2015

Date story went live: 10 March 2017