Summary
Gideon Hausner, in Lahav’s account: Israel’s attorney general and Eichmann’s prosecutor, who said the Eichmann Trial’s purpose was to establish “the correct historical perspective”, and whose insistence on professional independence as attorney general against Minister of Justice Bernard Joseph’s bid for control produced the 1962 Agranat Commission report on the attorney general’s powers (Judgment in Jerusalem: Chief Justice Simon Agranat and the Zionist Century, lines 1733-2043).
Details
- With Ben-Gurion, Hausner wanted the Eichmann trial to tell two tales — Jewish misery and gentile frigidity — proving that the Enlightenment had failed to resolve the Jewish problem and only a Jewish state could guarantee survival; at the trial he announced that 6 million accusers were standing next to him (Judgment in Jerusalem: Chief Justice Simon Agranat and the Zionist Century, lines 1765-1845).
- Appointed by Pinhas Rosen, Hausner was shunned by his successor Joseph: no longer invited to cabinet meetings, with MAPAI figures reportedly apprehensive of the reputation he had acquired as Eichmann’s successful prosecutor and looking for an opportunity to be rid of him (Judgment in Jerusalem: Chief Justice Simon Agranat and the Zionist Century, lines 1937-2043).
- The commission held the attorney general must exercise his discretion independently and decide disagreements with the minister by his own conscience — though the minister could arrogate the powers, as both Joseph and Hausner endorsed; Hausner resigned within weeks of the report’s adoption (Judgment in Jerusalem: Chief Justice Simon Agranat and the Zionist Century, lines 1996-2043).
Related pages
Judgment in Jerusalem: Chief Justice Simon Agranat and the Zionist Century, Eichmann Trial, Simon Agranat, Pinhas Rosen