Summary
The 1984-1986 crisis over the Shin Bet’s illegal execution of two captured Palestinian bus hijackers and its cover-up, which Zionist Israel and the Question of Palestine uses to show the conflicting priorities of security and the rule of law in the “Israeli order”: in contrast to the Lavon Affair, the focus was not the ruling party but the quarrel between the executive and the judicial power, in which “law fought against politics” (PDF p.87).
Details
- On April 12, 1984 four Palestinian teenagers from the Gaza Strip hijacked a bus on the 300-line from Tel Aviv to Ashkelon; stopped at Deir al-Balah, two were shot in the rescue operation and the other two were executed illegally on the orders of Shin Bet chief Avraham Shalom after a brief interrogation by Brigadier General Yitzhak Mordechai, in the presence of the press (PDF p.88).
- The Zorea commission found the two died of skull fractures by unidentified security-force members; the Blatman investigation, appointed June 4, 1984, ended with Mordechai framed, then acquitted on August 18, 1985 after a seven-minute hearing and promoted to major general (PDF p.88-89).
- Deputy Reuven Hazak, Rafi Malka and Peleg Radai, having discovered Shalom acted on his own initiative, demanded his resignation on October 14, 1985; Prime Minister Shimon Peres read Hazak’s move as a “coup attempt”, told him “I will believe the leader”, and sent him on educational leave (PDF p.89-90).
- Attorney General Yitzhak Zamir demanded the dismissal of the four involved in the cover-up; Peres refused, argued before the Knesset on June 30, 1986 that “fighting terrorism is essentially impossible without secrecy”, and Zamir was ousted on June 1, 1986 after filing a suit with the police (PDF p.91-95).
- President Chaim Herzog pardoned the four suspects on June 25, 1986 — Moshe Negbi’s “a rebellion against the constitutional state and the rule of law” — but a police investigation followed, all four resigned by the end of 1986, and Attorney General Josef Harish closed the case at the end of December 1986 with no doubt the hijackers were killed on Shalom’s orders, Yitzhak Shamir held responsible neither for the killing nor the cover-up (PDF p.95-96).
Related pages
Shin Bet, Avraham Shalom, Yitzhak Zamir, Shimon Peres, Lavon Affair