She was among the unfortunate group of Bar Ilan law students persecuted by the police. Some were only interrogated, but others were jailed. They were all set up and framed by veteran Shabbak operator, Avishai Raviv. Raviv had been involving himself in various right-wing youth activities for a number of years before Rabin's assassination.
Why is this all suddenly in the news again?
It reminds me of the Rosenberg executions in the states, during the red-witch hunt. I read a book a number of years ago, which proved that Mrs. Rosenberg really had nothing to do with it, but she was charged in order to get her husband to confess. In the end, they were both executed as "spies." Considering their end, should Jay Pollard be happy he has been in jail all these decades? Of course, he was working for an ally, not an enemy. But they're all Jewish....
Back to the subject...
Former chief of intelligence (Shabak) Ami Ayalon, now a Knesset Member, revealed Thursday night that Margalit Har-Shefi did not realize that Yigal Amir intended to assassinate Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin. (full article)
The Har-Shefi family isn't surprised. They always knew that she was innocent. Now, G-d willing she should be able to get on with her life and not be blacklisted. And yes, the government should be sued. Carl, you're a lawyer; why don't you help?
6 comments:
I can't speak knowledgable way on Pollard. There's something unseemly to me about spying for a foreign government. Pollard was an American not an Israeli. That means what he did was treasonous.
As for the Rosenbergs, the KGB files and the secret program (VENONA) the US used - and refused to disclose to FDR, so infiltrated was his inner circle with Communists - showed without question that Julius Rosenberg was a spy. Whether Ethel was completely innocent, or only a peripheral actor, or a guiding force, I don't know. But the Rosenbergs were Communists. They were involved, or Julius was, in trying to get nuclear information to Stalin's government. That did deserve the death penalty.
Their Jewishness may have been a part of it. I can't speak to that. But Pollard's Jewishness seems to have had everything to do with his choice.
What's the answer? As long as Israel's government continues leaning Leftist can it be trusted? They have passed on classified US info to folks inimicable to US interests. As have, probably, the British. My feeling is that when yopu catch a spy you keep him/her locked up. Until the time passes where any information he/she may hold is no longer of use to a foreign power.
That's probably too harsh. *sigh*
For a better idea of the evidence against the Rosenbergs and the VENONA info, you might want to read "The Rosenberg File: Second Edition" by Ronald Radosh.
What about all the other spies, non-Jewish, given such light sentences, even those who spied for the communists during the worst of the cold war?
There should be the same punishment for all.
Batya,
I would love to help, but I'm not the kind of lawyer who goes to court (a litigator), and therefore they can certainly get much better counsel than me. Asking me to represent them is like asking a cardiologist to do brain surgery - I can discuss it intelligently, but you wouldn't want me actually doing the surgery.
Sorry, Carl, if it didn't sound nice. But if you have any ideas to contribute, you probably know lots more than many others, so no harm in letting them know.
Some history:- In 1995, the National Security Agency publicly released documents from the VENONA project, an effort to decrypt intercepted communications between Soviet agents and the NKVD/KGB. A 1944 cable from New York to Moscow clearly indicates that Julius Rosenberg was engaged in espionage for the Soviet Union, though the importance of his effort is not clear, particularly considering that the Soviets were receiving information on the Atomic bomb from Klaus Fuchs, Donald Maclean and Theodore Alvin Hall (another scientist at Los Alamos). Ethel's involvement is not clear from the VENONA transcripts. A document from November 27, 1944 [2] specifically about Ethel lists her as a "fellowcountryman" and claims that she was aware of Julius' work. Ethel was apparently never assigned a code name — the only reference to her states she "does not work."
If I recall, the latest thinking is that Ethel was the main actor in the ring.
"does not work" was very normal for young mothers in those days
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