IMW: Israeli Cabinet was 'duped' over Raviv affair, minister Michael Eytan charges ! by Gideon Alon, Ha'aretz

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As a public service, IMW views the following article from Haaretz 4 October 1998, as in the interest of visitors to our web site.

Cabinet was 'duped' over Raviv affair, minister charges !

By Gideon Alon, Ha'aretz Knesset Correspondent

The state prosecutor and the chief of the Shin Bet internal security service collaborated to keep the truth from the prime minister and the cabinet about the Shin Bet's employment of Avishai Raviv as an informer, Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's Office Michael Eitan has charged in a memorandum.

In a detailed, 16-page paper that was conveyed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday, Eitan demands the establishment of a state commission of inquiry to investigate the suspicion that State Prosecutor Edna Arbel, Shin Bet chief Ami Ayalon and their aides deliberately or negligently misled both the security cabinet and the Shamgar Commission, which probed the circumstances of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, over the Raviv affair.

Raviv, whom press reports had depicted as a rabid right-winger, was revealed as a plant of the Shin Bet after the Rabin murder. Numerous figures on the right have claimed that Raviv should be tried for incitement or at least for failing to prevent a crime - like Margalit Har-Shefi, a friend of assassin Yigal Amir. Har-Shefi was sentenced to eight months in prison for the same offense last week.

Eitan is demanding that an investigation be made of the motivations and considerations according to which the judicial and security authorities gave the go-ahead for Raviv's activity and for various payments and benefits he received.

Eitan also wants to know why Raviv was employed as an "agent provocateur" and why he has not been tried for a host of crimes besides incitement and failing to prevent a crime, such as perjury, assault, instigating Jews and Arabs and disrupting public order. According to Eitan, Raviv committed these acts contrary to the orders of his Shin Bet handlers, who warned him that he would not be granted immunity for them.

Eitan's memorandum contains quotations from the minutes of a security cabinet meeting that was convened in October 1997 at his request to discuss the Raviv affair. He quotes Arbel as stating on that occasion that "neither the attorney general nor the State Prosecutor's Office are asked or requested to provide approval for the activation of agents. Nor do we monitor the agent in the field. That is intelligence work and certainly the state prosecution has nothing to do with it."

The memorandum states that Arbel's remarks "absolutely conflict with testimonies in my hands to the effect that the State Prosecutor's Office did in fact monitor Raviv's activation in the field and provided up-front approval for actions that could have endangered third parties, and in any event was intended to tarnish the reputation and public standing of innocent persons."

The memorandum reveals that Ayalon told the same meeting that Raviv was questioned by the police after the Rabin assassination, as it was inappropriate for the Shin Bet to investigate one of its own. Ayalon said the police reached the unequivocal conclusion, in part on the basis of a polygraph test, that Raviv did not know about Yigal Amir's intention to shoot Rabin. Eitan, however, charges that this is "inaccurate" and that "the truth is different."

Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein said he has complete faith in Arbel and deplored Eitan's attack on her. "There is not an iota of truth in [Eitan's] allegations," Rubinstein said.

Arbel said that Eitan was "creating an atmosphere of fog." She said that Raviv's file was returned to her office a week ago after the police had completed the additional inquiries they were asked to make.

"We are aware that this is a sensitive, highly charged issue," she said, "but it is our judicial obligation to examine whether there is sufficient evidence to try him.

This issue was largely reported by most of the papers (Ha'aretz, Yediot Hah'aronot, Makor Rishon, Hatsofe), but the readers of Maariv did not read a word about it !

IMW is a registered non-profit organization whose major aim is assuring the ethical and fair conduct of the Israeli media.

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