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Last update - 08:35 11/11/2009
MI figures out what went wrong in Lavon affair - 55 years later
By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent
Tags: Suez Canal 

Fifty-five years after the notorious failure of an Israeli sabotage operation in Egypt, Military Intelligence has finally gotten around to figuring out what went wrong. The answer? Pretty much everything.

An educational presentation about the 1954 Lavon affair prepared by the MI history and heritage division found that MI had not sufficiently trained the members of the sabotage unit, who were mostly amateurs and included several Egyptian Jews, and had failed to give them cover stories, plan escape routes or otherwise plan for the possibility that they would be caught.

"First and foremost, this is the story of the failure of Military Intelligence, starting with the choice of targets for the network's sabotage operations, the operational planning and the superficial and sloppy training, and ending with the method of execution, which totally failed to carry out the pointless mission, which had no chance of reaching the strategic goal its operators had set: the cancellation of the planned British evacuation of the Suez Canal," stated the MI analysis.
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The Lavon affair - also known locally as esek habish, "the rotten business" - was a plan to discredit Egypt's government, then headed by Gamal Abdel Nasser, by bombing theaters, post offices and U.S. and British institutions, and making it seem as though Egypt was behind the bombings. The thinking in Israel at the time was that if the British were to give up control of the Suez Canal, it would be left in Egypt's hands, putting Cairo in a better position to exert pressure on Israel.

The agents were told "to undermine the West's trust in the [Egyptian] government by causing public insecurity" while concealing Israel's role in the sabotage.

However, the agents were caught. One committed suicide in prison, two were hanged and four got long prison terms.

Only in 1968 were the prisoners exchanged for Egyptian POWs - a time lag the MI analysis attributes to internal bickering and a preoccupation with assigning blame.

"The intelligence community heads' evasion of responsibility for the operation, like the internal preoccupation with the question of who among the leaders of the political establishment gave the order, led to the fact that over many years, no effort was made to get the 'rotten affair' prisoners released," the analysis found.

Code-named Operation Susannah, the incident led to the dismissal of Binyamin Gibli, the MI chief at the time, and the resignations of then-defense minister Pinhas Lavon and ultimately, the prime minister, David Ben-Gurion. In the years after the incident came to light, public debate centered around the question of who gave the order for the operation to go forward.

The educational presentation, which met with harsh criticism when it was distributed to the MI units in September, states that although at least six external committees investigated the incident, the mistakes had never before been investigated and analyzed within MI, the institution responsible for the operation.

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      1.   Terrorism against 3 nations : ok, we want the Moslem Brotherhood 05:27  |  Dekel 11/11/09
      2.   a question 06:08  |  dave 11/11/09
      3.   And dont forget the USS LIberty 06:46  |  Don Boston 11/11/09
      4.   Ahhhhhhhh told you so 07:58  |  Good Guy 11/11/09
      5.   Hmmm, 13 more years to find out about the Liberty? 08:12  |  duvidl 11/11/09
      6.   Their release due to Meir Amit 08:23  |  Gil 11/11/09
      7.   #2M DAVE, seriously! 09:39  |  VIPER 11/11/09
      8.   Yet.. Israel calims all the time terrorism started by arabs 09:49  |  Hassam 11/11/09
      9.   Did Israel dupe Bush into invading Iraq? 10:13  |  Michael 11/11/09
      10.   #8 Hassam ---- A history lesson 10:17  |  Gilad 11/11/09
      11.   Gilad 10.The Irgun invented ME terrorism 10:46  |  Michael 11/11/09
      12.   Jewish terrorism 10:59  |  Mitch Katz 11/11/09
      13.   Ben Gurion was the prime minister 11:07  |  Yom Tov 11/11/09
      14.   # 10. Your story had no truth in it 12:31  |  MD 11/11/09
      15.   #11, #14 ---- what if I am right? 13:26  |  Gilad 11/11/09
      16.   Michael of course Israel duped Bush into invading Iraq! 13:48  |  Daniel 11/11/09
      17.   So if terrorism is the MO of Israel? 14:08  |  Apa 11/11/09
      18.   Islamic oppression of Jews, cause of terror 14:09  |  eddie 11/11/09
      19.   #11 --- further to your comment 14:29  |  Gilad 11/11/09
      20.   Michael in the UK 14:39  |  rich 11/11/09
      21.   Daniel 16. No. Bush duped Blair into invading Iraq. 14:39  |  Michael 11/11/09
      22.   to gilad 14:40  |  MD 11/11/09
      23.   So much unsaid 15:30  |  charles 11/11/09
      24.   Israel did not urge the US to attack Iraq 15:47  |  Elmer 11/11/09
      25.   Nuri Otman and Seidenberg 15:49  |  charles 11/11/09
      26.   nothing happened 15:54  |  Israel Freeman 11/11/09
      27.   Bombings of theaters... 16:00  |  Mikesailor 11/11/09
      28.   #17 MD 16:48  |  Gilad 11/11/09
      29.   To GILAD (and II) 17:14  |  Sergio 11/11/09
      30.   Elmer 22 Where`s the proof? 17:22  |  Michael 11/11/09
      31.   Congratulations! 17:26  |  Mark Lincoln 11/11/09
      32.   Rich 18. Are you denying it or not? 17:26  |  Michael 11/11/09
      33.   #23: time to reconsider the disinformation? 18:49  |  duvidl 11/11/09
      34.   To Gilad 18:51  |  fred shapiro 11/11/09
      35.   #27 Makesailor - you`re right; Zionist view of world distorted 20:28  |  Don Boston 11/11/09
      36.   this subversive misdirecting of blame is in the mossad inventory 08:38  |  eric 12/11/09
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