Burg Wants His Dissent Added to Knesset Report on Pollard

The lone member of the Knesset intelligence subcommittee to dissent from its report criticizing the top political leadership for mishandling the Jonathan Pollard spy case has demanded that his conclusions be appended to the report submitted to the Knesset two weeks ago, Haaretz reported Tuesday.

Yosef Burg, of the National Religious Party, who was abroad during most of the seven-man subcommittee’s deliberations, took issue with the majority view that Foreign Minister Shimon Peres bears most of the blame for the fiasco.

The subcommittee, chaired by Labor MK Abba Eban, singled out Peres because he was Prime Minister at the time Pollard was spying on the U.S. for Israel. Burg insists that ministerial responsibility must be equally divided.

“Whoever thinks differently is transforming (Premier Yitzhak) Shamir into a postal clerk who is not at liberty to change anything in the telegram he dispatches,” Burg was quoted as saying by Haaretz. But he agreed with the subcommittee that the senior political echelons did not exercise adequate supervision and the lower echelons did not report properly.

Meanwhile, the management of Israel’s educational television is reported to be ready to cancel this week’s Bible commentary program which contains an allegorical reference to the government’s responsibility in the Pollard affair.

The commentary was taped several days ago by Prof. Yeshayahu Liebowitz, an Orthodox Jewish philosopher with liberal views on polities and ethics. He claims that Moses was buried in the wilderness not because he sinned but because the nation had sinned. Moses took ministerial responsibility upon himself “as opposed to today’s stupid and wicked leaders,” Liebowitz said.

Educational television is expected to decide shortly whether the commentary will be aired this Friday.