Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion led a successful fight in Israel’s Parliament today to defeat bids for an official inquiry into circumstances surrounding the case of Dr. Israel Beer, now serving a prison sentence of 15 years for espionage.
The Prime Minister took the floor twice. He first argued against a Herut proposal for an immediate inquiry into the case, and then opposed a Mapam compromise proposal to refer the Herut motion to committee. The vote was 42 to 40.
Herut leader Menachem Beigin said, in introducing his motion, that the Supreme Court which upheld Beer’s conviction had described him as a person who had the trust of all the Israelis who had military and security secrets. Mr. Beigin said that, when Beer had been warned to desist from contacts with a “certain foreign agent,” he continued to do so.
The Herut leader said it was evident that Beer continued to have the trust and confidence of top Israeli security personnel long after the warning. He said it would be the task of a formal inquiry to investigate what he called “apparently blatant breaches” in Israel’s secret service machinery.
The Prime Minister, speaking in his capacity of Defense Minister, categorically denied that he had frequently consulted with Beer on military matters. He said he could not recall whether he knew Beer during the latter’s activities in the Haganah, the pre-state Jewish defense force. The Prime Minister said he had often met Beer during the Israel War of Liberation in 1948.
The Prime Minister said he had asked Beer to write a chapter on the history of the Battle of Latrun, after Beer was released from the Army and became a member of the General Staff. The late Colonel Mickey Marcus planned and commanded the Battle of Latrun, a salient where heavily armed Jordan Legionnaires commanded the heights overlooking traffic between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, which was then the capital’s lifeline.
Beer, who holds the rank of lieutenant colonel in Israel’s Army, was convicted and sentenced to 10 years. The Supreme Court upheld the conviction last week, and added five years to his sentence.
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