Knesset Defeats Three Non-confidence Motions over the Government’s Handling of the Pollard Affair

The Knesset Tuesday easily defeated three non-confidence motions over the government’s handling of the Jonathan Pollard affair. Only one coalition member, Mordechai Virshubsky of the Shinui Party, crossed lines to vote with the opposition.

The three most senior members of the Cabinet, Premier Yitzhak Shamir, Vice Premier and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin demonstratively absented themselves from the Knesset session. They seemed to be underscoring their determination to prevent renewed furor over Pollard to mushroom into a full-fledged judicial inquiry.

In their absence, Likud Transportation Minister Haim Corfu spoke for the government. In a prepared statement he reiterated the government’s position that Pollard’s espionage mission was a rogue operation of which the government had been unaware, that lessons were learned from it and drastic measures taken to prevent its recurrence.

Pollard, a former civilian intelligence analyst employed by the U.S. Navy, was sentenced to life imprisonment in Washington last week for spying for Israel. His wife, Anne Henderson-Pollard received a five-year sentence as an accessory. The severity of Pollard’s sentence seemed to underscore American displeasure with Israel, although the U.S. officially accepted the “rogue operation” explanation.

This triggered demands by several Ministers, Knesset members and the media for a full-scale inquiry. The non-confidence motions were introduced by the Citizens Rights Movement (CRM), Mapam and the Progressive List for Peace. CRM MK Yossi Sarid introduced a motion to establish a judicial commission of inquiry.

But informed political observers saw little chance that this would come about despite support from many political figures, including coalition members.

KNESSET UNIT PROBE TO BEGIN THURSDAY

Instead, the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee’s special subcommittee on intelligence will begin a probe of its own on Thursday, Committee chairman Abba Eban announced Monday. Eban said the first to testify will be Defense Minister Rabin. The hearings will be held in camera. Shamir announced Sunday that the Inner Cabinet (five Labor and five Likud Ministers) would convene in closed session Wednesday to consider the issue in depth. But there was no suggestion of any investigation although at least one member of the Inner Cabinet, Ezer Weizman, forcefully favors one.

Shamir, meanwhile, sought to distance Israel from Pollard. Speaking to reporters during a visit to Migdal Ha’emek Tuesday, he said that the Pollard family’s predicament “may be a humanitarian problem or a moral problem but it is not a problem with which the State of Israel has to concern itself.”

He added that “The State of Israel has no connection with Pollard or his family. The State of Israel did not hire him and did not assign him espionage missions.”