Members of the Cabinet voiced regret today over the publication of excerpts in serial form of a new book, “The Lavon Affair,” written by a journalist, Haggai Eshed, on instructions of former Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion.
While parts of the book were cleared by the Israeli military censors, the Defens Ministry recently issued a warning against the publication of the book since it was commissioned while Mr. Ben-Gurion was Defense Minister and was considered Government property. Mr. Ben-Gurion, however, did not need the warning.
Premier Eshkol brought the matter before the Cabinet after Herut and the Liberals submitted urgent motions to the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, demanding a debate on the matter. The left-wing Mapam party also submitted to the Premier a Parliamentary question asking why, if the Cabinet had agreed that publication would be harmful and that the content was Defense Ministry property, the Government had not acted to prevent publication.
Today the Parliament rejected the motions for debate on publication of the excerpt and voted to remove the topic from its agenda. Justice Minister Dov Joseph said the Government regretted the publication. He added that “since the occurrence of the events in 1954,” a reference to the security disaster of that year for which Ben-Gurion forced Lavon’s ouster as Defense Minister, “suitable steps have been taken to make a recurrence of such events impossible.”
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