Sella Says He Resigned for the Good of the Country

Col. Aviem Sella, who relinquished command of the Tel Nof airbase — the “dream post” of any Israel Air Force commander — said in his letter of resignation Sunday that he had been “flooded” by appeals from colleagues, superiors and the public not to resign, but for the good of the country could not “comply with these requests.”

The political echelons in Israel reacted with equanimity to his decision. Premier Yitzhak Shamir said that “in light of the circumstances that have arisen, Sella has done what he had to do.” He said the resignation was not unexpected.

Haaretz reported Monday that Sella, under indictment by a federal grand jury in the U.S. for his role in the Jonathan Pollard spy case, had in fact been approached by Air Force colleagues and senior officers of other branches of the Israel Defense Force to quit.

MK Abba Eban, chairman of the Knesset subcommittee currently probing the government’s involvement in the Pollard affair, said that Sella had taken “the honorable course,” by resigning.

Education Minister Yitzhak Navon expressed hope that the resignation would ease tensions between Israel and the U.S. “It was a mistake in the first place to nominate him” to head Tel Nof, “but now he has made a noble gesture, I’m sure from patriotic motives,” Navon, a former President of Israel, said. Sella’s appointment to command Israel’s second largest air base, announced only a few days before Pollard was sentenced to life imprisonment for spying for Israel, infuriated the U.S. The Defense Department announced it would have nothing to do with Sella and would boycott the airbase as long as he was its commander. According to Pollard’s confession, he was recruited by Sella and received his espionage assignments from him.

WON’T SAY IF MORE RESIGNATIONS ARE EXPECTED

Shamir would not say Monday whether he expected more resignations arising from the Pollard case. In addition to Sella, Pollard implicated former Mossad operative Rafael Eitan who was subsequently named chairman of Israel Chemicals, the largest government-owned corporation.

Sella’s resignation was reported immediately to U.S. Ambassador Thomas Pickering in Tel Aviv and to Israel’s Ambassador in Washington, Meir Rosenne. It was submitted to Air Force Commander Gen. Amos Lapidot, and endorsed by IDF Chief of Staff Gen. Moshe Levy before being sent to Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin who accepted it with regret.

Sella stated in his letter that his decision stemmed from “the deterioration in Israel-U.S. relations and my concern for the future of ties between the two countries and for relations with American Jewry…”

But according to Haaretz, Sella stood fast until Sunday against all urgings that he quit. He insisted that he acted in the U.S. at the request of senior political echelons to carry out a mission entrusted to him and therefore saw no reason to pay the price for exposure of the Pollard affair. In various private conversations, Sella intimated that senior political echelons were well aware of his activities, Haaretz said.