An opposition member accused the government today of concealing the full Koppel Committee report on the Munich tragedy from the Knesset and demanded the resignation of ministers responsible for security lapses. Haim Landau of Gahal, made his charge in the course of a three-hour debate that followed Premier Golda Meir’s speech at the opening of the Knesset’s winter session which was devoted mainly to the events in Munich and the Koppel report.
The government’s response to the Koppel report was defended by Haim Zadok, chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, who is a member of the Labor Alignment. He and his committee got all the information that was given to the Cabinet. Landau charged that only the findings and recommendations of the Koppel Committee, not the testimony and evidence it gathered, were made available to the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee which has always been entrusted with State secrets.
Landau claimed that the only possible reason for concealing the bulk of the report was that the government had something to hide or that the evidence pointed to responsibility higher up than the Koppel Committee dared acknowledge. Even the findings of the Committee showed faults, he said, adding that in a democracy the parliamentary responsibility for faults falls on the ministers and, therefore, the responsible ministers should resign.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
