BEN-GURION | autograph letter signed, to Mr Haft, 1964

BEN-GURION, DAVID

AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED, TO MR HAFT OF THE DEGANIA KIBBUTZ

DIRECTLY ADDRESSING ONE OF THE MOST CONTENTIOUS ISSUES IN THE INFAMOUS LAVON AFFAIR, the forgery of letters by Military Intelligence Chief Binyamin Gibli purporting to show that defence minister Pinhas Lavon had authorised "Operation Susannah", pointing out that although he, Ben-Gurion, now accepted that Gibli had forged letters, both the Foreign Affairs Committee and a police investigation had previously found the disputed letters to be authentic, in Hebrew, 2 pages, text on rectos only, lined paper, 8vo, Sde Boker Kibbutz, 1 May 1964

A LETTER POINTING OUT ONE OF THE MANY COMPLEXITIES SURROUNDING ONE OF THE MOST FAR-REACHING SCANDALS OF ISRAEL'S FORMATIVE YEARS. "Operation Susannah" was scandalous from its inception. In the summer of 1954, a team working for Israeli Military Intelligence undertook a "false flag" bombing campaign against civilian Western targets in Egypt (a library, a post office, a theatre), which were to appear to be the work of the Muslim Brotherhood. The hope was to undermine Western confidence in the Egyptian regime and bolster Britain's attempts to retain military control of the Suez Canal zone. However, the true nature of the campaign was soon exposed and the operatives arrested - the Israeli agent overseeing the operation was, in fact, an Egyptian double agent. Within Israel, where the operation soon became known euphemistically as the "Unfortunate Affair", a massive and long-lasting scandal ensued, the aftermath of which was still being felt ten years later, when this letter was written. This letter indirectly addresses one of the deepest questions: who had authorised the illegal operation?

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