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Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists http://bos.sagepub.com/ The Lavon Affair: How a false-flag operation led to war and the Israeli bomb Leonard Weiss Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 2013 69: 58 DOI: 10.1177/0096340213493259 The online version of this article can be found at: http://bos.sagepub.com/content/69/4/58 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com On behalf of: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Additional services and information for Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists can be found at: Email Alerts: http://bos.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://bos.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav >> Version of Record - Jul 1, 2013 What is This? Downloaded from bos.sagepub.com at Stanford University Libraries on July 29, 2013 Bulletin IT IS 5 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT of the Atomic Scientists ® Feature Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 69(4) 58–68 ! The Author(s) 2013 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav The Lavon Affair: How a DOI: 10.1177/0096340213493259 false-flag operation led to http://thebulletin.sagepub.com war and the Israeli bomb Leonard Weiss Abstract The Lavon Affair, a failed Israeli covert operation directed against Egypt in 1954, triggered a chain of events that have had profound consequences for power relationships in the Middle East; the affairÕs effects still reverberate today. Those events included a public trial and conviction of eight Egyptian Jews who carried out the covert operation, two of whom were subsequently executed; a retaliatory military incursion by Israel into Gaza that killed 39 Egyptians; a subsequent Egyptian”Soviet arms deal that angered American and British leaders, who then withdrew previously pledged support for the building of the Aswan Dam; the announced nationalization of the Suez Canal by Nasser in retaliation for the withdrawn support; and the subsequent failed invasion of Egypt by Israel, France, and Britain in an attempt to topple Nasser. In the wake of that failed invasion, France expanded and accelerated its ongoing nuclear cooperation with Israel, which eventually enabled the Jewish state to build nuclear weapons. Keywords Egypt, France, Israel, Lavon Affair, nuclear, sabotage, Suez crisis n 1954, Israeli Military Intelligence Western governments that NasserÕs (often known by its Hebrew abbrevi- regime was unstable and, therefore, I ation AMAN) activated a sleeper cell unworthy of financial and other support. that had been tasked with setting off a The operation started with the bomb- series of bombs in Egypt. In this risky ing of the Alexandria post office and, operation, a small number of Egyptian within a matter of weeks, six other build- Jews were to bomb Western and Egyp- ings in Alexandria and Cairo also were tian institutions in Egypt, hoping the targeted. But the Egyptian government attacks could be blamed on Egyptian was apparently told about the next opponents of the countryÕs leader, bombing target, and the bomber was Gamal Abdel Nasser, including mem- arrested. Eventually, Egyptian security bers of the Muslim Brotherhood or the rolled up the entire Israeli cell. Communist Party. The ensuing chaos, it The failed operation became a scandal apparently was hoped, would persuade and blame for the ill-conceived attempt Downloaded from bos.sagepub.com at Stanford University Libraries on July 29, 2013 Weiss 59 is still not officially settled. During the time, was significantly disadvantaged 1954”55 trial of the bombers, however, in regard to nuclear technology develop- Pinhas Lavon, IsraelÕs minister of ment at the end of the war (Goldschmidt, defense, was painted as having approved 1982). However, the US Atomic Energy the sabotage campaign and LavonÕs poli- Commission and its nuclear labs at Los tical enemies at home echoed the charge Alamos, Livermore, and Oak Ridge pro- in early inquiries into the matter. Subse- vided a model that was followed by quent Israeli investigations suggest that other countries with nuclear ambitions, Lavon was framed, to divert attention including France, which created the from other Israeli leaders, but the inci- Commissariat ˆ lÕnergie atomique in dent has retained the name given at the 1945 and, subsequently, the nuclear time: the Lavon Affair. research centers at Chatillon in 1946 This ill-conceived false-flag operation and Saclay in 1952. Meanwhile, IsraelÕs failed, embarrassingly, to accomplish its first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, goal of undermining Nasser. Although influenced by his science advisor Ernst usually ignored or portrayed as an intra- David Bergmann, decided to launch a mural political fight among high-level nuclear technology development pro- Israeli politicians, the Lavon Affair also gram within the Ministry of Defense. played a major role in setting in motion a Bergmann was a scientist with an inter- chain of events that led to IsraelÕs acqui- national reputation in chemistry and sition of nuclear weapons, via scientific professional connections in many coun- and military cooperation with France. tries, including France. These connec- Narratives of the affairÑincluding this tions enabled Israel to send some of its oneÑare hampered by Israeli govern- budding nuclear physicists for training ment secrecy and the failure thus far of at Saclay (Cohen, 1998). Thus, the foun- those who organized and ordered its dation for a future French”Israeli nu- execution to reveal publicly their inner- clear connection was laid. most thinking about it. But regardless of While Israel was pleased to obtain the details of how the Lavon Affair came advanced scientific training in France, about, the affair triggered events that its main concern in the near term was accelerated the Israeli bomb program. conventional military assistance, another Even absent the Lavon Affair, Israel area that the Israelis thought was ripe for would almost certainly have obtained cooperation between the two countries. the bomb. But the path to it would have Mohammad Naguib and Gamal Abdel been longer and more difficult, with an Nasser had shared power after the 1952 unpredictable impact on the power overthrow of the Egyptian monarchy, a dynamics of the entire Middle East. development that gave both the Israelis and the French cause for concern. The Israeli”French connection Nasser became EgyptÕs sole leader in 1954 after a failed assassination attempt France, partly because it was excluded against him by a member of the Muslim from cooperating with the United Brotherhood. The failure, witnessed by a States on the development of the bomb large crowd that had gathered to hear during and after World War II, as well as Nasser speak, made him a hero (Rogan, its parlous financial condition at the 2009). He used his new, elevated status Downloaded from bos.sagepub.com at Stanford University Libraries on July 29, 2013 60 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 69(4) to order one of the largest crackdowns in being at odds with the French and British EgyptÕs history, which resulted in the over the Suez Canal, which they con- arrest of 20,000 people (mostly Brother- trolled via their majority position in the hood members and communists) (Aburish, Suez Canal Authority, Nasser provided 2004). Then-President Naguib was re- assistance to Algerian rebels fighting for moved from office and placed under independence from France. The Israelis, house arrest, with Nasser assuming the who armed and trained militias in the title of president. Jewish-Algerian communities to help NasserÕs ambition was to lead a pan- protect them from Islamist rebels, Arab movement that would finally aided France in the Algerian fight. Some- expel Western colonial powers from times, Jewish-Algerian reservists in the the Middle East and eliminate the state French army even commanded those of Israel. He encouraged terrorist attacks militias, and the Israelis provided intel- on the British military base in the Suez ligence to the French, cracking the codes Canal Zone, putting economic pressure for Algerian underground messages on the British to leave at the expiration broadcast from Cairo (Karpin, 2006). of the 20-year agreement of 1936 that pro- Although there were disagreements vided for the British Suez base. However, within the Israeli leadership on how to BritainÕs troubles with Nasser did not handle Nasser, Ben-Gurion and his resonate with the United States, whose Army chief of staff, Moshe Dayan, were secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, convinced that another war with Egypt was more concerned with possible So- was both likely and better triggered viet encroachment in the Middle East sooner than later. Thus, Israel was des- than with the protection of BritainÕs colo- perate to obtain arms in preparation for nial position. The United States saw what it viewed as the inevitable and saw Nasser, an opponent of the Egyptian France as having a common interest with Communist Party, as a possible bulwark Israel in getting rid of Nasser. againstSovietexpansionismintheregion. The task of forging Israeli”French Its other troubles with Nasser not- military cooperation via an arms deal withstanding, Britain shared the goal of was given to then-Director General of trying to keep Nasser from falling under the Ministry of Defense Shimon Peres, Soviet influence and joined with the who was spectacularly successful, thanks United States in providing aid to Egypt. to Abel Thomas and Louis Mangin, the In particular, the two countries agreed to chief assistants to French Minister of provide substantial direct financial sup- Interior Maurice Bourgs-Maunoury port ($68 million) for the building of the (Pan, 1982). Thomas, though not Jewish, high dam at Aswan, which Nasser was a passionate supporter of Israel, believed would be seen as one of his partly because of what he viewed as his most significant accomplishments as brotherÕs shared history with victims of president of Egypt. The United States the Holocaust (Karpin, 2006). (His also promised to support a $200 million brother, an underground fighter, was mur- loan from the World Bank for the Aswan dered by the Nazis at Buchenwald.) Dam (Boyle, 2005).
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