Manbar: victim of Israeli-Iranian covert relations
Israel, Politics, 7/16/1998

Nahum Manbar may have trespassed the norms of Israel's secret relations and arms deals with Iran but he is not a traitor according to the Tel Aviv court which sentenced him to 16 years imprisonment on Thursday said.

Manbar apparently managed a one-man show in his relations with Iran, but facts suggest he was mainly a middleman between Israeli military and security industrialists and Iranian officials.

His trial, which followed his arrest on March 27, 1997 upon direct orders from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, turned out to be an attempt by the current right-wing Likud government to put to trial the whole system of its predecessors, the Labor governments of Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. They both were in office in the peak of Manbar's deals with Iran and both in one way or another stood behind those deals.

The sentence issued Thursday against Manbar was tough yet relatively lenient if compared to the prices paid by other Israelis who were involved in secret Israeli - Iranian ties. Amram Nir, the ex-journalist and paratrooper who later became Shimon Peres's advisor on counter-terrorism in 1984, was killed in a mysterious plane crash in Mexico during the peak of heated discussions in the US on the Iran-gate, or the Contra-gate scandal that occupied all US officials and kept their nerves strained. According to the official version it was an accident, with Nir reportedly in Mexico on "avocado business." The unofficial version is that more than $700,000 was found in a suitcase beside Nir's body at the crash site, and that the CIA sabotaged the aircraft, a Cessna T210.

Immediately after the court issued its sentence, Manbar's wife, Francine, told Israel radio from her home in Switzerland that her husband was the scapegoat for the Israeli government's ties with Iran. "We all know that Israel was not selling humus or bread to Iran in those years. We all know the details of the Iran-gate scandal," she said.

There is much truth in her statement. Israel, and mainly Prime Minister Netanyahu, utilized every effort to deny Manbar a fair trial. Defense witnesses could not show up because the cause was declared classified. Neither could officials in the Israel military industry who worked closely with Manbar in those days. They all were deterred by a decision singed by Netanyahu himself classifying every security-related aspect of the case.

Netanyahu, judging from the way he acted and reacted in the Manbar affair, was obviously after the head of the Labor Party. He wanted to incriminate the whole system that existed when both Rabin and Peres were in power. He even hinted in statements published by the Israeli press on Thursday that both Rabin and Peres had obstructed legal proceedings against Manbar, an allegation he immediately distanced himself from in a telephone call with Shimon Peres who angrily called him in the morning to ask where he "brought these evil accusations from."

Legal sources that worked under both Rabin and Peres said there wasn't enough material against Manbar to bring him to trial because one of the key figures involved in his deals, a Polish businessman, refused to come to Israel and testify. Only after Netanyahu assumed power did this businessman agree to testify, the sources said.

Israeli - Iranian secret contacts had in fact started shortly after the Iranian revolution took over in Iran in 1979. In the early 80s, those contacts were made available through US channels. Later on down the line, the US became closer to Iran, covertly though, in an attempt to solve the question of hostages who were being kidnapped in Lebanon. What started as an effort to secure the release of western hostages in Lebanon ended up in the format of a covert arms deal through which Iran would receive US- and Israeli-made weapons in return for money sent to support opponents of the left-wing Sandinista regime in Nicaragua, the Contras.

In 1985, Amal Shiite movement hijacked a TWA flight to Beirut and declared all passengers hostages. The hostages were released only after Israel agreed to release a number of Shiites whom the Israeli occupying forces had arrested earlier in south Lebanon. After the release of the jet hostages, more westerners were kidnapped and the number of western hostages in Lebanon increased. The US made every effort to locate the hideouts of the kidnappers but to no avail. In his book "By Way of Deception" ex-Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky wrote that the Mossad knew where those hostages were kept but decided not to help their US counterparts despite direct and clear orders to this effect from Shimon Peres.

It was at a later stage when a new idea was contemplated. Ironically, it came from Israel. The then director general of the Foreign Ministry, David Kimche, formerly senior Mossad officer, suggested to US special envoy to the Middle East Robert McFarlane to sell weapons to the Iranians, noting that they had special interest in TOW anti-tank missiles. In his testimony before the board of inquiry headed by Senator John Tower, McFarlane said Kimche had raised the idea with him in July and early August 1985.

The deals entered their phases of implementation and a number of Israeli businessmen were involved. Of those were former military attache to Iran during the Shah's regime, Yaccov Nimrodi, and founder of Israeli Aircraft Industry Al Schwimmer, who was a regular donor to the Labor party elections campaign. In their book "Dangerous Liaison- The Inside Story of the US-Israeli Covert Relationship" Andrew and Leslie Cockburn write that the Mossad and military intelligence in Israel had set up a joint working group to deal with Iran in 1980.

"In the normal course of events this group and their parent agencies would have had to have been consulted on something as important as the shipments of hawk and Tow missiles to Iran. Yet the documentary record of the various investigations into the sales indicates that Peres and Kimche, who was the director general of the private arms dealers involved in the transactions, managed to steer clear of the professionals while embarking on what was definitely a covert operation. One possible reason for their doing so was that the Mossad and Military Intelligence were refusing to allow the new prime minister and his party to become involved in the Iran arms business," they wrote.

The week Nir was killed, US Colonel Oliver North was standing trial on charges of conspiring to defraud the US government, of lying to Congress and obstructing congressional inquiries. Nir, who was slated to testify, might have told the court details of a confidential Israeli-American secret agreement authorizing joint operations. North lost his job and was prosecuted. Nir disappeared.

Now, it seems Manbar's turn has come. He is to serve 16 years in prison, unless if his defense attorney Amnon Zichroni manages to announce that his conviction was mistrial and demand a rehearsal of the whole legal proceedings. Unlike in Nir's case, the Labor Party at present could not stand by Manbar. Their act was as if they decided to throw his flesh to wild dogs. When Nir was killed, former defense minister Yitzhak Rabin gave his eulogy at the Tel Aviv Kiryat Shaul graveyard. Rabin spoke of Nir's "mission as yet unrevealed destinations on secret assignments, and to secrets which he kept locked in the heart."

Previous Stories:
  Who is who in the Strassnov scandal   (7/15/1998)
  Report: Secret Israeli plan to withdraw from south Lebanon   (7/15/1998)
  Manbar, sex and Netanyahu   (7/14/1998)

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