“O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum,
How faithful are your leaves!
You’re green not only in summertime,
But also in winter when it snows,
O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum…”
(Old German Christmas song. “Tannenbaum” is the fir tree.)
This is a well-established Israeli ritual: One takes a trivial matter, declares it to be thecenter of national life, decorates it and dances around it, all in order to escape from the realnational problems that are so exasperating and frightening.
This time it really is a fir tree. A gentleman called Elhanan Tannenbaum. He was a prisoner ofHizbullah. In order to bring him back home, together with the bodies of three soldiers, ArielSharon released several hundred “terrorists”. Since then, the whole country has been inuproar, day after day, week after week.
Why did Sharon make the deal? This week the terrible secret has come out: this fir tree is theformer son-in-law of somebody who had some business with Sharon 30 years ago, when an AmericanJewish billionaire helped a poor army officer by the name of Ariel Sharon to acquire thebiggest private farm in the country.
Did Sharon release hundreds of “terrorists” to help a former son-in-law of a former businessassociate? Is this a giant scandal? A most terrible case of corruption?
Even if it were so, I can answer only with two Hebrew words, which translate literally as “thedelight of my grandmother”. Or, in American: “big deal!”
As usual, the media do not pose the right questions, because the right questions might annoysome important people. For example: the security chiefs.
This Tannenbaum is a colonel in the reserves. In this capacity he was party to one of the mostsecret military projects in Israel. According to leaked hints, this project is no less secretthan our nuclear activities (see Mordecai Vanunu, below.)
Now it transpires that Tannenbaum was, in civilian life, a professional crook, compulsivegambler, with an irregular family life, steeped in debt and closely connected with Lebanesedrug dealers. How did such a person become a party to the most top secret project?
Well… Nobody knew what he was doing. Nobody inquired. He did not mention it to the chief ofinternal security of the defense establishment, a certain Yehiel Horev. And if nobody tellsHorev, how is he to know?
When Tannenbaum went to Dubai, and then found himself in Hizbullah-land in Lebanon, thesecurity establishment was shaken to its very foundations. A person who carries with him suchawesome secrets is in the hands of our enemies? What has he told them, and what is he going totell?
Because of this, the security establishment was ready to pay any price to get him back asquickly as possible: 50 “terrorists”? 500 “terrorists”? 5000 “terrorists”? Doesn’tmatter. The main thing is that he be returned at once.
That is understandable. If Tannenbaum had told what he knows, he would have caused”irreparable damage” (as official sources emphasized) to national security. In such cases,it is essential to find out if he did spill the beans or not. Therefore he was bought back for ahigh price, and since then he is being investigated, investigated and investigated.
The former son-in-law of the former friend does not come into it. The connection isintriguing, but not important.
A more significant question is: How did a person like Tannenbaum become a colonel? Howinefficient must a security apparatus be for such a fiasco to become possible? And how comethat Horev, one of the best-paid civil servants in Israel, was not kicked out?
Furthermore: if hundreds of “terrorists” can be released for one living crook and three deadbodies, perhaps their imprisonment was not really necessary for the security of the state?Perhaps the continued stay in prison of 7000 more of them is pointless? And if so, why were theynot released in the cause of peace, to strengthen the position of Arafat in 1993 or Abu-Mazennot so long ago?
Horev and Co. are angry with Tannenbaum because he has revealed their incompetence. They arealso angry with Mordecai Vanunu, for the same reason.
Vanunu was a minor technician at the Dimona nuclear reactor, a site so secret that for a longtime it was forbidden to mention its very existence. When it became impossible to deny itsexistence any longer, the government pretended that it was a “textile factory”.
At this site, the most highly guarded in Israel, Vanunu freely took pictures. Then he wentabroad, became a Buddhist, converted to Christianity (or the other way round) and passed hisinformation and photos to a British paper. On the basis of this information, scientistsdecided that Israel has 200 nuclear bombs.
The disclosure was credible but unofficial. Thus it strengthened Israel’s deterrence,without the government being obliged to confirm it. This was so convenient for the governmentthat, at the beginning, many people believed that Vanunu was really a Mossad agent.
But he was not. On the contrary, he represented a catastrophic failure of the securitystructure that was – and still is – headed by the above mentioned Horev. The reaction wasdrastic: Vanunu was kidnapped in Rome and brought to Israel in a box – just as Tannenbaum waskidnapped in Dubai and brought (apparently) in a box to Beirut. Vanunu succeeded in conveyingthis to the media by writing it on the palm of his hand and waving on the way to court.
This infuriated Horev and Co. even more. For many years they kept Vanunu in prison in totalisolation. Now that he has completed his whole sentence, they do not want to release him. And ifthe court does no allow them to keep him in prison, they want to prevent him from going abroad orspeaking to journalists.
Why? The argument is that even now, 20 years later, he may be in possession of information thatcould endanger the state.
By the way, a similar argument is used by the American security agencies for refusing torelease Jonathan Pollard, who spied for Israel and received a life sentence. They believethat Pollard knows the identity of an Israeli mole in the highest circles of the Americanadministration, who told Pollard which documents to steal and transfer to Israel.
Tannenbaum, Vanunu, Pollard – all these are intriguing stories, useful for increasing thecirculation and ratings of the media. And, more importantly, they distract attention fromthe real dangers that threaten us: the building of the monstrous wall in the occupiedterritories, Sharon’s plan to annex more than half of the West Bank, the ongoing effort todestroy the Palestinian Authority, the daily bloody cycle of targeted killings – suicidebombings – assassinations, murder and revenge, and the destruction of all chances for peace.
Who wants to think about that? Who wants to deal with it? It is much more pleasant to sing anddance around the fir tree: “O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum…”