Spies and the politicians who love them

Israel experiences spy scandals with some frequency, but it’s not common for a KGB agent to reach such a high level as Shimon Levinson. I was at first uninterested in his case, a few of the details of which have recently been made public. But when reading through the article about him, I was pretty stunned to learn that at least four extremely important public officials vouched for him or tried to defend him when he was exposed: Shimon Peres recommended Levinson to a position involving access to sensitive information; Avraham Tamir gave him access to that information; Ariel Sharon and Rafi Eitan testified in his defense.

Sharon is a vegetable and has plenty of other crimes for which he should be made to answer if he ever comes out of his coma. Avraham Tamir appears still to be alive and unpunished. Peres, of course, is president. And Eitan has recently been a minister in the government (and also has the distinction of having disgraced himself and the entire country in another spy affair, Jonathan Pollard’s).

So what’s going to happen to them? Nothing, nothing, nothing and nothing. There is no honor in this country, for if there were, all four of those people would be shamed and the two still active in public life would be compelled to step down from their positions at the very least.