In September 1963, four teenage Black girls were killed by a bomb detonated at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Almost 37 years later, urged on by a Spike Lee documentary film, the wheels of justice began to turn. Finally, the main suspects were charged and brought to trial, but the real shock was yet to come.
Evidence eventually revealed in court documents was especially disturbing: In order to infiltrate the civil-rights movement, a presumed subversive phenomenon, the FBI cooperated with racist state and local authorities throughout the South at the time. FBI agents in Birmingham, Alabama, it seems, were actually passing information to the Ku Klux Klan, via a police liaison they knew to be a Klansman, thus facilitating physical attacks on civil-rights workers. It was discovered that although the FBI had accumulated a great deal of evidence against one of the participants in the church bombing, it was never used.
The New York Times published FBI documents from 1965, showing that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover ordered his agents in Birmingham to halt their investigation, even after they told him that they had enough evidence to pursue the case.
And from the Deep South to Avishai Raviv in Jerusalem. An internal Justice Ministry document, made public during November 1999 by MK Michael Eitan and Yoav Yitzchak, reporter for the ?Ma'ariv" newspaper, clearly echoes the 1963 incident in the United States. Here, too, government officials thwarted the prosecution of a crime and engaged in a cover-up.
The document, at first suppressed by Attorney-General Elyakim Rubinstein, contained minutes of a 1996 meeting called to discuss a complaint made by Israel's Media Watch (IMW). The complaint charged that a graveyard ceremony conducted by Avishai Raviv, leader of the Eyal group, and aired on television in September 1995, was staged and that it was an act of deception and a breach of trust by the government-appointed Israel Broadcasting Authority. Afterwards, it surfaced that Raviv, touted head of a Jewish terror group planning the murder of politicians, and erstwhile friend of Yigal Amir, the assassin of Yitzhak Rabin, was, in fact, employed by the General Security Services (GSS), Israel's FBI, as an agent provocateur.
According to the document, then-Attorney-General, Michael Ben-Yair, remarked, "Anyone who was there, on location, could have understood that this was not an authentic ceremony." In an indirect confirmation of this, an attorney with the Jerusalem District Attorney?s office, Ms. L. Chavilio, said, "I didn't notice that the inauthentic sections were intentionally edited out of the video." Moshe Ledor, Jerusalem District Attorney, was quite blunt, saying, "We have to close the file 'due to lack of public interest.' An indictment [against Raviv] could seriously harm the GSS. We have to accept the GSS opinion on this. We close a lot of files in this manner."
What is more astounding is that three members of the GSS sat in on the meeting. One of them, Chezi Kallo, frankly admitted, "We are talking here about the handling of a problematic agent...he was out of control...he would undergo psychological examinations...a court case against him would essentially be a case against the General Security Services." Another GSS official, N. Ben-Or, hinted darkly, "The attorney who represents Avishai Raviv will have a strong ideological bias, and it is possible that he would join forces with extremist elements." More ominously, Talia Sasson, who heads the State Prosecutor's anti-incitement unit, is recorded as saying, "They [the 'extremists'] would do everything they could to reveal secrets."
Ben-Yair was in the minority. He realized that the case was very serious and that criminal charges should be filed. But nothing happened. Even after IMW petitioned the High Court of Justice, neither the reporter who edited the film of the 1995 ceremony, nor any of his editors were pursued, even though Raviv himself is on trial for his on-air incitement.
Unfortunately, years have gone by. Avishai Raviv's trial, for this or that reason, has been postponed for months at a time. He has switched lawyers. The hearings are in camera. In the meantime, Margalit Har-Shefi has been sentenced to nine months imprisonment for supposedly "knowing" about Yigal Amir's plans to murder former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Yet, according to statements made by Avishai Raviv, obtained by the police, he had personally encouraged Amir to relate to Rabin as a "pursuer", one liable to have his life taken.
Avishai Raviv's trial may yet come to an end. Who, though, will be able to pass judgment on the link between the GSS, the State Prosecutor's Office and straw men right-wing activists who never really existed, except on our TV screens?
_________________________________________________
Yisrael Medad filed the original complaint against Channel One TV for airing of the Raviv/Eyal ceremony
Evidence eventually revealed in court documents was especially disturbing: In order to infiltrate the civil-rights movement, a presumed subversive phenomenon, the FBI cooperated with racist state and local authorities throughout the South at the time. FBI agents in Birmingham, Alabama, it seems, were actually passing information to the Ku Klux Klan, via a police liaison they knew to be a Klansman, thus facilitating physical attacks on civil-rights workers. It was discovered that although the FBI had accumulated a great deal of evidence against one of the participants in the church bombing, it was never used.
The New York Times published FBI documents from 1965, showing that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover ordered his agents in Birmingham to halt their investigation, even after they told him that they had enough evidence to pursue the case.
And from the Deep South to Avishai Raviv in Jerusalem. An internal Justice Ministry document, made public during November 1999 by MK Michael Eitan and Yoav Yitzchak, reporter for the ?Ma'ariv" newspaper, clearly echoes the 1963 incident in the United States. Here, too, government officials thwarted the prosecution of a crime and engaged in a cover-up.
The document, at first suppressed by Attorney-General Elyakim Rubinstein, contained minutes of a 1996 meeting called to discuss a complaint made by Israel's Media Watch (IMW). The complaint charged that a graveyard ceremony conducted by Avishai Raviv, leader of the Eyal group, and aired on television in September 1995, was staged and that it was an act of deception and a breach of trust by the government-appointed Israel Broadcasting Authority. Afterwards, it surfaced that Raviv, touted head of a Jewish terror group planning the murder of politicians, and erstwhile friend of Yigal Amir, the assassin of Yitzhak Rabin, was, in fact, employed by the General Security Services (GSS), Israel's FBI, as an agent provocateur.
According to the document, then-Attorney-General, Michael Ben-Yair, remarked, "Anyone who was there, on location, could have understood that this was not an authentic ceremony." In an indirect confirmation of this, an attorney with the Jerusalem District Attorney?s office, Ms. L. Chavilio, said, "I didn't notice that the inauthentic sections were intentionally edited out of the video." Moshe Ledor, Jerusalem District Attorney, was quite blunt, saying, "We have to close the file 'due to lack of public interest.' An indictment [against Raviv] could seriously harm the GSS. We have to accept the GSS opinion on this. We close a lot of files in this manner."
What is more astounding is that three members of the GSS sat in on the meeting. One of them, Chezi Kallo, frankly admitted, "We are talking here about the handling of a problematic agent...he was out of control...he would undergo psychological examinations...a court case against him would essentially be a case against the General Security Services." Another GSS official, N. Ben-Or, hinted darkly, "The attorney who represents Avishai Raviv will have a strong ideological bias, and it is possible that he would join forces with extremist elements." More ominously, Talia Sasson, who heads the State Prosecutor's anti-incitement unit, is recorded as saying, "They [the 'extremists'] would do everything they could to reveal secrets."
Ben-Yair was in the minority. He realized that the case was very serious and that criminal charges should be filed. But nothing happened. Even after IMW petitioned the High Court of Justice, neither the reporter who edited the film of the 1995 ceremony, nor any of his editors were pursued, even though Raviv himself is on trial for his on-air incitement.
Unfortunately, years have gone by. Avishai Raviv's trial, for this or that reason, has been postponed for months at a time. He has switched lawyers. The hearings are in camera. In the meantime, Margalit Har-Shefi has been sentenced to nine months imprisonment for supposedly "knowing" about Yigal Amir's plans to murder former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Yet, according to statements made by Avishai Raviv, obtained by the police, he had personally encouraged Amir to relate to Rabin as a "pursuer", one liable to have his life taken.
Avishai Raviv's trial may yet come to an end. Who, though, will be able to pass judgment on the link between the GSS, the State Prosecutor's Office and straw men right-wing activists who never really existed, except on our TV screens?
_________________________________________________
Yisrael Medad filed the original complaint against Channel One TV for airing of the Raviv/Eyal ceremony