Exposing International Secrets

For incurring official wrath, two Israeli editors were dealt even harsher punishment than Colonel Moranda. Last December, Shemuel Mohr and Maxim Ghilan decided to try a little political sensationalism to boost the circulation (10,000) of their sex-oriented magazine, Bui. Under the headline "Stinking International Affair," they wrote that Israeli government officials were hushing up facts about the kidnaping of Moroccan Leftist Mehdi ben Barka in 1965. Not only were the French and Moroccan secret services involved in the plot, suggested Bui, but so was Israel.

As soon as he learned of the story, Israeli Minister of Justice Jacob Shapiro ordered all copies of Bui confiscated and the two editors thrown in jail--nominally for espionage, but actually because Premier Levi Eshkol feared mention of any link between Arab Morocco and Israel. Eshkol had privately told a group of editors, not including Bui's, that Israel had helped organize the Moroccan secret service in return for fair treatment of Moroccan Jews. Later, Eshkol said, the Moroccans had asked Israel to help kidnap Ben Barka, but Israel had refused to commit itself. Even so, if word of close ties between the two countries were to get out, Eshkol was afraid that it would jeopardize Israel's relations with Morocco as well as with France, where, last October, six persons went on trial in Paris for the kidnaping. The trial was adjourned when the chief of the Moroccan secret police suddenly arrived to give himself up. A new trial is set for next month.

When Bui hinted at the story, Minister of Justice Shapiro ordered the magazine to put out a revised edition with the nudes in place of the offending story. Later, at a secret trial, Editors Mohr and Ghilan were each sentenced to a year in prison. Despite all the precautions, the foreign press broke the story. Only then was the Israeli press allowed to tell it, too.

Though they conceded that the government had acted hastily, Israeli journalists hardly rallied to the side of their imprisoned colleagues. Since the creation of Israel, newsmen have taken a rigorous censorship for granted because of the ceaseless hot-and-cold war with the Arab nations. Only one paper, Ha'Aretz, which has no party affiliation, sharply criticized the government. "While the Bui publication could have hurt the interests of the state," said an editorial, "that harm is nothing compared with the harm caused Israel by the secret arrests and trial. Whoever reads the description of the affair will get a sad picture of our nation."

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