Word: shamir
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...weeks ago, Labor Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir, his Likud partner in the national unity government, hoped for a quick end to the controversy when President Chaim Herzog pardoned Shalom of any crimes committed in the affair. In exchange, Shalom handed in his resignation. Three other officials of the agency were also pardoned...
Peres' concession put the focus squarely on Shamir, who was Prime Minister at the time of the bus hijacking and is scheduled to assume that post again in October under a power-sharing arrangement in which he and Peres are to switch jobs. Some observers are convinced that behind the Shin Bet controversy is a Labor Party wish to keep Shamir from taking power. Shamir denies any wrongdoing, and he has stubbornly opposed an official inquiry. But at week's end he finally acceded to a limited investigation. All the time Shamir continued to maintain that in this case...
...agency had charged that Shalom ordered the two captured Arabs clubbed to death and then covered up the organization's role before two official investigations into the killings. Rising calls for a new probe were opposed by both Labor Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir, head of the Likud bloc in Israel's national unity coalition. They insisted that an inquiry into Shin Bet's role in the deaths could expose state secrets...
Jurists, legal scholars and the Israeli press were appalled by Herzog's pardon of Shalom before he was charged with any wrongdoing. The decision was a departure from past practice, in which Presidents have pardoned only convicted criminals. Like Peres and Shamir, Herzog maintained that an investigation might have made sensitive information public. Said he: "I had to take the responsibility and decide, based on the public's welfare as I see it, according to my knowledge and conscience...
Peres' decision to go along with the deal left his party furious. Labor strategists saw the affair as an opportunity to involve Shamir, who was Prime Minister at the time of the hijacking, in a political scandal that might scuttle the power-sharing agreement whereby Shamir is due to switch jobs with Peres in October. Several Israeli press reports have suggested that Shamir may have had advance knowledge of the killings or helped cover up Shin Bet's involvement once he became aware of the facts...