Posted on 02/20/2004 1:22:12 AM PST by BlackVeil
Shin Bet say Tannenbaum's story does not make sense
Israel would not have agreed to the prisoner swap that freed a hostage had the true circumstances of his capture been known, according to media reports.
Elhanan Tannenbaum was the only living captive given to Israel last month in exchange for about 400 Palestinians and 59 dead fighters, mostly of Hezbollah.
But Channel One said he was not fully co-operating with interrogators who doubted his story about his capture.
Israeli media reported earlier that Mr Tannenbaum failed lie-detector tests.
Israeli lawmakers also expressed concerns that Mr Tannenbaum - a businessman and a reservist colonel, may not be telling the truth about his capture - reportedly in October 2000.
But his son said Israeli legislators had defamed Mr Tannenbaum.
Last month, the militant group Hezbollah also handed over three dead Israeli soldiers that were killed in Lebanon in 2000.
The agreement came after three years of German-led negotiations.
'Testimony illogical'
Mr Tannenbaum reportedly said he had been taken to Beirut by force from a Gulf city - apparently Dubai - where he had travelled from Belgium.
But Avi Dichter, the head of Israel's Shin Bet domestic security service, told Israeli legislators that investigators doubted Mr Tannenbaum's story.
An unnamed Knesset security committee member told the Israeli daily Haaretz that the Shin Bet considered Mr Tannenbaum's testimony illogical.
And the committee member quoted Mr Dichter as saying that Mr Tannenbaum had failed a lie-detector test when asked what he had told his captors about his military record.
On Wednesday, the committee took the unusual step of issuing a statement describing the Tannenbaum affair as "one of the most serious and worrisome known to Israel," Israeli newspapers reported.
The statement said the committee would not be satisfied until all circumstances were clarified, the damage to state security established and the necessary measures taken.
In response, Mr Tannenbaum's lawyers said it was wrong for the committee to "take a stand during an ongoing investigation and turn itself into a judiciary that passes judgment on a person being interrogated," according to Haaretz.
Investigators have been questioning Mr Tannenbaum since he returned to Israel last month.
Israel Army Radio said on Thursday that indictments could be filed against him.
On Tuesday, a court remanded him in custody for 10 days. Hezbollah had accused Mr Tannenbaum of being a spy for Israel and said it had lured him to Lebanon believing he was going to penetrate the organisation.
I'm puzzled about Nix's calling for his demise too. Nix did raise a good point, though: 400 terrorists in exchange for this schlub?
Based on Sharon's actions over the past few weeks, I've concluded that's he either being blackmailed or in the early stages of senile dementia. Maybe instead - just maybe - there's more here than meets the eye. I sure hope so.
What? That Tannenbaum is a traitor that Israel wanted back home to see what he gave away? To subject him to lengthy debriefing? That this is the reason Israel let go 400 Jihadist prisoners for Tannenbaum and the corpses of 3 kidnapped Israelis?
What are your theories?
If he was an ordinary traitor, he would go and work for them, I suppose. Or work undercover in Israel. To go to Lebanon, and be a "captive" is not much of a role.
It is possible that Hezbollah offered him a lot of money (it would need to be a very large sum!) to come and pretend to be captured, so that they could have leverage - an Israeli captive - to get the prisoners back.
But that doesn't not quite explain why those Israeli officials are saying that this is the most serious security crisis ever - that would seem just like an ordinary scam.
It is also possible that Tannenbaum is innocent of all this, and that the allegations around him are part of a "back lash" against the prisoner deal. That many officials are now kicking themselves for letting Nasrallah drive such a hard bargain. So out of spite and ill-feeling, they make out that Tannenbaum is in some way at fault.
Rival theories include: he was a drug dealer lured to Hizbullah by an Arab-Israeli business partner; he pawned expired pharmaceuticals to the Arab world; he fabricated the entire abduction; he sought to sell intelligence on vital Israeli weapons systems. It is said that Hizbullah abducted him in collusion with Hamas; or that Hizbullah and Iranian Revolutionary Guards interrogators broke him; or that he arrived in Lebanon of his own free will. He sought glory; he sought justice; or, more likely, he sought only money.
Which is it? Why doesn't the public have a right to examine what they received after forking over 430 Palestinian, Lebanese, and Syrian prisoners, 60 bodies, the maps of mine fields in Lebanon, and more?
In late January we heard that Tannenbaum was cooperating with his interrogators.
The pendulum then began to swing back against the weak but fleshy and surprisingly sprightly former hostage. He was uncooperative. He lied to interrogators. He continues to stick to the story that, Don Quixote-like, he trotted off to Lebanon to save Ron Arad.
Interesting that you mention the William Buckley case. It does have some elements in common with this - although Buckley seems to have been a more highly placed individual. For those who don't recall - William Buckley was the CIA station head in Beirut. He was kidnapped in 1984, a decomposed dead body, said to be his, was dumped years later in a Beirut tip, in 1991.
Reports circulated that Buckley was taken to Iran, tortured and interrogated. But those reports are unreliable. Look at this one about Tannenbaum:
Israeli near death following Hizballah torture Jerusalem Newswire ^ | October 2, 2003 | Jerusalem Newswire Editorial Staff Abducted Israeli business man Elhanan Tannenbaum, accused by his Hizballah captors of being a Mossad agent, is near death following intense torture at the hands of the Lebanese terror group, according to reports in the Hebrew press Thursday.
A German mediator was recently allowed to visit Tannenbaum, and said Hizballah terrorists had ripped out his fingernails, pulled all of his teeth and severely damaged his internal organs during torture sessions.
Not one word of this report, gathered from serious sources turned out to be true. So what is the truth about Buckley? And why should I care about him?
How did the US govt respond to Buckley's disappearance? It was an unluckly event. His security were not on the job that day - and it just happened to be the day "they" came for him. So he disappeared. Some say he was taken to Iran, but would the US really let such a high level intelligence operative be smuggled across borders? Normally, they would act. They would prevent that. They have their ways, they could have blasted him and everyone around him.
Shortly after Buckley disappeared, the Iranian govt was awarded valuable arms deals - this was the beginning of the Iran/Contra affair. Some say that Buckley helped to negotiate this - that he went to Iran as an envoy, not a prisoner, and that afterwards he was given a new identity. Others say he never left Beirut.
One thing is for sure. If this Tannenbaum prisoner swap deal is anything like the machinations of Iran/Contra, it is a very serious situation, unimaginable corruption.
They may be right that:
On Wednesday, the committee took the unusual step of issuing a statement describing the Tannenbaum affair as "one of the most serious and worrisome known to Israel," Israeli newspapers reported.
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