Shamir Sees U.S.-Israeli Tensions Easing

Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir said Monday that the strain in U.S.-Israel relations over the Pollard spy case should ease with the resignation of an Israeli air force colonel accused of recruiting an American Jew to spy for Israel.

“Of course, it will make things easier. . . . It’s a matter of atmosphere, general attitude,” Shamir said in an interview broadcast by Israeli television. Shamir refused to say if he thought the government had made a mistake originally by naming Col. Aviem Sella to command the important Tel Nof air base, the post he gave up Sunday.

Sella did not quit the air force itself in his resignation.

U.S. officials welcomed the resignation, but an American Jewish leader warned that “Israel isn’t off the hook” yet.

Sella is under indictment for conspiracy in the United States for recruiting Jonathan Jay Pollard, 32, a former Navy intelligence analyst convicted and sentenced to life in prison for spying for Israel. It’s unlikely, however, that Sella will ever face a U.S. trial because espionage is not listed in the extradition treaty between the two countries.

A spokeswoman at the U.S. Embassy in Israel said that Sella’s resignation was a “helpful move.”

The United States had barred any American contact with the Tel Nof base after Sella’s appointment as its commander was announced, but the ban was lifted after the colonel resigned, State Department spokeswoman Phyllis Oakley said Monday in Washington.

American Jewish organizations, including the powerful American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, applauded Sella’s resignation but said it was only the first step needed to repair U.S.-Israeli relations.

“Israel isn’t off the hook. The issue in the eyes of the U.S. Congress is: ‘Has Israel cleaned up its act?’ ” a committee member said, requesting anonymity.

In Israel, Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin made his first public comment on Sella’s resignation, telling Israel radio: “I can say that I, as a defense minister, faced severe criticism for appointing him or ratifying his appointment as Tel Nof commander, even though I suspended his promotion in rank.”

U.S. officials had expressed anger that Sella was rewarded with command of Israel’s second-largest air base after Jerusalem pledged to act against those involved in employing Pollard as a spy.

Sella, 46, cited his concern for U.S.-Israeli relations in his letter quitting the Tel Nof post.

Meanwhile, Israel’s largest newspaper, Yediot Ahronot, quoted Sella as saying that he did not consider it a mistake to have recruited Pollard and that he resigned only because “America wants a head.”

“Yes, I recruited Pollard. He came to me, and I passed him on to Rafi Eitan (head of the Defense Ministry’s now-disbanded Scientific Liaison Bureau). I did not do more than that,” Sella was quoted as saying.

“I don’t think I made a mistake. . . . I did only what any other (Israeli) Jew would have done,” Sella was quoted as saying.

A government-appointed panel and a subcommittee of the Knesset (Parliament) are investigating the Pollard affair.

The conservative newspaper Maariv said in a Monday editorial that Sella’s resignation has eased pressure on his superiors, but it added that “the United States did not want Sella’s head. It wants more serious things. . . . (Sella) was not the commander here but on the operation level--and he is not the only one that must go.”