Dubious history
State Comptroller Eliezer Goldberg says decision-making process regarding release of Hizbullah captive Elhanan Tenenbaum was satisfactory, but adds that former IDF officer should never have been able to hold sensitive posts
JERUSALEM - The IDF was kept in the dark regarding "negative facts" about former Hizbullah captive Elhanan Tenenbaum despite being entrusted with several top-secret military details, outgoing State Comptroller Judge Eliezer Goldberg said in a letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon Sunday.
“We are talking about an overall security failure, and a specific failure to conduct a security assessment of Tenenbaum,” he said.
“Tenenbaum was trusted with some of the military’s inner-most secrets even as negative details on him were piling up prior to his kidnapping.”
Goldberg said the security establishment failed in its assessment of Tenenbaum.
“These details were withheld from the IDF, even though they were sufficient to disqualify Tenenbaum from serving in classified posts. The possibility that he had revealed these secrets to the enemy was a key part of his interrogation upon his return to Israel.”
Shame and regret
However, Goldberg said the decision to bring Tenenbaum back to Israel along with the bodies of three IDF soldiers on January 29, 2004, a decision that had evoked public outrage at the time, was appropriate.
“According to the well-documented information held by sources related to the affair, the decision-making process leading up to Tenenbaum’s return was appropriate,” he said.
Tenenbaum, who spent more than three years in captivity, returned from Lebanon last year in the framework of a prisoner exchange.
Prior to his release, he told Hizbullah’s “el-Manar” network that he had traveled to Lebanon to request and gather information on Ron Arad (MIA Israeli Air-Force Lieutenant Colonel).
However, Tenenbaum’s version of the story was refuted during his interrogation, as it turned out that he had gone to Lebanon as part of a drug deal he was involved in.
In an interview with Yedioth Ahronoth several months ago, Tenenbaum said, “I have sunk to great depths. It is very difficult for me to live with myself regarding this issue, and anything you say against me will not be harsher than what I tell myself.”
“Not a day goes by that I don’t regret what had happened.”
