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Friday, April 16, 2010 - 1:44 PM
According to
Teveth (1972:321), on January 15th 1965 Dayan was summoned to
the
police following the complaint against him, after he declared that he is
ready
to forego his parliamentary immunity. He was questioned on January 25th,
but reached an agreement with the IDAM (headed by Avraham Biran and
Shmuel
Yeivin)- so he was not prosecuted.� This
agreement was condemned by Yadin, according to Teveth (1972:321; similar
story
repeated in Slater 1991:326-327): �when they tried to explain the
awkwardness
of their position in dealing with the misdemeanors of a former Cabinet
minister,
the hero of the Sinai Campaign, and now a member of the Knesset, Yadin
told
them: �You�re the criminals, not he! If you allow him to dig, what will
all the
small fry do?�� Despite these words and
despite his own stature and influence, throughout his whole life, Yadin
never wrote
anything about this affair or against the illegal activities of Dayan in
general.
The
circumstances surrounding the complaint to the police are not clear,
for, on
July 20th 1965, a tabloid called �Bul� published the story of
Dayan�s
illegal digging at Azur. According to this report, �Bul� photographer
Avi Naveh
managed to photo Dayan robbing the site on 9th July 1965. Gad
Peri,
a reporter of �Bul�, asked Dayan why he did not notify the IDAM about
his
finds, but Dayan retorted �if you want, you can notify them�. A
complaint was
handed to officer Doron of the Tel Aviv southern district, and the two
�Bul�
workers were invited to testify. Thus, either Dayan returned immediately
to
looting Azur and was caught twice during the same year, or the police
inquiry
of the case started only after the journal�s exposure, not because of
Brosh�s
complaint...� The one clear fact is that
Dayan was never brought to justice and the case was closed. According to
Dan
Ben-Amotz (1974:32), Dayan promised to the police to stop all illegal
acts. The
1965 event is alluded to in Ilan (1986:7), who interviewed Orna Hess of
the
IDAM. She said that the complains against Dayan were closed, she doesn�t
understand why. She also said that the IDAM tried about 1976 to do
something,
but was told that antiquities robbed by Dayan years ago are under �law
of
obsolescence�, so he cannot be prosecuted any more.
Dayan referred
to a �deal� with the IDAM when writing: �I was less happy having to part
with
the vessels I had collected [at Azur]. It was with no ease of heart that
I
handed them all over to the antiquities Department. I was left with only
a few
sherds... (Dayan 1978:132). What did he mean by �few sherds�? A photo of
an
ossuary from Azur, glued by Dayan, appears proudly in �Living with the
Bible�
(Dayan 1978:40), as well as that of an Iron Age I wailing figurine from
this
site (Dayan 1978:43). Ossuaries from Azur in Dayan�s collection were
published
by Perrot and Ladiray (1980:27, 41, 43). Artifacts from Azur were found
in his
collection after his death (Ornan 1986: 32, 72).� Yael
Dayan (1986b:15) claimed that Dayan�s �alibi� to continue
digging was a letter from the IDAM, stating that the department has free
access
to the collection and the right to visit occasionally and confiscate
items that
were �valuable for a museum�. She claimed that they also did take such
items.� Again, the collection as it was
in 1981 proves that rarely, if ever, was anything confiscated. Slater
(19991:326)
says that Dayan himself proposed in the 1960s that IDAM officials �cart
off
whatever part of his collection they wished. They removed half the
collection.�
If so- where are publications of such finds, or IDAM archaeologists who
heard
or participated in such confiscations? Surely the IDAM would have
presented
such confiscation as an achievement, especially after being blamed for
not
acting against Dayan.� The Minister of
Education, responsible over the IDAM, confirmed in the Knesset that the
IDAM
had not visited, registered, or confiscated anything from Dayan�s
collection
during eight years between 1963 and 1971 (Divrei HaKnesset 7/3,
1971).
This includes 1965, when the Azur incident occurred and supposedly there
should
have been such a confiscation. The whole story of an agreement between
the IDAM
and Dayan is confused.� It is
inconceivable that the IDAM would have handed Dayan an official letter
allowing
him to do further illegal diggings.�
Dayan, his daughter Yael and other supporters try to turn some
agreement, perhaps about Azur, into an official permit or alibi for
robbery of
antiquities all over Israel. If such a permit existed, why did Dayan or
his
supporters never publish it?
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