Israeli Press Tells of Long-Standing Contra Ties

TEL AVIV — Despite official denials, Israel has for several years maintained a U.S.-backed covert connection to the rebels fighting the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, three Israeli newspapers reported Thursday.

The Jerusalem Post and Al Hamishmar, quoting unidentified authoritative U.S. officials, said the clandestine support for the contras included supplying light weapons and ammunition Israel captured in Lebanon.

Their reports said the support was fully coordinated with both the CIA and the National Security Council, and that U.S. officials reportedly pressed Israel to help the Reagan Administration skirt congressional restrictions on arming the contras.

They said Israel appealed to the United States to keep its connection secret because it was concerned about congressional anger.

The daily Haaretz, carrying the same report, attributed it to a former official of the CIA who worked for the agency in 1984 and 1985.

The official was quoted as saying a U.S. Justice Department probe determined at the time that Israel acted within the law in selling arms to the contras, because the weapons were not American-made and did not contain U.S. components. Most of the weapons Israel captured in Lebanon were Soviet-made.

Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir again denied Thursday that Israel supplied arms, funds or training to the contras. But Shamir did not rule out the possibility that Israeli weapons reached the contras through third parties.

“I don’t think we have any contacts with, any connection with the contras, but if other countries did, it’s not our responsibility,” he told reporters in Jerusalem.

The U.S. government has said some profits from the sale of U.S. arms to Iran were transferred to a Swiss bank account controlled by the contras, and it is investigating whether Israel played a role in the transferal. Israel has denied having anything to do with the payments.

Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, a professor at Haifa University who has written a book about Israel’s covert foreign relationships, said Thursday that Israel has aided the contras since the Sandinistas overthrew the Somoza dynasty seven years ago. He said the government of Somoza’s father was among the first to recognize Israel when it was created in 1948 and supplied Nicaraguan passports to Israeli secret agents the following year, beginning a relationship that lasted three decades.