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+---
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - Politics
+  - Israel
+---
+Pinhas Lavon was an Israeli politician who served as Defense Minister. He was a more hard-line figure than [[Moshe Sharett]] on the Arab question. The [[Lavon Affair]] in mid-1954, involving an Israeli spy ring bombing American, British, and Egyptian targets, led to Lavon's resignation, which was accepted by Sharett, who had not known of the operation.[^1]
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+Lavon later became head of the Histadrut, the powerful federation of labor unions in [[Israel]]. He was a central figure in a scandal that resurfaced in the early 1960s, where he charged that [[David Ben-Gurion]], [[Shimon Peres]], and [[Moshe Dayan]] had undermined civilian authority over the military. These allegations were leaked to the press, breaking two cardinal rules of Israeli politics: discussing defense matters publicly and failing to keep party disputes private. Although a cabinet-level committee cleared Lavon of authorizing the failed operation in [[Egypt]], [[David Ben-Gurion]] refused to exonerate him, leading to further political turmoil.[^1]
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+Lavon, along with [[Levi Eshkol]], was among the senior government officials hostile to nuclear development who refused to allocate research funds for the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission, leading to the departure of several commissioners.[^1]
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+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 3, 6, 9.