collection 339.col.992 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

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?