Spies Against Armageddon (59 page)

The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem provides casualty tolls from the intifada that began in 1988. These figures are available on its website, btselem.org/statistics/first_intifada_tables.

The story of Ahmed Yasin, the PLO security official in Tunis who spied for the Mossad, was told by several Arabic-language newspapers, including
A-Sharq al-Awsat
of December 19, 2003.

The proposal by Rafi Eitan, in the mid-1960s, to assassinate the PLO’s Abu Jihad was related to one of the authors by Eitan in an interview in March 2012. See also
Yediot Aharonot
, March 23, 2012.

The assassination of Abu Jihad was recounted in Raviv and Melman,
Every Spy a Prince
, pp. 395-8. Also see Daniel Byman,
A High Price: The Triumphs and Failures of Israeli Counterterrorism
(Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 54; and, in Hebrew, Moshe Zonder,
Sayeret Matkal: The Elite Unit of Israel
(Keter, 2000), pp. 238-240.

Chapter 20

As revealed after the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the mole planted by Shin Bet in extreme right-wing circles and codenamed “Champagne” was Avishai Raviv, a young right-wing activist. It is mere coincidence that his last name is the same as one of the authors’, for they are not related.

Benjamin Netanyahu telephoned one of the authors, barely three days after the murder of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, and suggested to him to write an article that would raise the question of assassin Amir’s connection to Israeli intelligence and Netanyahu’s idea of “following the money.”

The division of labor between Aman and Shin Bet when it came to monitoring the Palestinian Authority, dubbed “the Magna Carta,” is in Ephraim Lavie, “Intelligence Challenges in the Palestinian Arena,” in Gilboa and Lapid (eds.),
Israel’s Silent Defender,
pp. 135-9. Dr. Lavie, a retired Aman colonel, writes: “I am of the opinion that in real-time situations between Israel and the Palestinians, IDI [Israel Defense Intelligence, meaning Aman] did not provide the decision makers with early warnings and suitable assessments.”

Dov Weisglass, a close advisor to former prime minister Ariel Sharon, spoke with one of the authors and denied that Israel had poisoned Yasser Arafat. See Yossi Melman, “What Killed Yasser Arafat?” in his column, “The Arms Race,” at
Haaretz.com
, July 14, 2011.

Chapter 21

The views and reminiscences of Avi Dichter, director of Shin Bet from 2000 to 2005, were shared with the authors several times in the years that followed.

American officials and former officials in Washington, who preferred not to be named, told the authors of suspicions that the Israelis were “playing” America, on subjects including Iran, in the years just after 9/11.

The notion of shared democratic values and strategic interests that bound the United States and Israel is fully discussed, with both examples and counterexamples, in Melman and Raviv,
Friends in Deed: Inside the U.S.-Israel Alliance
.

Critics of the America-Israel relationship who garnered significant attention included two professors, John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt,
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007).

Vigorous responses to the Mearsheimer-Walt contention that American political leaders were manipulated by Israel and not acting in the best interests of the U.S. included articles by another professor, Alan Dershowitz, who called
The Israel Lobby
“illogical and conspiratorial.” Also, see a book by the head of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham Foxman,
The Deadliest Lies: The Israel Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).

Chapter 22

Most of the material in this chapter is based on interviews with senior Mossad and Aman people associated with—or with knowledge of—the principal episodes discussed in this chapter. They refused to be named.

The attacks on German scientists working for Egypt in the 1960s are not known for certain to have killed anyone, but one scientist, Heinz Krug, vanished from his office in Germany in 1962—apparently after receiving threats.

The Israeli raid on Entebbe airport, that rescued around a hundred hostages, is told in Chapter 12 of this book.

The story of Palestinian terrorist Wadia Haddad, poisoned by chocolates, is told by Aharon Klein,
Striking Back: The 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre And Israel’s Deadly Response
(Random House, 2005). The authors have received a slightly different version from sources.

On the assassination of Fathi Shkaki in Valetta, Malta, see (in Hebrew) Yossi Melman,
Ha’aretz
, October 30, 1995.

On the attempt to assassinate Khaled Meshaal in Jordan, numerous articles and books have been written. The quote of Meshaal is in Alan Cowell, “The Daring Attack That Blew Up in Israel’s Face,”
New York Times
, October 15, 1997.

King Hussein’s anger at Israel, and the Hamas truce proposal he handed to a Mossad officer days before the attack on Meshaal, are told by former Mossad director Efraim Halevy, who heard it from Hussein himself. See Halevy’s memoir,
Man in the Shadows
(St. Martin’s Press, 2006), pp. 164-175.

On Halevy’s insistence that a Mossad operative fly to Switzerland to stand trial:
Man in the Shadows
, pp. 185-9.

Chapter 23

On “one of Israel’s greatest successes in target intelligence,” in the Lebanon war of 2006, see General Amos Gilboa, “Intelligence and the Lebanese Arena,” in Gilboa and Lapid (eds.),
Israel’s Silent Defender,
pp. 118-9.

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, assassinated by the Mossad in Dubai in January 2010, earlier had granted an interview to Al-Jazeera Television, in which he claimed he was “cautious” but hoped to become a martyr. It was broadcast only after his death. See “To Israel, I am Stained With Blood,” at AlJazeera.net, posted February 7, 2010.

Details of what occurred in Dubai, and the Mossad’s reaction to what the local police and others were saying, were gleaned from Israelis who were close to the decision-making, and from American officials who spoke later with the Israelis.

On official British anger, see London’s
The Daily Telegraph
, March 24, 2010. On Australia’s anger, see the same newspaper on February 26, 2010.

Chapter 24

Israel has continued to be secretive about the decisions that led to bombing Syria’s nuclear reactor project in September 2007, but interviews conducted by one of the authors in the United States in 2010 and 2011 revealed details of the planning and the operation. Israeli and American officials asked for anonymity.

Meir Dagan’s reminiscences about his command of the Sayeret Rimon commandos in the Gaza Strip were partly in his testimony in a court case, when a former soldier was accused of murder and claimed that killing had been commonplace under Dagan; as reported by Ynet.co.il on November 8, 2011.

Dennis Ross, former advisor to five American presidents, spoke of Israel’s “ethos” in an interview with one of the authors in March 2012.

Remembering Ehud Olmert’s request that the United States bomb the Syrian reactor project: George W. Bush,
Decision Points
(Crown, 2010), p. 421.

Bush’s vice president also wrote about his own recommendation that the United States strike the Syrian building: Dick Cheney,
In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir
(Threshold, 2011), pp. 470-2.

Yehuda Gil, long considered a star within the Mossad but then imprisoned for faking reports about Syria, told his story to one of the authors at Gil’s home in October 2009 and unconvincingly claimed Mossad director Danny Yatom had framed him. See Yossi Melman’s “Inside Intel” column at Haaretz.com on October 26, 2010. Further details are in Yatom’s memoir in Hebrew,
Shutaf Sod
(
Privy to Secrets: From Sayeret Matkal until the Mossad
) (Yediot Aharonot, 2009), pp. 42-52.

Although U.S. intelligence officials praised Israel for being leak-proof on the destruction of Syria’s reactor, the CIA released a dossier and video presentation—including the photos Israel had procured of the inside of the building and of a North Korean official visiting there—to Congress on April 24, 2008. It was immediately given to news reporters. Israel still preferred not to humiliate or provoke Syria with any confirmation. For a CIA statement on the matter, see: https://www.cia.gov/news-information/press-releases-statements/press-release-archive-2008/cia-director-hayden-announces-findings-on-covert-syrian-reactor.html.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, from its headquarters in Vienna, issued a report on May 24, 2011, that accused Syria of telling untruths about the structure at “the Dair Alzour site,” reporting that samples taken after it was bulldozed established a connection with nuclear work, but also regretting that Israel took military action instead of informing the IAEA. See: http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2011/gov2011-30.pdf.

Among those who wrote that Israel assassinated General Suleiman in Syria was Uzi Mahanaimi in the British
Sunday Times
, August 10, 2008; though the details, also in his writing about the air raid that flattened Syria’s reactor the previous September, may not be precise. See also Hugh McLeod and Ian Black, “Top Assad Aide Assassinated at Syrian Resort,”
The Guardian
, August, 4, 2008.

Acknowledgments

In producing this, our fifth, book written jointly, we truly learned that it takes a village to reach an important goal. In Washington, in Tel Aviv, as well as in other locales where research and interviews were conducted, we relied on the assistance of people who wanted Israel and its unique challenges and solutions to be better understood.

The vast majority of well informed and experienced individuals in the field of intelligence, who helped us so much by explaining what happened and why, prefer to remain anonymous. You know who you are. We won’t forget you, but we’ll do you the favor of not naming you.

Yet we would be remiss not to thank the team that helped turn years of conversations and notes into a book. Our wives, Dori Phaff and Billie Melman, contributed not only support but many hours of work in getting many of the tasks done. Paul Skolnick, a master of all things digital, extended himself far beyond expectations as our manager of production. Hillel Kuttler was our strong editor.

The publicity team is ably headed by Sandy Trupp, and our on-line strategies are provided by Michael Conniff at Post Time Media Inc.

Valuable encouragement came also from our families and from Robert Zimmerman, Larry Miller (including a key part of the title), Howard Arenstein, Steve Rabinowitz, Barry Schochet, Kate Brown, and others at and around our respective workplaces.

All errors, of course, are our own.

Please see our website, www.IsraelSpy.com. And follow us on Twitter at @SpiesArmageddon.

A brief note about methodology: Portions of the book in Chapter 2 through 10, 13 through 16, 18, 21 and 25 originated from reporting by Yossi Melman in Israel and thus those chapters were submitted to that country’s military censor. Very minor deletions were made as a result.