Dan Raviv - Spies Against Armageddon

Spies Against

Armageddon

Inside Israels Secret Wars

Also by Dan Raviv and Yossi Melman:

Behind the Uprising:

Israelis, Jordanians and Palestinians

The Imperfect Spies:

The History of Israeli Intelligence

Every Spy a Prince:

The Complete History of Israels Intelligence Community

Friends In Deed:

Inside the U.S.-Israel Alliance

Also by Dan Raviv:

Comic Wars:

How Two Tycoons Battled Over the Marvel Comics Empireand Both Lost

Also by Yossi Melman:

The Master Terrorist:

The True Story Behind Abu Nidal

The CIA Report on the Israeli Intelligence Community

The New Israelis:

An Intimate View of a Changing People

The Spies:

Israels Counter-Espionage Wars (in Hebrew, with Eitan Haber)

The Nuclear Sphinx of Tehran (with Meir Javedanfar)

Autobiography of Running (in Hebrew)

Spies Against

Armageddon

Inside Israels Secret Wars

by Dan Raviv and Yossi Melman

Levant Books

Sea Cliff, New York

Copyright 2012 by Dan Raviv and Yossi Melman

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the Publisher. Printed in the United States of America.

Levant Books

Sea Cliff, NY 11579

http://LevantBooks.info

LevantBooks@ymail.com

ISBN: 978-0-9854378-4-8

Cover photo credits:

Suspects in 2010 slaying of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh (Dubai Police)

Israeli F-15 jets (IDF Spokesperson)

author photos by Emma Raviv and Haim Taragan

Cover design:

Tanya Nuchols (TanyaNucholsDesign.com)

Layout and technical editor:

Paul Skolnick

TO THE MEMORY OF BENJAMIN RAVIV

TO THE MEMORY OF YITZHAK AND ANNA MELMAN

TO CHERISHED DORI, JONATHAN AND EMMA

TO BELOVED BILLIE, YOTAM AND DARIA

Contents

Prologue

Prepare, in the chapters ahead, to learn what Israels intelligence agenciesled by the Mossadare doing, day and night, to protect their own country and, by extension, Western nations. From an Israeli point of view, it is an unceasing, secret war. And the Israelis feel they have no choice but to win every time.

Crisis Day is coming. Iran may try to rush toward construction of nuclear bombs; Muslim terrorists could again attack Americaor both calamities might occur. The president of the United States would surely ask: What do the Israelis say? What do they know? What are they up to that they may not be telling us? And what can the Mossad do?

Just as the Statue of Liberty and McDonalds became snappy synonyms for America, Mossad has become an internationally recognized Israeli brand name. More importantly, with the Middle East almost constantly on the edge of upheaval, the Jewish states foreign espionage agency is a player in some of the biggest, though hidden, dramas of our time.

Is the Mossad really so good at what it does? Yes, as we document in this bookespecially considering Israels lilliputian sizeit is stunningly effective. Yet, the pages to come will show that in more than 60 years, Israeli intelligence has made its share of mistakes. It succeeds or fails due mostly to the quality of its people: They are excellent. They are motivated. But they are human and, thus, fallible.

The agencys full name is HaMossad lModiin ulTafkidim Meyuchadim, Hebrew for The Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks. It has a few thousand employees, and in the past decade it has gone slightly public with a website.

Mossad.gov.il discloses that its staff has an official motto: Where there is no counsel, the people fall; but in the multitude of counselors there is safety.

The noun counsel is in the translation chosen by the Mossad for its English-language internet page, but that fails to capture the flavor of the Hebrew word takhbulot in the Book of Proverbs, chapter 11, verse 14. It can also be translated as deception, trickery, stratagem, or even wise direction, but always is aimed at confounding the intentions of ones opponents.

The motto that the Mossad finds inspiring thus adds up to this: Without tricky plans, Israel would fall; but when there is plenty of information, Israel finds salvation.

A former Mossad director, Efraim Halevy, told us that an even more apt motto might be: Everything is do-able. That attitude encapsulates the spirit of the Mossad.

The agencys reputation for decisive action and hyperactivity has inevitably led to a mystique: that it is all-powerful, all-knowing, ruthless, and capable of penetrating every corner of the world.

Israel may not have intentionally created the image, but surely takes advantage of it. When feats, some of them seemingly unbelievable, are ascribed to the Mossad by the international press and politicians, Israels spymasters say nothing.

This policy of ambiguity magnifies the mystique, which in turn helps sow fear among Israels enemies. The nation does not admit to having nuclear weapons, although a nearly complete history of how it achieved that statusand how the atomic ambiguity is preservedwill be found in these pages.

There is a misconception, however. The Mossad is just one part of the Israeli intelligence community, which includes other agencies that are no less important: the domestic Shin Bet and the military Aman.

These are the big three, and in fact Amanmilitary intelligencehas the greatest financial and human resources and contributes the most to Israels national security.

This book will also reveal two smaller, specialized parts of Israels clandestine defense. One, which can be termed Jewish intelligence, helps Jews exercise Israels legislated Right of Return to their peoples ancient homelandwhere they are granted instant citizenshipand also protects them when they get into trouble outside Israel.

The other small unit, which was launched officially for science liaison and was nominally disbanded after Jonathan Pollard was caught spying in the United States in 1985, has been responsible for building and protecting Israels most important deterrent capability: secret, nuclear, and officially unconfirmed.

Like the countrys nuclear ambiguity, the Mossad has chosen to remain mostly maskedleaving others to distort and misattribute many mysterious events. The distortions may be traced to glorification of the spy agency, hostility toward Israel, or mere speculation. As imaginations run amok, charlatans publish what they will: that when British publishing tycoon Robert Maxwell fell off his yacht, the Mossad drowned him; that Israeli intelligence caused the car crash that killed Princess Diana; that Mossad operatives are primarily artists of assassination; that every Israeli arrested for drug dealing is serving the Mossad; and, most absurdly, that the Mossad orchestrated 9/11.

This book intends to shed light on the true nature of the Israeli intelligence community, viewing its developmentfrom the beginning until todaythrough the prism of the countrys unique history.

The Jewish state has been at war from the moment David Ben-Gurion declared statehood in 1948. And Israeli leaders still consider themselves to be at war every day.

Yet, being at war differs entirely from the 1948 War of Independence. It is also not the lightning-quick six-day victory of 1967. And the intelligence community wants to ensure that there is no repeat of Yom Kippur in 1973, when a surprise attack by Arab militaries could have been thwarted had Israel listened to astoundingly well-placed agents in Egypt.