The History of Mossad

By Antonella Colonna Vilasi

The book is about the history of Mossad, from the foundation to the ultimate events.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Jan 13, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491889633

Antonella Colonna Vilasi

Antonella Colonna Vilasi is president of the Research Center on Intelligence–UNI. She is the author of “The History of M16,” “The History of the CIA,” “The History of the Italian Secret Services,” and “The History of Mossad.”

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© 2014 Antonella Colonna Vilasi. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 01/09/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4918-8961-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-8962-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-8963-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013923774

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Contents

Chapter I   The Origins of Security

1.1.   In the beginning was the Kibbutz; from Colonialism to Nationalism and Pioneering

1.2.   The birth of the State of Israel

1.3.   From war to war

1.3.1. First Arab Israeli conflict (1948-1949)

1.3.2. The Sinai War (1956)

1.3.3. The Six Day War (1967)

1.3.4. The Yom Kippur War (1973)

1.3.5. The war in Lebanon (1982)

1.3.6. Palestinian terrorism towards the Intifada

Chapter II   Israeli intelligence agencies

2.1   Jurisdictions, organization and departments

2.1.1 Mossad

2.1.2 Shabak (ex Shin Bet)

2.1.3 Agaf Modin or Aman (Intelligence of the IDF)

2.2   Directors of Mossad

2.2.1 Isser Harel (1952-1963)

2.2.2 Meir Amit (1963-1968)

2.2.3 Zvi Zamir (1968-1974)

2.2.4 Yitzhak Hofi (1974-1982)

2.2.5 Nahum Admoni (1982-1989)

2.2.6 Shabtai Shavit (1990-1996)

2.2.7 Dani Yatom (1996-1998)

2.2.8 Ephraim Halevy (1998-2002)

2.2.9 Meir Dagan (2002-2011)

2.2.10 Tamir Pardo (2011—)

Chapter III   The most famous Mossad operations

3.1.   1970-2000: thirty years of foreign activities

3.1.1 Mossad and the Nazi hunt. Eichman and Mengele cases and the role of Wiesenthal

3.1.2 Operation Sphinx (Iraq)

3.1.3 The Jadid case (Syria)

3.1.4 Code name Sword (Munaẓẓamat al-Taḥrīr al-Filasṭīniyya)

3.1.5 The Operation Babylon (Iraq)

3.1.6 Fathi Shkaki (Isalmic Jihad)

3.2   Italy and Mossad

3.2.1 En route for Israel

3.2.2 Terrorism and Mossad

3.2.3 Zwaiter Wail Adel (Al Fatah)

3.2.4 Argo 16 and Moro pact

3.2.5 Vanunu segregation

Chapter IV   The current historical and political situation

4.1   New revolutions in the Middle East

4.2   Tunisia

4.3   Egypt

4.4   Libya

4.5   The Iranian nuclear matter

Conclusions

Appendix   Interviews

Eric Salerno—Italy and Mossad

Director Tamir Pardo

Four female Mossad agents

The former director Dagan

Bibliography

Internet

Chapter I

The Origins of Security

To properly study the foundation of a State, a paradigm of thought or any other organization, we should analyze the historical context which produced the conditions for this phenomenon to happen, in all its variables and components.

The Jewish question cannot certainly be relegated to the 20th century only, but surely this is the century in which cultural, political, economic, social and war questions affecting the people of Israel were the expression of the collective will of creating a State and enhancing its development and its transformation into a key element in global geopolitics.

The Zionist ideology is the theoretical framework within which the idea of founding the State of Israel was born and (initially with the Congress in Basel in 1897) was progressively transformed into real forms of organization.

The national liberation project has not developed without conflicts, because Zionism had to operate on three fronts:

−   within the Jewish world;

−   on the international scene;

−   in Palestine.

This triple point of view has established during the British presence in Palestine since 1917 and has come up to the Declaration of Independence of Israel, on 14 May 1948.

During that period, three main areas of intervention that in large part, over the years, have had a continuous feedback through a skilful and constructive action were identified:

−   to extend the influence of Zionism within the diaspora community, particularly in the United States (conquest of the community tactic);

−   to strengthen and expand its diplomatic activities within the League of Nations (SDN) and the great authorities, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world;

−   finally, to enhance the Jewish community in Palestine from an economic, social, military and even cultural point of view.

These combined actions have been successful thanks to a careful preliminary work: the struggle in favour of the Jewish State led to a decisive victory in 1948 because the battle plan was designed with care, long before Great Britain took possession of Palestine.

It was during the crucial years from 1881 to 1917 that Zionism organized itself internally (in the Jewish world), externally (at international level) and at regional level (in Palestine). Those decades have marked the birth of Zionism¹.

As far as the third front is concerned, namely the settlement in Palestine, the first groups, born after the escape from the pogroms in Russia and since the death of Tsar Alexander II, were mainly farmers. Then they were called Kibbutz and formed the basis of the modern State of Israel, besides having a strong symbolic power.

1.1.   In the beginning was the Kibbutz; from Colonialism to Nationalism and Pioneering

In the beginning the Kibbutz (Hebrew: 43920.png ) reflects a popular feeling; it can be considered as a pioneering phase, that is the starting point that historically corresponds to a first self-identifying sociality.

The associations in the form of kibbutz date back to the early 20th century that is to the founding of Degania (south of Lake Tiberias) in 1909. Being the first milestone of the future sovereign State and conceived that way, the kibbutz was an initiatory reality, in that period steeped in a strong ideology, but mostly based on the mission of an agricultural transformation of the territory and on a bare subsistence agriculture.

The main concepts that underlie the formation of the kibbutz can be summarized as follows:

−   The kibbutz is ideologically conceived as a social and economic structure, based on the principle of equality;

−   This principle is addressed to the community, so that the individual work is destined to the community;

−   The individual work is not monetized, but quantified as the result of work;

−   Decisions are taken by the general assembly;

−   The domestic law concerning the education of children was, until a few years ago, rather strict, as they could not even live with their own families².

Although they would achieve the Jews’ ‘productivization’ through agriculture, [the settlers of the First Aliya" (1882-1903)] were obliged, because of the lack of resources, to place themselves under the financial protection of Baron Edmond de Rothschild, who enclosed them in a hierarchical and paternalistic system; many of them became master builders or farmers employing Arab workers, considered as more docile, efficient and cheap. Insidiously, an economic system of colonial type, in which new immigrants administered agricultural exploitations employing ‘natives’ was implemented [. . .].

Between 1904 and 1914 (second Aliya), the arrival of about forty thousand immigrants from the Tsarist empire, moved by a socialist ideology, worsens the relations with the Arabs. David Ben Gurion, the future founder of the State of Israel, and his friends are in fact determined, unlike their predecessors, to establish in Palestine a completely independent Jewish society. This objective requires the construction of a Jewish independent economic infrastructure. Then they try to promote the exclusive employment of Jewish labour in the colonies"³.

"In 1910 begun the latter form of Kibbutz, intended as a ‘collective community’ where the work is performed solely by Jews. It’s the new paradox of Zionism: since it establishes itself as a national project, it interrupts the relations with the colonial organization that is gradually set up and therefore gives origin to a stronger and stronger hostility by the Arabs, now excluded from a Jewish self-sufficient economy.

It is significant that the Arab political anti-Zionism appears almost simultaneously with the economic separatism [. . .]. Putting themselves voluntarily apart from the Palestinian society, the immigrants of the second Alyah (come into Israel) are really going to lay the foundations of a new nation: the Jewish one"⁴.

The predominance of the colonial or nationalist nature in the various communities will remain an open issue among the Jews settled in Palestine, as well as a difference between the first and second Aliya.

"The first wave of immigration had resulted in no significant change in the life of Jews and Palestinians in the Ottoman Palestine. The second one coincided with the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and its replacement with a modern political system [. . .]. The settlers tried to combine Jewish nationalism and socialism and discussed about that one which should have priority. The debate led to the founding of the first two Palestine Zionist parties and the development of two different types of collective settlement, the most famous of which was the kibbutz. Most Zionists were not interested in agriculture, nor to live in the countryside, and preferred to settle in the cities of Palestine, where collectivism was not so much practiced as a lifestyle but as powerful adhesion to trade unions.

After the First World War, Zionism continued to be a project of colonialism motivated by national sentiments. The settlements of collectivist nature showed this national character. The landowners were inspired by an adapted version of nationalism: they aspired to a large Jewish territory but were inclined to limit the flow of migrants. This attitude descended from the intention to employ Palestinian rather than Jewish labour, because Jewish workers were more aware of their rights"⁵.

There were some bloody clashes between the different parties.

Those who were influenced by the first Aliya, with the help of Baron Rothschild and the National Fund, in 1907 founded a new secular city, different from the idea of Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem as well as from the collectivist experiences of the kibbutz that is the modern Tel Aviv.

Tel Aviv became the centre of the Zionist activity, more than Jerusalem, and being exclusively Jewish allowed the lively Zionist leadership realize the dream of a totally Jewish nation [. . .]. To some extent Tel Aviv was the antithesis of the collectivist and socialist-like way of living, typical of the settlements in the countryside. Its importance came from the fact that many Jews who immigrated before 1905 were more interested in a job than in becoming farmers [. . .]. Those who arrived after 1905 were determined to make the settlement in the countryside the vanguard of Zionism in Palestine. As activists in the socialist movement in Eastern Europe, they aimed at the realization of a both national and collective dream. If too much room had been left for private initiative and individualism, there would have been no place for the kind of colonial plantations realized before 1905 or for the hope to survive. The consequence was a number of settlements of collective nature and mainly Jewish. As a result, a violent struggle against those employing Arab labour started⁶.

Ultimately, the Zionist movement firstly politically (since the first congress of 1897) and then practically, starting from 1904 and the second Aliya, breaks with the colonialist ideology. From here a separate national and economic development begins, as well as the rejection of the Arabic labour and finally the building of kvutzà, moshav and kibbutz⁷.

From a symbolic and ideal point of view, the kibbutz is the starting point of the Jewish nation.

A part of the modern Israeli historiography, that one named new historians, whose leading exponents are Gershon Shafir and Ilan Pappe, critically analyzes another milestone of Zionism and kibbutz as well as a source of legitimacy for the State of Israel: that is pioneering.

Pioneering means putting Zionism into practice. Today, the pioneer’s image is a cliché because it represents a debased people who through their work conquered the right to national existence [. . .]. The first reports have formed the image of pioneers who redeem a ‘wasteland’, that is one of the most powerful Zionist clichés as far as the research of legitimacy is concerned⁸.

Even if the Zionist leadership had planned people to arrive in crowds in Palestine after the first Aliya, clearly it didn’t happen and therefore a restricted group had to arrive in order to prepare the basis of the foreseen migration: "To start a mass immigration, as foreseen by the people, Ber Borochov suggests that a restricted group ‘willing to sacrifice’ had to assume this task. A handful of pioneers—he explains—and not a Jewish proletariat, that has no reason to come here, will prepare the country [. . .]. This way Borochov theorizes the so-called chalutziut (from chalutz: pioneer), i.e. the pioneering spirit of the second Aliya"⁹.

As Borochov, also Menachem Ussishkin sets out similar thoughts in the book entitled Our program (1905): the author "develops the idea of a civil service that young Diaspora Jewish volunteers