Israel's Mossad

Israel's successful deployment last week of its fourth orbiting spy satellite, Ofek 9, is being lauded by the country's intelligence community for delivering better than expected surveillance images of "areas of interest." At the same time, Israel's human intelligence apparatus, as essential as ever to the Jewish state's survival, has come under mounting criticism for the blow-back of two of its recent missions: the presumed liquidation of senior Hamas operative Mahmoud Mabhouh in Dubai, and the Israel navy's unpreparedness in the interdiction of the Gaza-bound Turkish flotilla. Meantime, Lebanon continues to sweep-up reputed Israeli assets spying on Hezbollah. Over the weekend, came reports that the government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was looking to replace Meir Dagan, the head of the Mossad foreign intelligence agency, rather than extend his term after eight years.

David Ben-Gurion established the Israel Secret Intelligence Service (its current name) in 1951 and made it directly accountable to the Prime Minister's Office. The Mossad solidified its international reputation for spycraft when in 1956 it obtained Khrushchev's Secret Speech signaling a repudiation of Stalinism. In 1961 the Mossad alerted French president Charles de Gaulle of a plot against his life thereby crucially strengthening Franco-Israeli relations.

Until recently admiration for Dagan, in the afterglow of the elimination of Hezbollah mastermind Imad Mughniyeh and the purported stalling of Iran's dash for nuclear weapons, outweighed disapproval over his management style. In any event, Dagan is hardly the first Mossad chief to face criticism.

The Mossad has, in fact, historically been a lightning rod for condemnation. Even the decisions of the legendary Isser Harel, the Mossad's longest serving chief, drew -- comparatively mild by today's standards -- UN condemnation after the agency abducted Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires to face justice in Jerusalem. Or take Israel's 1981 attack on Iraq's nuclear reactor, undoubtedly facilitated by Mossad intelligence, which was unanimously condemned by the UN Security Council. The Mossad's capture in London of the Israeli renegade nuclear worker Mordechai Vanunu in 1986 likely provoked a General Assembly resolution denouncing Israel's purported nuclear capacity. The 1988 assassination of Fatah co-founder Khalil Wazir (Abu Jihad) in Tunis as he was laying the groundwork for the first intifada generated a strong denunciation from the UN Security Council. And in 1997, after a spate of suicide bombings in Israel, Binyamin Netanyahu, serving his first term as premier, ordered the Mossad to retaliate against Hamas leader Khalid Mashaal then based in Amman. But the mission to poison Mashaal ended in ignominious failure when two members of the Mossad team were captured. Under intense US pressure Israel was forced to provide Jordan with the antidote and release Hamas prisoners.

Invariably, when the Mossad becomes involved the stakes are already high. Its primary mission today is to block Iran's quest for nuclear weapons and to conduct counter-terror operations. Because of the nature of its work, its successes tend to remain hidden while its failures are often magnified. Speaking at a gathering for current and former Mossad operatives this week, Dagan was still standing and full of praise for his operatives as was President Shimon Peres who remarked that the Mossad’s reputation in the global intelligence community was undiminished.

John Le Carre, for all his moral relativism, may have been on to something when he had the anti-hero of his espionage classic Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy remark that you can tell the soul of a nation from its intelligence service. What can one discern about Israel's soul from the operations of the Mossad? That the Jewish state lives on a practically constant war-footing facing existential danger is obvious. What stands out is that Israel's quest for security is inextricably linked with a yearning to create conditions conducive for a secure peace. It is not incidental that the Mossad's logo contains – not a hawk or eagle – but a dove.

-- June 2010

Gaza's isolation

On Monday, European Foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg heard Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign policy czar, argue that Gaza's "dangerous isolation" had to end. The 27-nation union agreed that Israel's blockade of the Hamas-governed enclave was "unsustainable" and "politically counterproductive."

In the aftermath of the failed May 31st attempt by a Turkish flotilla to defy Israel's maritime quarantine of the Strip, and the ensuing deaths of nine Turkish mercenaries on board, Jerusalem has come under withering pressure to abandon its policy of strictly limiting the type of non-humanitarian commodities allowed into the Strip.

The EU ministers want daily life for the people of Gaza to return to normal and for Israel to relate to Gaza as if Hamas were not ruling the enclave. To that end, the ministers demanded the unconditional opening of crossings for the flow of goods and persons to and from the Strip. No claim of a humanitarian crisis was made, so what appears to be "unsustainable" in Europe's mind is the continued lack of normalcy. The ministers did not relate to the consequences normalization might have on strengthening Hamas's rule. Instead, they obliquely called for "Palestinian reconciliation behind President Mahmoud Abbas."

After Hamas defeated Fatah in the January 2006 Palestinian elections, the Quartet – the EU, US, Russia and the UN – laid down conditions Hamas needed to meet to be accepted by the civilized world: a commitment to non-violence, recognition of Israel, and acceptance of previous Palestinian obligations. Nevertheless, several EU countries have been discreetly talking to Hamas; Russia has been doing so openly, and Hamas claims it has even had indirect contact with the Obama administration.
For Europe, isolating Gaza is "politically counterproductive" in the sense that some EU members presumably prefer the path of least resistance and are willing to accept Hamas as a fait accompli. Some see dealing with Hamas as potentially facilitating Palestinian reconciliation. And some may hope that engaging Hamas might help moderate its policies.

In fact, the path of least resistance is paved with perilous consequences. The surest indicator Hamas has no interest in moderating its opposition on peace is its rejection of the Quartet's conditions in the first place. And as for promoting Palestinian reconciliation, Fatah has made it plain that the international flirtation with Hamas is unhelpful.
Far from the continued isolation of Gaza being "dangerous," insisting on normalcy under current conditions is untenable. First, it would legitimize and solidify Hamas's suzerainty over the Gaza Strip, institutionalizing a destabilizing, intransigent and obsessively anti-Israel Iranian-backed satellite situated a short drive from metropolitan Tel Aviv. Second, it could set the stage for Hamas's complete takeover of a still under-developed Palestinian polity, dislodging the comparatively moderate Fatah government now in the West Bank. (Indeed, this week's visit to Gaza by Arab League chief Amr Moussa was viewed with consternation by Fatah officials in Ramallah.) Third, and massively important to the West, it could undermine the stability of Egypt – just over the Gaza border -- by providing an infusion of energy and succor to Hamas's beleaguered parent-body, the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Gaza blockade is too often portrayed as an arbitrary exercise in Israeli power. History argues otherwise. Ariel Sharon's government, finding no Palestinian peace partner, unilaterally disengaged from Gaza in the summer of 2005 thus presenting the Palestinians with the opportunity to create a Singapore on the Mediterranean. In January 2006, however, Hamas defeated Fatah in Palestinian elections. Within six months, Gaza gunmen raided Israel killing two IDF soldiers and capturing Gilad Schalit. Israel also came under accelerated bombardment from Gaza. All the while, Arab states sought -- and failed-- to heal the Fatah-Hamas rift. Instead, Hamas expelled Fatah from Gaza in an orgy of violence. To halt the onslaught of rockets that had traumatized Sderot, Ehud Olmert was obliged to launch Operation Cast Lead (December 27, 2008-January 18, 2009). That unfairly-maligned military campaign has mostly deterred further Hamas aggression.

If The New York Times is correct that Israel's efforts to weaken Hamas and drive it from power have failed, it is precisely because the international community has worked so diligently to undermine Israel's labors. The Economist complains that Israel's policy of isolation is responsible for the fact that the Islamists are creating a Gaza in their own image. But precipitously opening up Gaza now would more likely spread the Islamist toxin to the West Bank than relative Fatah moderation to Gaza.
With the Quartet and EU apparently poised to buckle, Hamas is already relishing an end to the blockade. Yet officials in Israel maintain that Hamas is in fact on the brink of political and economic collapse; its popularity among Palestinians faltering. According to a Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research poll released Tuesday, if presidential elections were held today, Abbas would defeat Hamas premier Ismail Haniyeh 54 percent to 39%.

In short, contrary to accepted wisdom, the blockade may well be working.
Israelis are aware that Europeans unfairly view them as paranoid – supposedly suffering from a "siege mentality." Yet a devil-may-care approach to ending Gaza's isolation could permanently implant an empowered Hamas to menace not just the Jewish state and moderate Arabs, but to challenge Western interests for years to come.



-- June 2010

Turkey & Israel

Incident foretold - The developing diplomatic and media reaction to Israel's interdiction Monday of a pro-Palestinian flotilla steaming toward the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip speaks volumes: about Israel's deepening isolation in the world and the perverted moral priorities of the international community.

Even before Defense Minister Ehud Barak presented Israel's preliminary report at a 1 p.m. Tel Aviv news conference the censorious deluge had begun. The European Union called for an end to the quarantine of Gaza; Greece cancelled a scheduled visit by the commander of the Israeli Air Force; France unleashed a stinging denunciation; Switzerland called in the Israeli ambassador. A morning anchor on Britain's Sky News demanded an Israeli spokesman tell him why Israel had no respect for international law. Not one satellite news channel in the region carried Barak's English-language briefing. Only a few bothered to broadcast an earlier statement by Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon.

As soon as operational conditions permitted, Jerusalem wasted no time in presenting its case, but what it said was promptly ignored, denigrated or dismissed.
These basic facts were known early on:
• Organizers: The flotilla was instigated by the IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation, an extremist Islamist organization based in Turkey in collaboration with the violence-prone International Solidarity Movement. Their moves were coordinated with Turkey and Hamas.
• Aid was a pretext: Organizers were offered the opportunity to ship any humanitarian supplies to Gaza via the Israeli port of Ashdod; a million tons of humanitarian supplies have entered Gaza from Israel over the last 18 months. They refused.
• Propaganda was the aim: IHH was repeatedly warned that under no circumstances would its convoy be permitted to sail into Gaza. Only when last-minute sea-to-sea warnings to desist were ignored were the vessels boarded by Israeli navy commandos. There was minimal resistance on five of the six boats as the troops, equipped with anti-riot gear, came aboard.
• Violence was premeditated: Instead of encountering "peace activists" the commandos rappelling down from helicopters onto the largest boat – the multi- story ocean liner Mavi Marmara with hundreds of militants aboard -- were set upon by crowds armed with knives, metal bars, and Molotov cocktails. At least two commandos are in hospital with gunshot wounds; another has a fractured skull. The commandos radioed that they feared being overwhelmed and lynched (video) and were given permission to use live fire. These are the circumstances – self-defense – in which 9 pro-Palestinian activists, mostly Turkish nationals, were killed.
Nevertheless, Israel confronts a media intifada in which rage replaces rationality. From the outset, Arab news outlets and their enablers, stoked anti-Israel sentiment with bogus claims disseminated by new media technologies that 20 "activists" had been wantonly slaughtered, and that the Islamic Movement's northern branch chief Raed Salah (an Islamist agitator who carries an Israeli passport and was on board the Mavi Marmara) had been "assassinated." He is alive and well.
Arab leaders in Israel have called for raucous a general strike; Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad has urged Hamas to put aside its differences with Fatah in the common struggle against Israel. Radicalized Turkey, now allied with Iran and Hamas, may have found a pretext for a formal break in diplomatic ties with Israel.
Liberal Europe has trotted out the usual litany of charges. Israel is accused of violating international law, notwithstanding that it is legally entitled to quarantine Hamas which has declared war on Israel. The Jewish state is excoriated for acting on the high-seas, though that's where the unlawful intent of the flotilla could best be preempted. It is criticized for disproportionate use of force, though its soldiers met with lethal opposition. In practice, any steps Israel takes in self-defense are adjudged "disproportionate."
In many ways, Monday's dawn clash off the Israeli coast was an incident foretold. At the UN, U.S. diplomats blocked a completely one-sided formal Security Council resolution condemning Israel that had demanded a Goldstone-like commission of inquiry. Instead, they tiredly acquiesced to a less equivocal censure which calls for an "impartial investigation." Yet this is an administration that prides itself on "never letting a serious crisis go to waste." It is, therefore, not too late for President Barack Obama to lead the civilized word out of its moral stupor; to emphatically declare that the season for shameless scapegoating of the Jewish state is over; to assert that Israel is in the forefront of a struggle against Western civilization by insidious Islamist fanaticism.

June 2010

Israeli Nukes

Speaking before throngs of supporters in a Prague square on April 5, 2009, President Barack Obama declared America's commitment to a world without nuclear weapons, while acknowledging that the goal might not be reached in his lifetime. With this as an apparent impetus, the Arab world has pressed for greater international attention on Israel's nuclear activities. It did so at a Washington conference devoted to keeping nuclear materials out of terrorist hands, and at a review conference on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) at UN headquarters in New York. Under Arab prodding, the permanent members of the UN Security Council, including the US, issued a statement -- in effect aimed at Israel – calling for a nuclear-free Middle East. In this way, irresolute international efforts to block Iran from building nuclear weapons have been further sidetracked to make Israel the issue. The Arabs are also lobbying to put Israel on the agenda when the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) meets next month in Vienna. IAEA chief Yukiya Amano has reportedly invited the world's foreign ministers to offer suggestions on how to bring Israel into the NPT regime. The agency could also decide to appoint a rapporteur whose mission would be to keep Israel's nuclear program in the international spotlight.

What is Israel's nuclear posture? The Jewish state insists it will not be the first to "introduce" nuclear weapons into the region. Its leaders have signaled, however, that the country has a "bomb in the basement" to be used in the last resort should the Third Commonwealth be about to fall. This policy of nuclear ambiguity is now being frontally challenged.

Israeli doves historically argued that Israel's presumed nuclear capacity had already forced the Arabs to come to terms with the permanence of the Jewish state; it also obviated the need for strategic territorial depth, making a withdrawal to roughly the 1967 boundaries a viable option. Today, paradoxically, Israel is being pressed to go ahead with the withdrawal, abjure nuclear deterrence, and reconcile to the fact that even its most moderate Arab interlocutors do not accept the legitimacy a Jewish state.

Is it, nevertheless, time to jettison nuclear ambiguity? Some strategists including former Knesset member Uzi Even believe ambiguity has runs its course and that IAEA inspections of the Dimona reactor would -- at this point -- do no harm to Israeli security. The more prevalent view is that with Iran on the cusp of a bomb, an abrupt, forced, abandonment of nuclear ambiguity could make deterrence less credible and the region less stable. Emily Landau, for instance, argues that abandoning ambiguity in the present environment would intensify pressure to disarm entirely.

Yet why not discard the nuclear option altogether? Because Israel continues to face existential threats. Israeli policymakers would doubtlessly welcome seeing the region transformed into a zone free of all WMDs – including chemical and biological arms – and also seeing conventional forces considerably reduced. This goal, however, would need to be achieved in the context of a freely arrived at and comprehensive peace settlement. The first imperative toward creating an environment conducive to a peaceful tolerant Middle East is removing the risk that the dark, bellicose and fanatical leaders of Iran will wield atomic weapons.

The immediate question is: How vigorously are civilized countries prepared to defend the arms-reduction and non-proliferation agenda from those who would cynically manipulate the cause of disarmament in pursuit of their myopic vendetta against Israel?

--May 2010