The Israeli Secret Services and the Struggle Against Terrorism

by Ami Pedahzur

  17 Aluf Ben, “Israel Signed on UN Convention Against Nuclear Terror,” Haaretz, December 12, 2006; Shlomo Shapiro, “The Communication of Mutual Security: Frameworks for European-Mediterranean Intelligence Sharing,” www.nato.int/acad/fellow/99—01/shpiro.pdf (accessed February 21, 2008); Michael Herman, “Sharing Secrets,” World Today 57, no. 12 (December 2001): 10; Stéphane Lefebvre, “The Difficulties and Dilemmas of International Intelligence Cooperation,” International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 16, no. 4 (October—December 2003): 527—542; Richard J. Aldrich, “Transatlantic Intel-4 ligence and Security Cooperation,” International J. Affairs 80, no. 4 ( July 2004): 731—753; Shlomo Shapiro, “Intelligence Services and Political Transformation in the Middle East,” International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 17, no. 4 (December 2004): 575—600; Derek S. Reveron, “Old Allies, New Friends: Intelligence-Sharing in the War on Terror,” Orbis 50, no. 3 (Summer 2006): 453—468.

  18 Ofer Shelah and Yoav Limor, Captives of Lebanon (Tel Aviv: Miskal, 2007), 260; “06 September 2007 Airstrike,” Global Security Web site, www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/070906-airstrike.htm (accessed February 21, 2008); Uzi Mahnaimi, Sarah Baxter and Michael Sheridan, “Snatched: Israeli Commandos ‘Nuclear’ Raid,” Sunday Times, September 23, 2007; David Golani, “Israeli Army Confirms Air Strike Over Syrian Nuclear Facilities in September 2007,” Israel Times, October 2, 2007; Uzi Mahnaimi, Sarah Baxter, and Michael Sheridan, “Israelis ‘Blew Apart Syrian Nuclear Cache,’” Sunday Times, September 16, 2007; Barry Rubin, “The Triumph of the ‘Old Middle East,’” Middle East Review of International Affairs, http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/2002/issue2/jv6n2a6.html (accessed February 21, 2008); Reuven Paz, “Middle East Islamism in the European Arena,” Middle East Review of International Affairs, http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/2002/issue3/paz.pdf (accessed February 21, 2008); Daniel Benjamin, “Two Years After 9/11: A Balance Sheet,” United States Institute of Peace, www.usip.org/pubs/specialreports/sr111.pdf (accessed February 21, 2008).

  GLOSSARY

  ABU IYAD (Salah Khalaf) (1934—1991). One of the five founders of the Fatah and for many years the organization internal security chief. He was third in the organization hierarchy.

  ABU NIDAL (Sabri al-Banna) (1937—2002). Palestinian nationalist. Abu Nidal joined the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1957 and left it in 1974 to establish Al Fatah, also called the Abu Nidal Organization, through which he participated in terrorist operations against Israel during the late 1970s and early 1980s. He was assassinated in Beirut in 2002, at the orders, some have speculated, of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

  AIR SQUADRON 200. Israeli Air Force fleet of five types of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). These are the Searcher, a visual-intelligence UAV in service from 1992; Searcher 2, also used for guiding artillery; Skylark, used mainly in order to detect infiltration into Israel from the Mediterranean Sea; Hermes 450, an advanced UAV; and Heron, the most advanced UAV in service.

  AL-AQSA INTIFADA (Second Intifada). The Al-Aqsa intifada is the name given by Palestinians to the violent series of events that erupted in the wake of Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount on September 28, 2000. It was distinguished mainly by suicide attacks against urban centers in Israel and guerrilla warfare against Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in the occupied territories and lasted until 2005.

  AL-FATAH. Palestinian nationalist movement and terrorist group established in Cairo in 1957. The five students who created the Fatah were Yasser Arafat, Khalil Al-Wazir (Abu-Jihad), Salaha Khalaf (Abu-Iyad), Khalid Al-Hassan, and Farouq Kaddoumi. They were inspired by Egyptian President Jamal Abdel Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal and by the FLN underground’s struggle for Algeria’s independence. The leader of the organization, Arafat, became the symbol of the Palestinian struggle against Israel, and the organization became the largest and most important of all Palestinian terrorist groups.

  AL-SAIQA. Terrorist group. Al-Saiqa, which operated under Syrian sponsorship, was established in 1966. It gradually withered away after its leader, Zuheir Muhsein, was killed in 1979.

  AMAL. Shiite organization and party, established formally in 1974. During the civil war in Lebanon Amal fought against Christian forces and later engaged in battles against Palestinian forces. Shortly after the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon, the organization started to initiate attacks against the IDF. Today Amal is one of the two political movements in Lebanon representing the Shiite population.

  AMAN . IDF Intelligence Branch, one of the three main Israeli intelligence organizations. Aman is the largest and most resource-intensive of the intelligence organizations in Israel. The most highly advanced eavesdropping and observation equipment are at its disposal. With these devices, it is able to maintain a consistent and close watch of military maneuvering and deployment, listen in on encrypted state radio frequencies, and accordingly conduct evaluations of enemy intentions.

  ARAB LIBERATION FRONT. Palestinian terrorist organization established by the Iraqi Baath regime in opposition to the pro-Syrian Al-Saiqa organization. The Arab Liberation Front was headed by Dr. Abed al-Wahab al-Killani; its members were mainly from Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon, and only a few were Palestinians.

  ARAFAT, YASSER (1929—2004). Palestinian leader. Born in Cairo to Palestinian parents, he founded the first Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) cell and soon become the leader and symbol of the Palestinian struggle against Israel. In 1993, he signed the Oslo Accords and become the chairman of the Palestinian National Authority.

  ARENS, MOISHE (b. 1925). Israeli politician affiliated with the right-wing Likud Party. Arens served as a member of the Knesset in 1973—1992 and 1999—2003 and was minister of defense in 1983—1984, 1990—1992, and 1999.

  ARMY OF ISLAM. Militia offshoot of Hamas. The group is based in the Gaza Strip and consists mainly of members of the Darmush clan. The Army of Islam became known in June 2006 after some of its members were involved in the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit.

  ASHURA. Shiite holiday held in remembrance of the military defeat and massacre of Hussein Bin Ali and Hassan Ibn Ali, sons of Ali and grandsons of the Prophet Muhammad, in Karbala by the sons of Muawiyah. During the course of the holiday, Shiite Moslems physically beat themselves in commemoration of the battle.

  AVIGUR, SHAUL (1899—1979). Israeli political leader. Born in Poland, Avigur immigrated to Israel when he was twelve years old. He became a commander in the Haganah and was one of the founders of its intelligence branch, called Shai.

  AYALON, AMI (b. 1945). Commander of the Israel Navy (1992—1995) and the head of the GSS (1996—2000). After his retirement from the military, he joined the Labor Party.

  BAATH. Political movement popular in the Arab world during the 1960s and 1970s. It adheres to an ideology that blends socialist elements with secular and pan-Arabic nationalist elements. A Baathist party ruled in Iraq until 2003, and another is still in power in Syria.

  BARAK, EHUD (b. 1942). Former chief commander of Sayeret Matkal (1971—1973), IDF chief of staff, and prime minister (1999—2001).

  BEERI, ISSER (1901—1958). Head of the Shai, appointed in 1948 after the establishment of the IDF. He was deposed in 1949 after it was discovered that he had ordered the killing of an Arab informant in cold blood.

  BEN GAL, AVIGDOR (Yanush) (b. 1936). Commander of the IDF Northern Command (1977—1981).

  BLACK SEPTEMBER. Offshoot of Fatah, established in the early 1970s. It was responsible for several high-profile terrorist actions against Israeli targets, such as the attack on the Israeli delegation in the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich.

  DAGAN, MEIR (b. 1945). Former IDF general and current head of Mossad.

  DAR, AVRAHAM (b. 1919). Mossad operative who was sent to Egypt in 1951 in order to establish a network of informants based on the local Jewish community. The network was exposed in July 1954 after activists were caught while attempting to plant a bomb in a movie theater in Alexandria.


  DAYAN, MOSHE (1915—1981). IDF chief of staff (1953—1958) and minister of defense (1967—1973). After ending his military career, he joined the Labor Party.

  DAYAN, UZI (b. 1948). Commander of Sayeret Matkal (1979—1982) and IDF deputy chief of staff (1998—1999).

  DEMOCRATIC FRONT FOR THE LIBERATION OF PALESTINE (DFLP). Marxist nationalist organization established in 1969 by Nayef Hawatmeh after he and some of his comrades seceded from the PFLP.

  DICHTER, AVI (b. 1952), Head of the GSS (2000—2005). After his retirement, he he joined the Kadima Party and currently serves as Israel’s minister of internal security.

  DUVDEVAN. Mistaarvim unit of the IDF Central Command, originally established in 1986 as a counterterrorist force on the West Bank. During its existence the unit received much praise, but it was also heavily criticized after a number of its soldiers were killed in various accidents.

  EGOZ. IDF unit formed in 1995, specializing in counterguerilla warfare and microwarfare. The different terrain conditions in Lebanon and the nature of the operations carried out by Hezbollah—which, unlike Palestinian organizations, principally attacked military targets while also displaying formidable guerilla skills—dictated the type of training the unit’s soldiers received. Egoz soldiers were principally instructed in camouflage, setting up ambushes, and microwarfare. After the IDF withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000, the goals of Egoz were accordingly altered and the unit was amalgamated into the IDF counterterrorism deployment in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

  EITAN, RAFAEL (1929—2004). IDF chief of staff (1978—1983). After retiring, he established the right-wing Tzomet Party.

  EITAN, RAFI (b. 1926). One of the founders of the Israeli intelligence community. He served in Aman, the GSS, and Mossad. In the latter he served as chief of the Operations Division. He was appointed head of Lakam in 1981 and deposed from his position in 1985 after his role in the Jonathan Pollard affair was discovered. In 2006 he was elected to the Knesset as the head of the Pensioner Party; currently he serves as the minister of pensioner affairs.

  FATAHLAND. Israeli slang for southern Lebanon.

  FIELD INTELLIGENCE CORPS. Regional battalions in the Israeli Defense Forces whose function is to collect tactical intelligence. It also includes radar units.

  FIRST INTIFADA. Intifada, meaning “shaking off dirt” or “uprising” in Arabic, is the name given by Palestinians to the series of violent events that broke out in December 1987 and lasted until 1993, when the Oslo Accords were signed. This intifada was initially marked by Palestinian popular protests, which included stone throwing, mass demonstrations and rallies, and roadblocks, but quickly escalated into terrorism and guerrilla warfare.

  FIRST LEBANON WAR. Military confrontation between Israel and Palestinian terrorist organizations, as well as Syria, that began on June 4, 1982, with the IDF invasion of southern Lebanon. During the war, Israeli forces reached the edge of Beirut, and Palestinian terrorist groups were forced to leave Lebanon. The war ended in June 1985 after the IDF withdrew and redeployed in the Security Zone.

  GEMAYEL, BASHIR (1947—1982). Prominent Lebanese Maronite Christian leader in the late 1970s and early 1980s. On August 1982 was appointed as the president of Lebanon with the backing of Israel, but he was assassinated just a few weeks afterward.

  GENERAL STAFF NEGOTIATING TEAM. IDF unit responsible for all negotiations in hostage-taking situations. The unit is headed by an officer at the rank of lieutenant general and is composed mainly of civilian specialists in psychology, negotiations, and Arab affairs.

  GILLON, CARMI (b. 1950). Israeli intelligence officer appointed to head the GSS in March 1995. He resigned in February 1996 after the Shamgar Commission, which was appointed to inquire into the circumstances that led to the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, found Gillon partly responsible for the failure in securing him.

  GSS. See Shabak.

  GUR, MORDECHAI “MOTTA” (1930—1995). IDF chief of staff (1974—1978). He was a minister and member of the Knesset, representing the Labor Party.

  GURIEL, BORIS (1903—1983). Head of the Political Department of the Haganah and of the Political Department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was removed from office in 1951 after the creation of Mossad.

  HABASH, GEORGE (1925—2008). Founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Habash studied medicine in Beirut from 1944 to 1951. In the early 1950s he was active in the Youth of Vengeance, a group that advocated violent struggle against Israel according to the pan-Arabist Nasserite ideology. After the war of 1967, he turned leftward in his political thinking, established the PFLP in December 1967, and became its secretary-general.

  HAGANAH. The largest and most central military Jewish organization in Palestine at the time of the British Mandate (1917—1948), Haganah (“the Defense”) was established in 1920 as a nationwide organization to provide protection for the Jewish population.

  HAMAS. Palestinian movement and terrorist group established formally in 1987. Hamas adheres to a combination of radical Islamist and nationalistic ideologies. In the mid-1990s, it was the first Palestinian group to use suicide attacks against Israeli targets. Since 2006, it has formed the majority party of the Palestinian National Authority.

  HAMULA. In Arabic societies, an expanded family or clan consisting of hundreds or several thousands of members. For hundreds of years, it has been the single most important Palestinian social-political unit. Ottoman Empire rulers (who governed in Palestine until 1917), British Mandate officials, and prominent figures of the Jewish Yishuv all tried to identify hamula leaders and approach them when problems arose. Negotiation with these leaders promised immediate results.

  HANDLERS. The vanguard of the human intelligence—gathering arm of the GSS. Handlers are responsible for activating collaborators and collecting real-time information in a particular geographical sector.

  HAREL, ISSER (1912—2003). Israeli intelligence officer. Harel joined the Shai in 1944 and was later appointed head of the organization’s Internal Department. In 1948 he was appointed head of the Shin Bet, and in 1952 he became head of Mossad. For nine years (1953—1962) he was the commissioner (high commander) of the Israeli intelligence community.

  HARMELIN, YOSSEF (1922—1994). Head of the GSS (1964—1974, 1986—1988).

  HEFETZ, ASSAF (b. 1944). Chief of the Israeli police (1994—1997). Hejoined the Border Police in 1975 and afterward was appointed chief of the Yamam.

  HERZOG, CHAIM (1918—1997). Sixth president of the State of Israel. He was a former IDF general, head of Aman (1962—1965) and Israeli ambassador to the UN (1975—1979).

  HOFI, YITZHAK (b. 1927). Former IDF general and head of Mossad (1974—1982). HUMINT. Human intelligence, that is, intelligence based on human sources, as distinct from visual and signal intelligence. Interrogators and field agents are essential HUMINT workers.

  HUSSEINI, HAJ AMIN AL- (1895—1974). Leader of the Palestinian National Movement until 1949. In 1921, he was appointed mufti of Jerusalem, the city’s highest-ranking religious ruler, and in 1922 he became the head of the Muslim High Council of Palestine, which administered Muslim life in Palestine. He rejected any political compromise with the Jewish community.

  IRANIAN REVOLUTIONARY GUARD . Special military forces established in Iran in 1979 to protect and expand the foundations of the Islamic Revolution. They are subordinated to the Iranian Defense Ministry, and their function is also to protect the regime and its leaders from any type of threat.

  KAHAN COMMISSION. Investigative body established to study the massacre at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in 1982. Yitzhak Kahan, the president of the Israeli Supreme Court, headed the commission. One of its conclusions was that Ariel Sharon was no longer suitable to be Israel’s defense minister because he refused to recognize the danger of a potential massacre of Palestinians at the hands of Lebanese Maronite Christians.

  KHAMENEI, ALI (b. 1939). President of Iran (1982—1989) and Iran’s supreme religious leader, widely recognized as
one of the most prolific Islamic religious scholars.

  KIDON. Operational unit of Mossad responsible for the organization’s assassination operations (mostly of leaders of Palestinian terrorist groups), among other tasks. Each one of the unit’s teams consists of between twelve and sixteen members, only two of whom are in charge of carrying out the elimination itself. The rest of the team includes security people whose role is to ensure the assassin’s getaway and safety after completing his or her assignment, logistics operatives who are responsible for contact with the outside world (renting cars and hotel rooms or preparing a hideout apartment, for example), and a surveillance cell, which generally consists of the greatest number of operatives. The last are responsible for locating the assassination target, monitoring his or her daily routine, and establishing the place and time most opportune for carrying out the mission.

  LEBANESE LIAISON UNIT. IDF unit responsible for providing military assistance to the South Lebanon Army and civilian aid to the population of southern Lebanon.

  LEVINE, AMIRAM (b. 1946). Former commander of Sayeret Matkal and the IDF Northern Command (1994—1998). Between 1998 and 2001, he served as the deputy head of Mossad.

  MAGNA CARTA. Israeli interagency agreement intended to solve the problem of duplication in the field of intelligence gathering on Palestinians and in Lebanon.