This is a very comprehensive and
exciting history of secret Israeli spying, assassination, and special forces
missions. Anybody who likes James Bond will find this book just as interesting
and for me, even better because it’s the real thing. It’s also a book about the
broader conflict between Israel and its enemies. One big theme in this book is
how violence begets violence. It seems like a constant cycle where an Arab
attack provokes an Israeli response or an Israeli attack provokes an Arab
response. The situations of drawdown and cooling seem less often the result of
talking and more so that one side has gotten a solid victory, giving it the
confidence to bargain with the losing side, which is desperate for reprieve. There
were also some incredibly clever and interesting spy operations in this book.
One involved poisoning a man’s toothpaste so that he would slowly rub the
poison into his gums and mouth over the course of months. Another was to get
into the PLO’s furniture supplier to plant listening devices in a lamp and a
chair.
When the
call was made for Jews to return to Israel, Herzl’s call for Zionism was not
very successful in Western Europe, where Jews were better integrated and
prosperous. Rather, it had a bigger impact on poor and working-class Jews in
Eastern Europe, who were the victims of many pogroms. The first Israeli
military organizations were illegal terrorist groups, beginning with Bar Giora,
which turned into HaShomer (The Guardian), and into Haganah (Defense). There
was also the Irgun, led by future Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who opposed
the moderate political leader David Ben-Gurion. They eventually formed an
agreement and decided to work together. Irgun members who did not want to join
forces split off to become Lehi, also known as the Stern Gang. Irgun was famous
for the bombing of the King David Hotel, in which (despite warning the hotel
staff in advance) 91 people were killed and 45 were wounded. By 1948, Irgun was
completely brought under the control of the new Israeli state and these organizations
combined to form the Israeli Defense Forces (the army), Mossad (the foreign
spies), and Shin Bet (the FBI equivalent).
The
Palestinian opposition to the new Jewish state was initially nonexistent. Rather,
it was Arab opposition, as there was not much Palestinian identity and
certainly no call for an independent Palestine except for by the United Nations.
While Israel was attacked by all its neighbors early on, the first organization
of Palestinians would not be founded until October 10, 1959. Yasser Arafat and
Abu Jihad founded Fatah, based on the principles that “armed struggle is the
only way to liberate Palestine,” and that “Claims of historical or religious
ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history… Nor do Jews
constitute a single nation with an identity of its own.”
The
Israeli invasions of Lebanon in the 70’s and 80’s that led to an occupation of
southern Lebanon until 2000 and another war in 2006 seem like Israel’s greatest
failure. It seems like Ariel Sharon lied to and manipulated Menachem Begin
while they were Defense Minister and Prime Minister, respectively. The failure
sent Begin into a shock and Sharon insisted on occupying Beirut. Lebanon had a
huge demoralizing influence on Israelis and it also led to a culture of
extrajudicial killings in the military and a general disdain for the rule of
law. Israeli allies, the Christian “Phalange” were brutal, murdering hundreds,
if not thousands of Palestinian civilian refugees in a refugee camp. It seems
that Israel did not actively support the massacre, but certainly knew about it
and did nothing to stop it. Begin went into a severe depression during the war and
was basically unable to execute his role as Prime Minister. Instead of
informing the people, the cabinet allowed Sharon to run things de facto in
Begin’s name, unconstitutionally.
Israel has a strong tradition of
dissent in its armed forces. To kill three senior PLO officials, objected some
Israeli spies, was not their job- they argued that they did not want to become
assassins. They were allowed to bring these arguments to the Chief of Staff of
the Army Elazar, who convinced them otherwise. In another case, when Sharon
desperately wanted to assassinate Yasser Arafat, he ordered Israeli fighters to
shoot down civilian aircraft that would have led to the deaths of innocents,
not one, not twice, but five times. All five times people down the chain of
command found a way to resist or directly refused the order. They have the
right to do so based on a 1956 Israeli Supreme Court ruling in which Judge
Benjamin Halevy wrote that, “the distinguishing mark of a manifestly illegal
order is that above such an order should fly, like a black flag, a warning saying:
‘Prohibited!’ Not merely formally illegal, not covered up or partially covered…
but an illegality that stabs the eye and infuriates the heart…” While this
definitely leaves room for interpretation, it also provides the justification
for refusing illegal orders.
Israel didn’t
see the First Intifada coming. Shin Bet, Mossad, and the IDF were so focused on
pinpoint assassinations of PLO leaders that they forgot about the “swelling
rage” of the Palestinians, who, until the Intifada, had not been a major force
against Israel. During the First and Second Intifadas, Hamas would adopt a
tactic from Hezbollah, who had gotten it from Iran. The suicide bombing. The idea
of suicide bombing as a type of martyrdom and not suicide was created by the
Ayatollah Khomeini, who “explained to hist supporters that the highest sanction
in the hands of the states was the power to execute its citizens. Take this
sanction away, by changing death to desired reward, and the state becomes
powerless.” It’s a huge advantage to positively want to die and that made it
very, very difficult for Israel to fight back. The Ayatollah and the Iranian
Revolution also had a huge influence on the rest of the Muslim world by
aggressively moving Islam back into the public sphere. In Palestine and across
the Middle East, preachers became more and more political throughout the 80s
and 90s, eventually resulting in radical Islamic terrorism, which seems to be a
stronger force than Arab Nationalism was, or at least has more staying power. I
think that it’s important to understand Hamas and Fatah in this context. Fatah
was born out of Arab Nationalism in 1959 while Hamas was born out of Radical
Islamism (I know there’s a lot of butchering of specific terms going on here
but let me off the hook idk what to call it) in 1987.
Israel made
a huge mistake when they deported Hamas leaders to Lebanon in 1989. This only
led to the establishment of ties and an alliance between Hezbollah (supported
by Iran) and Hamas. It was the best thing that ever happened to them. When the 400
Hamas leaders returned, they were stronger than ever. In 1993, the
aforementioned adoption of suicide bombing would come about, and in a dramatic
change, Hamas seemed to worship death and prefer it to surviving. This made
them nearly invincible, since killing them only made them happier. The Israelis
finally found the answer by creating the Joint War Room (JWR), which combined
all intelligence into one central command. While before, enemies had been geographically
divided, now they were primarily within the occupied territories and
information needed to be shared more within the Israeli forces, rather than
dealt with by a smaller, local command.
Lately I
feel pessimistic about peace between Palestinians and Israelis. It seems like
pauses in the fighting only happen when one side defeats the other (temporarily)
and attempts at dialogue are seen as signs of weakness. For example, Bergman writes
of the Israeli retreat from Lebanon that, “there were many Palestinians who saw
the retreat from Lebanon as proof that guerrilla tactics and terrorism could
defeat the strongest military and intelligence forces in the Middle East, and
they began contemplating the possibility of applying these methods to their own
area. While the First Intifada ended with peace negotiations, they then failed.
The Second Intifada didn’t end with peace, but with the deaths of the leaders
of Hamas and Fatah (At least Yassin, of Hamas, being killed by Israel) and Israeli
withdrawal and closing of the Gaza Strip. Hamas later gained control of Gaza
due to massive assistance from Iran. It is also disturbing to see how over time
the Israelis continue to skirt their own rules and seem to have gotten worse
about it in the last several decades. The occupations of Lebanon and Palestine have
caused serious problems in the defense establishment due to their legal
vagueness and grey area. The fundamental takeaway I got was that tactical
successes are no substitute for strategic successes. A strong military cannot
do what strong diplomacy can and Israel has suffered from a very weak
diplomatic corps. With everything based in the armed forces, they can win lots
of battles, but they will not win the war.
Miscellaneous Facts:
- I saw the name Folke Bernadotte in this book and recognized the last name. Bernadotte had been one of Napoleon’s chief marshals during those wars and so I looked it up. As I remembered, the older Bernadotte had become the King of Sweden and, as it would happen, his descendant, mentioned in this book, would become an attempted peacemaker in Palestine and be successfully assassinated by the Stern Gang.
- Until the 1960s, it was illegal to mention the existence of Shin Bet in public on the orders of Ben-Gurion.
- Israel at one point tried to copy the Soviet Union and raise orphans to be spies as they had no familial attachments, but soon found it immoral when they did not want to force the young man they’d recruited to become a spy when he really just wanted a “girlfriend, a civilian career, and a good salary.”
- The Labor Party (Avodah) ruled Israel from 1948-77 until it was defeated by the right-wing Likud, led by Menachem Begin. Likud currently runs Israel under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu.
- The biggest financial blow in PLO history came when Arafat himself supported the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, causing all the Arab states to cut off aid to the PLO.
- Germany would not permit the Israelis into the country to handle the 1972 Munich hostage crisis that would end in the deaths of all Israeli hostages. They only allowed senior Israeli officials to observe.
- This isn’t really a fact, but I came away very impressed by Hezbollah’s toughness. They beat Israel in two wars and are still around in Lebanon today. They seem like the most durable enemy of Israel.
- I learned about a horrific terrorist attack perpetrated by American Jew, Baruch Goldstein, who shot over a hundred Muslim worshippers at the Cave of the Patriarchs in 1994, killing 29.
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