by Ami Pedahzur
In the meantime, Fatah did not remain leader of the Palestinian struggle for long. Shortly after its establishment, competing organizations arrived on the scene, which would affect the Palestinian struggle for decades to come. In January 1964, under Egyptian patronage, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) came into being, headed by Ahmad Shukeiri. Tension between Fatah and the PLO began to surface immediately thereafter. It quieted down only four years later, when Yasser Arafat and his Fatah supporters took control of the PLO and converted it into an umbrella organization for most Palestinian groups that emerged at that time.4 Some of these groups integrated nationalist ideology with radical left-wing convictions, such as the George Habash—led People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and Nayef Hawatmeh’s Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), while countries that sought to increase their influence in the Palestinian arena sponsored other groups, such as the Arab Liberation Front, established by Iraq in 1969, and the Palestinian Liberation Front, which was founded in 1977 and influenced by both Syria and Iraq.
THE PLO AND THE FIRST ISRAELI SEMIDEFENSIVE MODEL
On March 19, 1968, an Israeli school bus, laden with students from the Herzliya Hebrew High School, was the target of a terrorist attack. The bus activated a mine near Bet-Ora. Two children were killed, and twenty-eight suffered wounds. In response, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan ordered the IDF to retaliate. On March 21, 1968, forces from the elite Paratroopers Sayeret (Reconnaissance) unit and the Arava Brigade raided Fatah’s main base, located near the Jordanian town of Karameh, about 2.5 miles east of the border. During the battle, which lasted more than ten hours, the two thousand Palestinian fighters who manned the base returned fire and exacted heavy casualties from the Israeli infantry and armored forces. The Karameh battle became a major milestone in the Palestinian national memory, particularly because Arafat successfully constructed a heroic myth according to which a small Palestinian force was able to repel the Israeli army where Arab armies had failed to do so one year earlier. This myth, which took hold among Palestinian refugees, resulted in a new wave of volunteers that swelled the Fatah ranks.5 The outcome of the battle surprised both the Israeli public and policymakers.
Encouraged by their success, the Palestinians intensified their activities on the Israeli-Jordanian border. Between 1968 and 1970, more than 140 attacks were initiated; small cells that crossed the border, ambushed IDF forces, or infiltrated Jewish settlements, and perpetrated gunfire attacks or planted explosives were responsible for most of them. The Israeli retort was a mixture of retaliatory attacks inside Jordan and the implementation of a defensive model inside Israeli territory. The latter consisted of frequent patrols along the Jordanian border and the mounting of observation posts to prevent terrorists from penetrating the West Bank. The IDF also set up a new unit whose function was to take action against cells that succeeded in crossing the border. When the trackers from this unit (known as Unit 299) detected the terrorist cell, special infantry troops with vehicles and helicopters gave pursuit. When there was resistance, the terrorists were killed.6
Fears of the growing power of Palestinian militias and suspicion that the Palestinians were setting up a state within a state led the Jordanian government to engage in secret joint efforts with Israel, and toward the end of the 1960s Jordanian officials conducted mass arrests of PLO activists. The arrests were made possible to a large extent by the detailed lists provided to them by the Israeli intelligence community. In exchange, the Jordanians imparted to Israel information on Fatah activists in the West Bank. Since the two countries did not have diplomatic relations at the time, intermediaries conducted the trade—at first MI6, and then the CIA.7
The Palestinians’ attempt to eliminate King Hussein on September 1, 1970, and the hijacking of three passenger jets and their forced landing at the Zarqa Airport against his explicit orders six days later, ultimately led the king to respond with great force. Two weeks later, King Hussein dispatched his army on a widespread campaign against Palestinian fighters who had gained control of Amman’s streets. Jordanian Legion soldiers raided Fatah bases and Palestinian refugee camps. Two and a half weeks after the fighting began, Syrian ground forces, accompanied by armored vehicles, crossed Jordan’s northern border. Syria’s goal was to force an immediate halt to the fighting against the Palestinians; however, Israel hastened to the aid of its eastern neighbor, sending fighter jets on warning flights over the presidential palace in Damascus. These signaled to Syrian President Hafez al-Assad that the time had come to withdraw his forces. By the end of that month, which the Palestinians called “Black September,” more than three thousand Palestinian fighters had been killed and more than ten thousand had been wounded. Those who had survived unscathed crossed the border into Syria and continued from there into Lebanon, where they eventually rehabilitated their military infrastructure. The Palestinian organizations did not forgive the Jordanians. Not long after these events, the Fatah formed the unofficial terrorist arm Black September. The head of the new group was Ali Hassan Salameh, who directed its members to engage in an assassination campaign against prominent Jordanian politicians. The first victim was Jordanian Prime Minister Wasfi Tel, who was killed on November 28, 1971. However, the group did not target Jordan for long. In early 1972, it turned its sights on Israeli targets.8
SHARON AND RIMON
Meanwhile, the Gaza Strip became another major source of concern. In the first three years after the 1967 war, local Palestinians initiated more than sixty terrorist attacks there. This prompted Ariel Sharon, who had been promoted to general and was now in charge of the IDF Southern Command, to propose the idea of setting up local counterterrorism units. Members of these units would integrate their familiarity with the area with their skills in close-range combat. Despite the questionable reputation gained by his earlier venture with Unit 101, Sharon still enjoyed the standing of a leading military expert in counterterrorism and subsequently received approval for his initiative.
In 1970, he gave the order to form the Rimon Unit, with Captain Meir Dagan as commander. (Thirty-five years later, Sharon—who by then was prime minister—appointed the same Dagan to head Mossad.) The Rimon Unit adopted the same histaaravut technique that was developed by the Palmach. The soldiers of this unit made use of intelligence that arrived from GSS informant networks in the Gaza Strip, going undercover as fishermen, taxi drivers, and even Palestinian women. In this way, they succeeded in gaining relative freedom of movement in the Gaza Strip and carried out detentions and eliminations of terrorism suspects. In several cases, they disguised themselves as members of Palestinian cells and roamed the streets carrying AK-47s, the automatic rifles most favored by Palestinian fighters. The principal obstacle for the Rimon soldiers had to do with the Arabic language. Most of them did not have a good command of the language, and they were therefore attached to units of Druze and Bedouin soldiers or even Palestinian combatants who were formerly active in the ranks of Fatah. The presence of these agents and their ability to manage a conversation with Gazan residents reduced the locals’ fear of the unfamiliar fighters.
In the year 1972, the unit ceased its operations because the Southern Command headquarters concluded that the terrorist infrastructure in the Gaza Strip had been effectively disabled. However the influence of the Rimon Unit’s operations on the declining intensity of terrorism coming from Gaza was minor. As David Maimon, the military governor of the Gaza Strip at that time, admitted, the operations of the regular army units and the reconstruction and renovation of the civil infrastructure led to the gradual decline of Palestinian terrorism originating in the Gaza Strip.9
HIJACKINGS AND ISRAELI RESPONSES
While the GSS and the IDF focused on Israeli Palestinian citizens and residents of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Mossad was contending with a much more complex challenge—gathering intelligence in areas outside of Israel’s control. Western Europe and the Arab countries were among the organization’s main arenas of operation,
especially following the expulsion of the PLO headquarters from Jordan.
In the late 1960s, the various Palestinian groups realized the potential of the psychological impact of a relatively new medium—television. The Palestinian organization understood the great effect of a well-designed attack and how it was able to attract a mass audience all over the world while not necessarily requiring a high number of victims. Via this medium, they could distribute their political agenda quite effectively. Their attacks made use of what scholars termed the tools of a “theater of terror.” While the strategic impact of such attacks was minor, its influence on the public and policymakers was immense.
The most prominent manifestation of this theater of terror was the wave of airplane hijackings, successful and attempted, from 1968 to 1976, sixteen of them in all. This method of operation, which was adopted by terrorists throughout the world, deeply affected Israel’s policy in its struggle with terrorism. The first hijacking operation occurred on April 23, 1968. Three members of the PFLP hijacked a Boeing 707 belonging to El Al, Israel’s national airline, on its return from Rome to Lod Airport. On board were thirty-eight passengers and ten crewmembers. A few hours after the hijacking, the plane landed in Algiers. After four days of negotiations, the hostages were freed. In exchange, Israel released sixteen Palestinian prisoners.
The Palestinians realized that they had found an effective way to get the better of the Israeli government. From 1968 to 1976, Palestinian groups initiated thirty-three attacks against aviation targets, utilizing two methods: the first hijacking airplanes, and the second attacking El Al ground offices. During this period offices were attacked in the international airports of Athens, Brussels, Istanbul, and Rome. Members of Palestinian groups infiltrated these relatively unguarded airports and used grenades and gunfire to attack El Al personnel and passengers.
Israel’s immediate response was the introduction of armed sky marshals on board all El Al flights. They were trained by the GSS and disguised as regular passengers. This tactic proved quite effective. In February 1969, five PFLP members tried to take control of an El Al flight en route from Zurich to Tel Aviv. Mordechai Rechamim, a sky marshal who was stationed on the plane, overpowered them. Almost the same scenario occurred in September 1970, when security personnel overpowered two PFLP members who tried to take control of an El Al flight from Amsterdam to New York.
In the long run, Israel responded to these developments in Palestinian terrorism in three ways. First, the government made a decision not to surrender to the demands of terrorists holding hostages or prisoners of war. Second, military units began training for hostage rescue missions. Third, GSS instituted strict security procedures on El Al planes and at airports that dispatched flights to Israel. While the last proved to be the most influential factor in reducing aviation terrorism, the first two received most of the attention, mostly because of operations such as the one carried out in the wake of the Sabena hijacking.10
SAYERET MATKAL
On May 8, 1972, four members of Black September hijacked Sabena Airlines Flight 572 en route from Vienna to Tel Aviv. The four hijackers, two men and two women, ordered the pilot to land at Ben-Gurion Airport. This was the first time that Palestinian abductors had dared to land a hijacked plane in the lion’s den. Shortly after landing, they threatened to blow up the airplane with its passengers on board unless Israel released hundreds of PLO members who were held in Israeli prisons. Israeli Minister of Defense Moshe Dayan gave the order to negotiate with the kidnappers. He did not intend to surrender to their demands but instead meant to gain time for the IDF, and especially the commanders of the Sayeret Matkal Unit chosen for the mission, to plot a rescue operation. At 4:00 p.m. on May 9, sixteen IDF soldiers from the clandestine Sayeret Matkal approached the aircraft, disguised as fuel technicians. When the signal was given, they stormed the cabin at three different entrances. After a short gunfight they were able to kill the two men terrorists and neutralize the two women; however, one passenger died during the rescue and two others were injured.11
Sayeret Matkal was founded in 1957. It was subordinated directly to Aman, the Israeli military intelligence organization. This elite force, which became known to the Israeli public as “The Unit,” had originally been created in order to enhance Aman intelligence-gathering capabilities in Arab countries. In its early years, the unit’s standing was a far cry from the exalted reputation it later acquired. The idea for its conception came from Avraham Arnan, commander in the Aman 154th Unit. One of the unit’s roles was the operation and maintenance of Intelligence Corps listening devices that were attached to telephone wires on the other side of the border. Arnan thought that the time had come to initiate comprehensive reform in the unit, principally due to the low motivation and inadequate technical abilities of its soldiers. Under Arnan’s charismatic leadership, Sayeret Matkal, modeled on the British Special Air Service Regiment (SAS), began to take shape. Many of the soldiers who became part of the new unit were kibbutz members and similar to the manner in which soldiers were drafted to the 101, they were recruited by means of the friend-brings-a-friend method. After the recruitment procedure, they would undergo one of the hardest training regimes in the IDF. They learned to work in small teams and to penetrate deep into enemy territory to plant listening and monitoring devices at strategic locations. The reception of these devices was highly developed in comparison to the conventional equipment at the time and proved to be a highly valuable asset for military intelligence. The problem was that they operated on batteries, and every so often these had to be replaced. To maintain these devices, the soldiers of the Sayeret had to be highly capable at land navigation, camouflage, and disguise. They also had to be physically very fit in order to march dozens of kilometers behind enemy lines. Other distinctions of the unit’s combatants were—and remain—a creative flair and a capability to find solutions to unforeseen problems. Toward the end of the 1960s, the derring-do and creativity of the Sayeret Matkal’s soldiers became their trademark and earned them a place of respect among other IDF elite troops. These traits captured the attention and imagination of policymakers. When terrorism became a security challenge, they immediately assigned the Sayeret Matkal with the task of responding to this new and elusive problem. Though this decision helped the highly clandestine unit gain a more impressive reputation, while at the same time it opened mobility opportunities for its commanders to the higher echelons of the army as well as the political system, it was not all a blessing. Sayeret Matkal was established as a special force for obtaining intelligence behind enemy lines. Now, it had to assume an additional duty that did not fully correspond with its primary goal and that would have an effect on the training process of the unit’s combatants and their ability to focus exclusively on the unit’s highly specialized missions.12
THE FIRST WAVE OF GLOBAL TERRORISM
At the same time that Palestinian terrorists engaged in the unrelenting wave of hijackings, they also made significant progress in other respects. Most notably, they had begun to take advantage of their ability to move with relative ease from country to country and forge alliances with terrorist groups from other areas in the world. Among these were national-liberation organizations such as the Irish Republican Army and the Basque underground (ETA), as well as radical left-wing groups such as the Red Brigades (Italy), Action Directe (France), Red Army Faction (Germany), and the Japanese Red Army.13 They knew that these connections would present intelligence organizations with major obstacles in their attempts to foil attacks perpetrated by foreign nationals who did not seem to have anything to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
On Thursday, May 30, 1972, at approximately 10:00 p.m., three Japanese men walked through the passport control terminal at Lod Airport. Several minutes later they picked up their luggage from the conveyor belt carousels. Opening their bags, they removed Czechoslovakian Kalashnikov rifles and hand grenades and began spraying the passenger terminal with long bursts of automatic fire. The three, Takeshi Okudaira,
Kozo Okamoto, and the cell leader, Yasuyuki Yasuda, volunteered for this PFLP operation because they had sworn allegiance to the universal Marxist revolutionary struggle. Before setting out, the three had trained at a facility of the Popular Front in the town of Baalbek in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon. On May 25, they boarded a flight for Frankfurt. A PFLP operative awaited them in Germany and provided them with forged Japanese passports. From here, they took a train to Rome where they met the leader of the Japanese Red Army and Okudaira’s spouse, Fusako Shigenobu, who presented them with flight tickets and the bags that contained the weapons they would need. In the afternoon hours of May 30, the three arrived at Fiumicino Airport, just outside of Rome. Their fake passports did not raise any suspicions, and they boarded an Air France flight to Tokyo, which was scheduled for a stopover at Lod Airport.
During the attack, one of his colleagues shot Okudaira by mistake, and Yasuda died when one of the grenades he was handling exploded. When Okamoto saw his friends weltering in their blood, he left the terminal building and opened fire on a group of travelers who had just disembarked from a plane that arrived from Paris. After he ran out of ammunition, he tried to escape, but an airport employee caught him. In the end, the number of fatalities was twenty-six, and seven more travelers were wounded.14
As a result of the attack, increased security measures were enforced at Israel’s international airport. Under the supervision of the GSS, new security procedures were introduced, including the use of metal detectors, X-ray machines for baggage and passenger inspection, and surveillance cameras designed to pick up suspicious behavior. Furthermore, after going through check-in, passenger luggage was put in a pressure chamber to trigger any possible explosive devices. Outside the terminal, several security measures were also established: All vehicles entering the airport complex had to go through a preliminary security checkpoint; armed personnel patrolled the area outside the airport buildings; armed security personnel were stationed at the terminal entrances and kept a close watch on those entering the buildings; and security personnel stationed inside the terminal constantly monitored the behavior of passengers, alert for any signs of dangerous or suspicious persons, including bulky clothing or a nervous manner. They looked for “anything out of the ordinary, anything that does not fit,” as one reporter put it. Over the years, those measures became standard in most Western airports, reducing aerial terrorism dramatically.15