Throughout their successive histories, the Mossad, AMAN, and the Shin Bet—arguably the best intelligence community in the world—provided Israel’s leaders sooner or later with operational responses to every focused problem they were asked to solve. But the intelligence community’s very success fostered the illusion among most of the nation’s leaders that covert operations could be a strategic and not just a tactical tool—that they could be used in place of real diplomacy to end the geographic, ethnic, religious, and national disputes in which Israel is mired. Because of the phenomenal successes of Israel’s covert operations, at this stage in its history the majority of its leaders have elevated and sanctified the tactical method of combating terror and existential threats at the expense of the true vision, statesmanship, and genuine desire to reach a political solution that is necessary for peace to be attained.
Indeed, in many respects the story of Israel’s intelligence community as recounted in this book has been one of a long string of impressive tactical successes, but also disastrous strategic failures.
Toward the end of his life, Dagan, like Sharon, understood this. He came to the conclusion that only a political solution with the Palestinians—the two-state solution—could end the 150-year conflict, and that the result of Netanyahu’s policies would be a binational state with parity between Arabs and Jews and a concomitant danger of constant repression and internal strife, replacing the Zionist dream of a democratic Jewish state with a large Jewish majority. He was anxious that the calls for an economic and cultural boycott of Israel because of the occupation would become bitter reality, “just like the boycott that was imposed against South Africa,” and even more anxious about the internal division in Israel and the threat to democracy and civil rights.
At a rally in central Tel Aviv before the March 2015 elections, calling for Netanyahu to be voted out, he addressed the prime minister: “How can you be responsible for our fate if you are so frightened of taking responsibility?
“Why does a man seek the leadership if he does not want to lead? How did it happen that this country, several times stronger than all the countries in the region, is not capable of carrying out a strategic move that would improve our situation? The answer is simple: We have a leader who has fought only one fight—the fight for his own political survival. For the sake of that war he has cast us down into becoming a binational state—the end of the Zionist dream.”
Dagan cried out to the tens of thousands in the crowd: “I do not want a binational state. I do not want an apartheid state. I do not want to rule over three million Arabs. I do not want us to be hostages of fear, despair, and deadlock. I believe that the hour has come for us to wake up, and I hope that Israeli citizens will stop being hostages of the fears and the anxieties that menace us morning and night.”
With the signs of his cancer evident, he ended his speech with tears in his eyes: “This is the greatest leadership crisis in the history of the state. We deserve a leadership that will define a new order of priorities. A leadership that will serve the people and not itself.”
But his efforts were to no avail. Despite the enormous adulation he enjoyed as the ultimate Israeli master spy, Dagan’s speech, as well as the calls of many other former heads of the intelligence and military establishments for a compromise agreement with the Palestinians and for other adjustments in Israel’s relations with the outside world, have all fallen on deaf ears.
There were times when the words of the generals were taken as sacred by most Israelis. But their campaigns against Netanyahu have thus far failed to topple him, and some say they have even bolstered him. Israel has undergone drastic changes in recent decades: The strength of the old elites, including the generals and their influence over the public agenda, has ebbed. New elites—Jews from Arab lands, the Orthodox, the right wing—are in ascendancy. “I thought I would be able to make a difference, to persuade,” Dagan told me sorrowfully in the last phone conversation we had, a few weeks before he died, in mid-March 2016. “I was surprised and disappointed.”
The divide between the combat-sated generals, who once had “a knife between their teeth” but later grasped the limits of force, and the majority of the people of Israel, is the sad reality in which Meir Dagan’s life came to its end.
A most-wanted advertisement published by the British Criminal Investigation Department for Menachem Begin, the commander of the Irgun.
Ariel Sharon (center), Paratroopers Brigade commander, August 1955. (AVRAHAM VERED, MINISTRY OF DEFENSE ARCHIVE)
Alexander Yisraeli.
Moshe Tsipper (right), the son of Alexander Yisraeli, hears for the first time what really happened to his father from Raphi Medan (left). (RONEN BERGMAN)
The Mossad team: Rafi Eitan (second from right) and Zvi Aharoni (second from left) in São Paulo, shortly before they saw Josef Mengele, “the Angel of Death” from Auschwitz. (ZVI AHARONI COLLECTION)
Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser (right) during a missile test with German and Egyptian scientists.
The Mossad warrior Oded, who captured Dr. Hans Krug and brought him to Israel for interrogation.
A Mossad surveillance photo of Dr. Hans Krug.
President Nasser (right) and King Hussein of Jordan at the 1965 summit in Casablanca, where their conversations were recorded by the Mossad.
Prime Minister Levi Eshkol (fourth from left, in a black hat and tie), Mossad chief Meir Amit (center, smiling), chief of staff Yitzhak Rabin (in uniform), and former Mossad director Isser Harel (third from right), 1965. (MOSHE MILNER, GOVERNMENT PRESS OFFICE)
Eli Cohen, hanged in Damascus.
Meir Dagan’s “Chameleons” on their way to an operation in Gaza, dressed as guerrillas returning in a boat from Lebanon. From left to right: Dagan (commander of the operation), Meir Botnick, and Avigdor Eldan, a Bedouin IDF officer. The other men are Palestinian agents.
David Ben-Gurion (sitting, with glasses and a map), with Yitzhak Pundak (left) and General Rehavam Zeevi (standing with sunglasses).
Leila Khaled, the Palestinian terrorist and plane hijacker, depicted in a 2001 graffiti illustration on the wall dividing Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
Mike Harari, the man who ran Caesarea for fifteen years and had the most influence over the Mossad’s targeted killing and sabotage operations, during preparations for Operation Spring of Youth.
Mike Harari in Italy in 1977, commanding a covert Mossad operation.
Nehemia Meiri, commander of Bayonet, dressed as a beggar.
The operation order for Spring of Youth, 1973.
Surveillance photographs of the apartment building where Kamal Adwan, one of the top leaders of the PLO, lived, taken by Mossad warrior Yael.
Adwan’s apartment and body after the targeted killing operation.
Adwan’s funeral.
Photo from the air patrol over the Entebbe terminal, taken by Mossad operative David.
Ali Hassan Salameh, who the Mossad was convinced was behind the murder of the athletes in Munich.
The critically wounded Ali Salameh is carried out of a car a few seconds after an explosion. He died shortly afterward at the hospital.
Robert Hatem (right), one of the Phalangist assassins, confesses to killing hundreds of people in an interview with the author in 2005.
Prime Minister Menachem Begin (third from left), Minister of Defense Ariel Sharon (second from left), and the prime minister’s military secretary, Brigadier General Azriel Nevo (left) examining a PLO post in southern Lebanon after its capture by Israel, June 1982. (MINISTRY OF DEFENSE ARCHIVE)
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Yasser Arafat (right) and the journalist Uri Avnery in an interview during the siege in Beirut. (ANAT SARAGUSTI)
Yasser Arafat leaving Beirut. This photograph was taken by a sniper of the Sayeret Matkal commando unit and transferred by Menachem Begin to American mediator Philip Habib in order to prove that Israel could have killed Arafat if it had wanted. (FIRST PUBLISHED IN SCHIFF AND YAARI, ISRAEL’S LEBANON WAR)
The picture taken after the Bus 300 kidnapping, which exposed the Shin Bet’s illegal liquidations. (ALEX LEVAC)
Amin al-Hajj, aka “Rummenigge,” a merchant with connections throughout the Middle East, who belonged to a prominent Shiite family in Lebanon, and who became one of the most important Mossad agents in Lebanon. (ELAD GERSHGORN)
The eighteen-month training program of the naval commando unit Flotilla 13 is considered the most arduous in the IDF. Since the late 1970s, the unit has taken part in many targeted killing operations. (ZIV KOREN)
In the command room for the targeted killing of Abu Jihad: Ehud Barak (sitting, left) and Yiftach Reicher (sitting, with telephone in hand).
Dr. Gerald Bull (left) with former Quebec premier Jean Lesage, inspecting one of the giant cannons Dr. Bull developed.
Project director Amiram Levin (left) and Doron Avital, commander of the Sayeret Matkal commando unit, in one of the rehearsals for the assassination of Saddam Hussein.
Ali Akbar Mohtashamipur, the man who founded Hezbollah, points with a two-fingered hand, the result of an attempted targeted killing by the Mossad.
AMAN chief Uri Sagie (left) and Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. (NATI HERNIKI, GOVERNMENT PRESS OFFICE)
Khaled Mashal recovering from a poisoning at the Royal Hospital in Amman.
A “Cherry” drill to arrest or kill wanted men. (COURTESY OF URI BAR-LEV)
A woman is carried away for medical treatment after a suicide bomber exploded himself in a restaurant in Tel Aviv. This is one of the photographs Sharon forced foreign diplomats to look at when he made his arguments for the use of targeted killings as a national security tool. (ZIV KOREN)
The Israeli drone Heron TP can stay in the air for up to thirty-six hours, fly at a maximum speed of 230 miles per hour, and carry more than a ton of cameras and bombs. (IAI)
The Grass Widow method was developed to draw armed Palestinians out into an open area and then shoot them from a hidden sniper position. (RONEN BERGMAN)
Maria Aman was with her family in a car in Gaza in May 2006 when the blast from a missile fired at an Islamic Jihad operative in a nearby vehicle also hit them. Her mother, six-year-old brother, and grandmother were killed. She was mortally wounded and remained paralyzed from the neck down. Her father, Hamdi (pictured here), has since devoted his life to treating her. (RONEN BERGMAN)
Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin at a press conference, taking responsibility for sending Reem Riyashi to kill herself.
Sharon (right) appointing Meir Dagan to be head of the Mossad. (SAAR YAAKOV, GOVERNMENT PRESS OFFICE)
One of the photographs of Imad Mughniyeh that the Mossad used to locate him and kill him in 2008.
Mossad surveillance photographs of Mughniyeh’s deputy and brother-in-law, Mustafa Badreddine, whom Mughniyeh appointed to take care of affairs during his absence in Beirut.
Hezbollah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah at Mughniyeh’s funeral. (ULRIKE PUTZ)
A poster memorial in Jabalia for Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, along with one of his sisters.
Al-Mabhouh exiting an elevator, followed by two “tennis players.”
Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, a chemical engineer at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility.
On January 12, 2012, the Mossad killed Ahmadi-Roshan in his car.
“Israel must be wiped off the map”: a propaganda announcement on a Tehran street with targets on the heads of AMAN chief Amos Yadlin, Mossad director Dagan, and Defense Minister Barak.
Mossad chiefs Yossi Cohen (2016–present), left, and Tamir Pardo (2011–2016). Both of them have continued to use targeted killings as one of the primary tools of national security. (GOVERNMENT PRESS OFFICE)
TO YANA,
who appeared
at exactly the right moment
Over the past seven and a half years of work on this book, I have had the good fortune and the honor to encounter a number of amazing, talented, wise, and warmhearted people who gave me their support and good advice along the way.
I owe profound thanks to Joel Lovell and Andy Ward, who, on March 11, 2010, sent me the email that started everything off, asking if I would like to write a book about the Mossad. It was Shachar Alterman, a close friend and the editor of my books in Hebrew, who suggested that we focus on the history of Israel’s use of assassinations and targeted killings. Joel became an editor at The New York Times Magazine, where I have worked closely with him. He is someone who takes manuscripts and makes them smooth and tightly stretched to the level of perfection of the sheets on the bed in a first-class hotel room, to borrow a metaphor once used by David Remnick. Andy Ward never abandoned me or my book-in-the-making, even after he became editor in chief at Random House, and even as deadlines came and went. In his quiet, confident, and determined way, Andy guided the project through to the end.
I also wish to thank other members of the Random House team for their immense contributions and assistance, especially Sean Flynn for editing the first draft and Samuel Nicholson for his work on the final manuscript. They are both fine examples of a rare breed of outstanding editors, who many times put exactly what I wanted to say into words far better than I could find myself.
Special thanks to my agent in the United States, Raphael (Rafe) Sagalyn, who watched over each stage of my work carefully and responsibly, a little like a father caring for a difficult child with serious disciplinary problems. Whenever necessary, he was able to get me back on track and soothe all those I’d managed to irritate with missed deadlines and endless departures from the originally agreed-upon length.
Four people worked closely with me through substantial parts of the time I spent on the book:
Ronnie Hope was far more than an able translator from the Hebrew. He was also a friend and professional colleague whose advice on structure, form, and content was invaluable. He labored with consistent devotion on the various raw versions of the book, often at cruel and unusual hours of the day and night. I also have Ronnie to thank for coming up with the book’s title.
The tact and wisdom of Yael Sass, project manager for the book in Israel, was unparalleled. Her toil on the endnotes and bibliography was an unenviable task, but Yael undertook it with poise and great skill, and she ensured the quiet, pleasant, and businesslike atmosphere that enabled me to finish the job.
Dr. Nadav Kedem served as fact-checker and academic adviser. In a book as full of secret details as this one, it’s nearly impossible to reach a state of flawlessness, but the work done by Nadav and the Random House copy editors, Will Palmer and Emily DeHuff, has made it as free of errors as was conceivably possible.
Adi Engel’s exceptionally bright mind, knowledge, original thinking, and vision were invaluable in shaping the book’s structure. I believe that the uncompromising spirit of Adi’s commitment to human rights pervades the pages of this book.
I feel deeply grateful to these four—their mark on the book cannot be overstated.
Kim Cooper and Adam Vital helped me in my first efforts to work in the United States. Their excellent counsel and their early faith in the project entitle them to a big share of the credit for the end product. Richard Plepler encouraged my work on the book and taught me that very important word in Yiddis
h, at just the right time. Thanks to Dan Margalit and Ehud (Udi) Eiran, both so knowledgeable and wise, for reading the manuscript and offering valuable insights; to Dr. Chen Kugel, for his help in deciphering the writing of Professor Otto Prokop (who carried out an autopsy on Wadie Haddad); and to Vanessa Schlesier, who helped us both with translation from German and also assisted me with the reconstruction of the attempt on the life of Khaled Mashal in Amman. This is the place, too, to express my gratitude to the Jordanian royal family’s physician, Dr. Sami Rababa, for helping me in Jordan.
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