Mossad

The Mossad (complete name: המוסדלמודיעיןולתפקידיםמיוחדים - , which means “Institute for the information and the special businesses”, Mossad meaning the “Institute”) is one of the three agencies of Renseignement of Israel.

Role

Mossad is in charge of the external field, and intervenes in particular against the attacks Terroriste S coming from outside (i.e. out of Israel and the occupied Territoires Palestinian, which are them responsibility for the Shabak, formerly Shin Beth, interior service of against-espionage and antiterrorism). Its staff is based with Tel Aviv where approximately 1  500 people would be employed there.

Mossad has three principal roles:

  • the Information,
  • the Special operations,
  • the Counter-terrorism.

It is charged to facilitate the Aliyah (return in Israel) when it is prohibited. Mossad belongs to the Israeli information agencies, like the Aman (military information) and the Shabak (internal security) inter alia, but its director has accounts to return only to the Prime Minister.

Its role and its function are comparable with the Secret Intelligence British Service or with the CIA.

The raison d'être of Mossad and its peripheral agencies is the need for Israel for having to be informed constantly of the state of the world and especially of its close environment, in order to be able to guarantee its existence.

History

Mossad was born from survivals of the SHAY , the intelligence service of the Haganah (clandestine Jewish militia in charge of the safety of ground the Jewish inhabitants of Palestine since the beginning of the 20th century). Haganah (“Hebrew defense”), in the same way, constituted the hard core of the Israeli armed following creation with the State of Israel in May 1948.

Mossad was created on September 1st 1951 by emanating decree of Israeli the Prime Minister David Ben Gourion in a context where Israel was at all costs to collect information on the potential threats of the countries of the area. Its goal at the time was to support the Immigration in spite of (and because of) the English monitoring .

Its missions are the information, against-espionage and the action. The activity of information is directed as well towards the potential threats as towards the allies of Israel (even the the United States). The activities “action” include/understand the traditional activities of an intelligence service.

, although it is these last years in lose speed.

Departments of Mossad

Mossad is composed of 8 divisions, but the detail of the internal organization of the agency remains obscure.

  • information: the division of Information is most important. It with the responsibility for the operations of espionage, through its official or clandestine antennas abroad. This department is divided itself into offices, each one of them being responsible for an geographical area, antennas which are there, and of the agents which operate there.

  • Research & Study: the division of Research is responsible for the interpretation of the information. For that, it provides a daily report/ratio, a weekly report and a detailed monthly notebook. This department is divided into 15 geographical areas which are the the United States, the Canada, the Western Europe, CEI, the China, the Continent African, the the Maghreb (Morocco, Algérie, Tunisia), the Libya, the Iraq, the Jordan, the Syria, the Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the Iran. An additional office follows the evolution of the projects of armament of the adjoining countries.

  • Psychological warfare: the division of psychological warfare ( Loh' ama Psichologit ) as its name indicates it deals of the psychological warfare, the propaganda and the operations of mystification.

  • Technology & techniques.

  • Planning, coordination & international relations: the division of the international relations deals of the relations and the common operations with the agencies of the friendly countries and the countries which do not have contacts standardized with the State of Israel. In the antennas of great importance like Paris, Mossad has (under cover of the embassy) two persons in charge: one affiliated with the division of Information, the other with that of the International relations.

  • the division of special operations: the division of special operations (Hebrew METSADA) led the operations of assassination of sensitive targets, sabotage, paramilitaries and of psychological warfares.

  • Formation.

  • Administration.

Some famous operations

One of the most beautiful feats of arms of Mossad is the disclosure of the “secret report/ratio” of Khrouchtchev about the crimes of Stalin in 1956 (this report will be officially published only in 1980). The communist world then knew the program of the Déstalinisation. However he is said by Khroutchtchev in his Souvenirs that Soviet had made copies of the report/ratio sent to the Communist parties brothers, and that it is the Polish Communist party which resold it at the foreign agencies.

The the most famous spy Israeli is without any question Eli Cohen, recruited by Mossad in the Années 1960. Having infiltrated the higher realms of the government Syria N, Eli Cohen transmitted strategic information of first importance to its country during two long years before being uncovered. In spite of the international protests, it was hung on the public place.

Another Israeli agent, Wolfgang Lotz, was forged, with the Cairo, of the friendships with graded tops of the army and Egyptian police force, thus obtaining accurate informations on the sites of missiles and the project of missile-rockets developed by German scientists. Between 1962 and 1963, an operation of intimidation aiming at the Germans obtains a great success, in particular with the assassination of several key persons in charge of the Egyptian project.

One of the other blows of glare of Mossad consisted in concealing 8 high-speed motorboats ordered with the France, put under embargo by the general de Gaulle. It is the business of the Vedettes of Cherbourg of December 1969.

But most famous of the operations is undoubtedly kidnapping, in 1960, of the War criminal Nazi Adolf Eichmann, with Buenos Aires in Argentine, which after several years of tracking directed by Rafi Eitan was brought in Israel to be there judged and condemned to death. A mission envisaged the capture of Joseph Mengele, but it failed.

Another capture aimed at bringing back to the country Mordechaï Vanunu which had revealed the existence with an English daily newspaper, of Nuclear warheads in the basements of the Nuclear plant of Dimona, in full desert of the Negev (southern of Israel).

During the Years 1970 under the impulse of the Prime Minister Golda Meir, Mossad assassinated several members of the terrorist group black September responsible for the taken hostages and massacre of 12 Israeli athletes to the Olympic Games of Munich in 1972.

In April 1988, an special unit invades a residence under monitoring of Tunis and keep silent there Abou Jihad, right-hand man of Yasser Arafat and person in charge of the planning of attacks against Israel, thus inflicting a serious blow with moral of PLO.

Gerald Bull, scientific Canadian and originator of the project of “Super Gun” (gun with very long range) for the Iraq, is assassinated in its apartment of Brussels in March 1990, which causes the abandonment of the program.

However like any intelligence service, Mossad had also certain resounding failures.

The January 7th 1974, with Lillehammer (Norway), within the framework of the Operation Anger of God, Mossad assassinates by error Ahmed Bouchiki, a Moroccan waiter, presenting a resemblance striking to Ali Hassan Salameh, brain of the massacre of 1972. Following that, the agents are stopped by the police force and are trailed in front of a Court of justice. Five of them were recognized guilty and were condemned to short custodial sentences, although the Israeli government denied to have any responsibility in this operation. However in 1996, Israel poured with the Bouchiki family of the damage and intérêts.
Plus recently, following the controversy on the responsibility of the intelligence services in the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in November 1995, the managing director of Mossad, Shabtaï Shavit is thorough with the resignation. In his place the general Danny Yatom is named.

In the same way, the September 24th 1997, two agents pass the border Jordan provided with Canadian passports , to inject a poison with the one of the political leaders of the Hamas, Khaled Mechaal. After having carried out their work, the two agents are discovered and the Jordan obtains, against their release, in addition to the antidote of the poison, which will make it possible the number two of Hamas to survive, the release of the founder of the Hamas, the sheik Ahmed Yassin.

For several years, even if Mossad seems to have decreased its manpower, this one has remained extremely powerful on the international scene, while operating in strongly hostile countries in Israel, and by carrying out successfully operations recognized like quasi-impossible.

Its agents work in the shade, and their exploits remain known only by political high ranking officials.

Terminology

  • Sayan : passive agent more commonly called in the jargon of espionage “dormant agent”, established apart from Israel, ready to help the agents of Mossad in their providing what they ask. (Xavier Henkine, Ariel Trauman, Elie Lévinsky)

  • Kidon (word meaning bayonet in Hebrew): special service of Mossad, small unit in charge of physical eliminations.
  • Katsa : officer of the information.

Directors of Mossad

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