The MOSSAD Chronicles

My first awareness of this secret organisation came about after the news broke about the Raid Of Entebbe Airport. 102 of the 106 hostages were rescued by the Israeli Defence Force. I am not going into details but anyone interested to know more can google "Operation Entebbe" for it is well documented.

For the beginning, here is the video documentary "History Of The Mossad" in 5 parts, beginning with Part 1.

[video=youtube_share;xz89556oonw]http://youtu.be/xz89556oonw[/video]

[video=youtube_share;JfXqNE-CAA0]http://youtu.be/JfXqNE-CAA0[/video]

[video=youtube_share;IBmU4r2_eRo]http://youtu.be/IBmU4r2_eRo[/video]

[video=youtube_share;jlLOI5RnKS8]http://youtu.be/jlLOI5RnKS8[/video]

General De Gaulle's imposition of the French Arms Embargo 1968.

The Cherbourg Affair

In the mid 1960s the French were supplying Israel with perhaps three quarters of Israel’s arms. It made good sense to work with the French, and it also gave a boost to Cherbourg's under-employed work force. For the time being everyone was happy.

The Cherbourg shipyard workers had little experience of building ships of this kind, but with the German designs and the Israelis on hand, they were able to begin construction of the ships. The Gabriel missiles were being built simultaneously in Israel - and they would cost more than the ships themselves.

Within a few months “over 200 Israelis were living and working in the port town of Cherbourg.” Many of them were French speakers - often Israelis who were born in and emigrated from the French provinces of Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. The Israelis, with linguistic and cultural affinity with their French hosts, fitted into their surroundings smoothly.

Brigadier General Mordecai Limon oversaw the Cherbourg Project. Limon had served in the Palmach during World War II, and later served in the British Army, where both Palestinian Jews and the British temporarily found a confluence of interests. After the war ended in 1945, Limon participated in the Haganah’s (http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/haganah.html) naval group running the British blockade of Palestine. He was involved in many daring and courageous operations, and by 1950, when he was only 26, he was “made commander-in-chief of Israel’s…navy.” Four years later he left the navy in order to study for a Business Degree at Columbia University in New York. With a business background now under his belt, he “played a vital role in Israel’s attempts to modernize its armed forces in the late 50s and early 60s.”

The first boat to leave Cherbourg did so in April 1967 (it was the fourth ship overall to arrive in Israel, including the three ships delivered from Germany already), and the second left about a month later.

These boats arrived too late to be armed and of use during the Six-Day War (http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/1967toc.html) of June 1967. But that was inconsequential. An event was to occur soon after with much greater implications. On June 2, 1967, just a few days before Israel's preemptive strike on Egyptian airfields on June 5, 1967, French Prime Minister Charles de Gaulle declared that France would no longer supply weapons of “offensive nature” to the Middle East - which basically meant Israel. On the eve of war, Israel was cut suddenly cut off from her major source of arms.

This event may have hastened Israel's decision to make a preemptive strike, in that a hoped-for quick end to the war would not obviate the need for spare parts and a resupply of weapons from the French - which would not be forthcoming.

Mordecai Limon headed an Israeli delegation to Paris “which argued furiously with the (French) government in an effort to get them to honor their commitments.” But the French would not. With the end of the war with Algeria and the French withdrawal from her former Arabic-speaking provinces in North Africa a few short years before the 1967 War, France was interested in rebuilding her relations with Arab states and assuring a free supply of oil and economic concessions in the Middle East. Israel only figured into their calculations negatively.

But no one seemed to have noticed the embargo in Cherbourg. Two more boats sailed for Israel in the Fall of 1967. But things took a turn for the worse. On December 26, [1968], Palestinians attacked an Israeli aircraft at Athens airport. In retaliation, two days later Israeli commandos attacked Beirut airport and blew up 13 Lebanese aircraft on the ground.

French Premier de Gaulle was enraged. He “declared that the French arms embargo would now be total.” This meant the Cherbourg boats too.

Mordecai Limon immediately sent Defense Minister Moshe Dayan (http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Dayan.html) news of the total embargo. Dayan was one of the many who were deeply disappointed by the change of relations between de Gaulle and Israel. In the 1950s, Dayan had agreed with Ben-Gurion when he called de Gaulle “a true friend, a true ally.” De Gaulle “had sent Dayan a personal letter of congratulations on his book The Sinai Campaign 1956.”

Now de Gaulle was refusing to remove the embargo from the boats that had already been paid for by Israel.

Three more missile boats were almost complete in Cherbourg Harbor. On January 4, 1969, a week after de Gaulle made news with his announcement of the complete embargo on weapons bound for Israel, small crews made their way onto the boats. The Israeli crews spent three hours getting them ready. When all was set, they “raised the Israeli flag and set off. No one challenged them. They simply sailed into the English Channel and never returned.”

The French Minister of Defense demanded to know what had become of the ships. Mordecai Limon responded: “They were given orders to sail to Haifa. They belong to us.” Prime Minister de Gaulle was furious. So were others in the French Cabinet. But they got little help from the locals in the French coastal town of Cherbourg. “In Cherbourg, naval authorities and customs men simply shrugged their shoulders. By an extraordinary coincidence, no one seemed to have read a newspaper, watched television or listened to a radio during the preceding days. Said one of the local people: ‘We did not know anything of the embargo.’” Israel was lucky to have made some firm friends among the local population.

Officials in Cherbourg “claimed that they first heard of the embargo in a letter of instructions received from Paris on (January) 6th - 2 days after the boats had left. They produced documents and a statement from the post office supporting their claims.” They said something must have been wrong with the postal service.

While accusations flew between the government in Paris and the locals in Cherbourg, construction continued on the last five missile boats “as if nothing had happened.” Still, French naval and customs authorities were bothered by claims of negligence and kept a sharp eye on the last remaining boats.

In the summer of 1969, Mordecai Limon, still in France, “renounced all further Israeli interest in the boats and opened negotiations with regard to compensation.” But the Israelis purposely quibbled over details of the negotiations for months. Meanwhile, construction of the boats continued, and an Israeli team remained in Cherbourg.

The Israelis, of course, had no intention of renouncing their boats, and had every every intention of getting them. The question was how to do so - and legally, because Israel did not want to worsen the already aggravated relations between France and herself over the issue.

On the other hand, the War of Attrition (http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/1968toc.html) was by then in full swing, and the Egyptians had no difficulty in obtaining advanced armaments from the Russians. Meanwhile, 5 missile boats remained in Cherbourg Harbor, and Israeli pre-paid orders for Mirage aircraft went unfulfilled.

Israel decided to get the boats, but in a way the French would not suspect.

In November 1969 a man named Martin Siem came to visit Felix Amiot, the French supervisor of the missile boats in Cherbourg, and expressed an interest in purchasing the boats. He presented himself as a Norwegian shipping owner, who was involved in oil exploration off the coast of Alaska. He claimed his company was based in Panama.

The two quickly closed the deal, and the French government approved it.

Government officials didn’t check the deal as clearly as they might have. The Panamanian-based Norwegian firm had in fact only been created a few weeks before. Martin Siem, who was in truth a very big shipping magnate in Norway, was friends with an Israeli shipping magnate named Mila Brenner. Brenner persuaded Siem to work as a front man on behalf of Israel.

It seems quite likely that the French ministerial committee assigned to examine all French arms exports must have contained at least one, if not several, people who were sympathetic to Israel and were willing to help her get the missile boats. This would seem to be so because the cover story Israel used seemed highly improbable. But “there was nothing the Israelis could think of which would make more sense.” As Stewart Steven writes: “These were missile boats, and there was no way that fact could be disguised.”

But the French were apparently eager to get rid of these boats and their problems quickly, and at the same time they would be paid enough to cover the costs of repaying Israel. Moreover, there was even a clause in the contract that affirmed that the boats could not be re-exported. From the French point of view, this meant the boats would not find their way into Israeli hands.

Young sailors began arriving in Cherbourg. It was explained to the locals that they were Norwegians, part of the team that had purchased the ships, which also explained why so many were blonde-haired and blue-eyed. The fifty or so young men were in fact Israelis, perhaps with backgrounds in Nordic countries, but Israelis nevertheless.

Meanwhile, about 70 other Israelis remained in Cherbourg. No one seemed to question their presence. They even reserved space at a local restaurant for a festive meal on Christmas Eve - so as to give the impression that they weren’t going anywhere.

The plan was to take the boats on Christmas Eve, when all of France would be celebrating and it seemed very unlikely that many people would be paying attention to the goings-on at Cherbourg Harbor.

Cherbourg residents began to get used to the “Norwegians” and the more veteran Israelis as well. Even so, there was some odd behavior a discerning citizen could recognize. As Dennis Eisenberg, Uri Dan, and Eli Landau write in The Mossad: Inside Stories, some locals “noticed that some of the ‘Norwegians’ were such accomplished linguists that they included Hebrew among their repertoire of languages.” The ‘Norwegians’, as we saw, were really Israelis.

Ezra Kedem, a naval officer who had been involved with the taking of three of the Cherbourg boats in January 1969, was there again in December. He scanned the harbor and the sea beyond with high-powered binoculars. He peered at the two channels used by ships coming to or leaving Cherbourg. The more commonly used western channel was 65 feet deep. The eastern channel was used less often, “not only because it was narrower than the other, but because of the unstable submerged rocks which had accumulated in it for years.” The Israelis had used this channel when taking out the three boats in January. Radar was unable to detect every nuance of that channel - a fact Ezra Kedem knew from his conversations with the French authorities.

The Israelis would use the same channel again this time.

By late afternoon, about 20 Israeli sailors were aboard each of the five boats. But a storm had arisen and a strong wind was blowing. These were bad conditions for any ship, but even more so for the missile boats, which were not designed for such conditions. But there was no choice. They had to sail that night.

As the engines started up around 9 p.m., seats reserved for 70 Israelis at the local restaurant we mentioned above remained unfilled, and the meals uneaten.

French Intelligence had noticed the many unwarranted coincidences in the previous few weeks, but either they or their superiors decided not to take action against the Israelis. At some point on the night of December 24/25, 1969, the five missile boats engined their way out of the harbor into the English Channel.

Two men came to watch the last boats leave Cherbourg. One was Mordecai Limon. The other was Felix Amiot, the French supervisor of the construction of the ships at Cherbourg. He had concealed it, but he had known about the Israeli operation from the beginning.

Amiot was not the only one who participated in this “conspiracy of silence.” In a “dockside cafe, the barman remarked to customers huddled over their glasses of red wine: ‘I see the Norwegians have left for Alaska.’ His audience roared with laughter.”

On December 26 local and then international news picked up wind of the story. The French government soon knew what had happened and were furious again. But with the boats on the high seas already, they recognized there was little they could do. Nevertheless, the French Foreign Minister, Maurice Schumann, did summon two Israeli diplomats to his office in the Quai D’Orsay. He had just returned from a tour of Algeria “where he had promised friendly relations and large supplies of armaments in return for Arab oil.” And then the Israelis took the Cherbourg boats. Schumann was sure that the Arabs would see it as French collusion in the matter, and he felt humiliated. He warned the Israeli diplomats that if the boats did show up in Israel, “the consequences will be very grave indeed…”

The Israeli government did not accept direct responsibility at first. The boats did receive attention on the high seas however, as the sailors aboard viewed a myriad of French Mirages flying overhead. Later they encountered American and even Soviet ships. But the boats motored on to Israel unimpeded. As the ships approached the shores of Israel, an escort of Israeli fighter planes accompanied them.

They were safe then, and they were received with public jubilation when they arrived in Israel.

There were repercussions in France. Mordecai Limon, who had lived in France for seven years, was asked to leave. Two French generals were dismissed from their posts for their part in approving the sale of the missile boats to the fictitious Norwegian/Panamanian firm. Felix Amiot was blamed for his part in the affair, but he vigorously defended himself. “Security is not my problem. My job was to build ships. I got along very well with the Israelis, but as far as I know that is not a crime.”

The citizens of Cherbourg continued to keep quiet about the whole affair. And their silence - which the French government was well aware of - was a boon to Israel, for without it she may never have gotten the boats of Cherbourg.

http://www.thephora.net/forum/archive/index.php/t-61269.html

My, I could just imagine the red faces of the French Government.

Stealing A Soviet MiG - By Doron Geller

From 1952-63, Isser Harel directed both the Shin Bet (the Israeli internal security service) and the Mossad (for foreign operations). In early 1963, he was replaced by a newcomer, Meir Amit. At first Amit was not accepted by Mossad operatives loyal to Harel, but after a shaky start, marked by some lack of cooperation and trust, he asserted his leadership over the organization. Even those who had fiercely opposed his entry as the new head of the Mossad in place of Harel grew to respect, admire, and like him. Meir Amit turned out to be a great operations chief. Under him and Military Intelligence (Aman) chief Aharon Yariv in the 1960's, Israeli intelligence turned out some of its most amazing successes. One of these successes had a decisive impact on the outcome of the Six Day War in June 1967 - the stealing of a Soviet MiG-21.

Soon after assuming leadership of the Mossad on March 25, 1963, Meir Amit consulted a great number of military men in order to spell out Mossad objectives, and ask what they felt would be the Mossad's most valuable contribution to Israeli security. General Mordecai (Motti) Hod, commander of the Israeli Air Force in 1963, (and for the following few years), told him to bring a Soviet-made MiG-21 to Israel.

It is difficult to determine if Motti Hod really believed such a feat could be pulled off. Ezer Weizmann, who took over command of the Israeli Air force from Hod, told Amit the same thing shortly before the Six-Day War. If it could be done, the Israelis would then have access to the secrets of the most advanced fighter planes the Arab states possessed at the time - and according to the Russians, the most advanced strike aircraft in the world.

The Russians began introducing the MiG-21 into the Middle East in 1961. By 1963, when Amit took over the Mossad, it was an essential part of the Egyptian, Syrian and Iraqi Air Forces arsenals. The Russians introduced the aircraft under maximum secrecy and security. The Russians "had made it a condition of supplying the aircraft that they should be responsible for security, crew training and maintenance." Few in the West knew much about the MiG-21 - but feared its capabilities.

The Russians, of course, were aware of the risks they were taking by stationing MiG's outside of their own borders in the service of foreign armies. Security was thus extremely tight - and the Russians were often responsible for it. This in turn bred resentment among certain elements of the their Arab beneficiaries, who were sometimes angered by the greater authority the Russians exerted at their own Syrian, Egyptian or Iraqi air bases than they did themselves. Still, appointment to an MiG-21 squadron "was the highest honor that could be granted to a pilot. These were not the kind of men who could be bribed or would talk loosely in public. As a result, neither Mossad nor Military Intelligence had made any progress at all." They had tried a few times before. Through the services of an Egyptian-born Armenian by the name of Jean Thomas, the Israelis had tried to pay an Egyptian Air Force pilot 1 million dollars to defect to Israel with his MiG-21 in the early 1960's. The pilot refused, Jean Thomas and a number of accomplices were caught, and Thomas and two of his accomplices were hanged in December 1962.

Another attempt to convince two Iraqi pilots to defect to Israel didn't work either. But the third attempt did.

"The Israeli military command had always placed a premium on complete familiarity with every weapon their enemies might use against them in combat. One of the first to emphasize this was General Dan Tolkowsky, the commander who built up the Air Force in the early fifties. He said again and again that 'It is a basic principle of warfare that to know the weapons the enemy has is already to beat him.'" Tolkowsky constantly pressed for this kind of information. So, as we saw, would his successors Mordecai Hod and Ezer Weizmann as commanders of the Israeli Air Force.

The Israeli efforts to accumulate information on potential enemy plans and equipment is of course vital for her national defense. But it has, and undoubtedly continues to be, vital for barter with the United States as well. In Israel, the United States has an ally who has often provided Intelligence far more in-depth than their own, especially about soviet penetration of the Middle East in the 1960's and 1970's. In return, the Americans have often been willing to provide Israel with the latest military equipment which under other circumstances they might not have been willing to provide.

It is true that as early as the 1956 Suez War, the Israelis found an abandoned Russian plane abandoned by its Egyptian pilot, as the Egyptians hastily fled before the rapidly advancing Israeli Army.

This was a major coup. But its effects soon wore off as the Russians introduced the more advanced, and unknown, MiG-21 into the Syrian, Egyptian and Iraqi Air Forces.

Israeli Intelligence went through its options; "bribery, intercepting a plane at its unloading point in an Arab country, planting an agent at an airbase…" But the Mossad came to the conclusion that it would be best to try and persuade an Arab pilot to defect to Israel.

In the event, the Israelis got a free tip-off from an unexpected source without initiating a thing; an Iraqi Jew by the name of Joseph indicated that if Israel wanted an MiG-21, he could probably arrange it. This was a strange development. Most Iraqi Jews had been flown to Israel in a massive airlift in the early 1950's. Perhaps 1000 or even less remained of a community which prior to the early 1950's numbered well over 100,000 Jews.

Joseph had grown up as a poor Jew and had been indentured to an Iraqi Maronite Christian family at the age of ten. Although he never attended school or learned to read and write, he, like the biblical Joseph, rose to prominence in this non-Jewish family's household. No decision was taken without him being consulted. He was present at all family meetings, and his was often the last word on any family decision. He had risen to be a central figure in the family's affairs whom they all looked up to, admired, respected, and loved.

When he was almost 60, however, during a quarrel with the real head of the household, Joseph was told that without the family he would have had nothing. Although the Christian Maronite soon apologized, Joseph didn't forget it. He decided then and there to explore his "otherness" - his Jewish identity. This was something he had hardly given thought to before. He began to learn about Judaism and Israel. Although he maintained his loyalty to his adopted family, he also felt equally loyal to his newfound concern for Israel. Late in 1964 he contacted Israeli officials in Tehran (until 1979 Israel had a good relationship with Persian, non-Arab Iran) and Europe. He had something important to tell them.

Israel, as a Jewish state in the Middle East, has always cultivated non-Arab nations on the periphery of the Middle Eastern world - such as the Turks and until 1979, Iran. Israel also actively cultivated minorities within Arab-Moslem nations. Israel has made discreet intelligence contacts over the years with the Druze sect (primarily in Syria and Lebanon), the Kurds in Iraq and elsewhere and the Maronite Christians and other Christian sects throughout the Middle East. In the early 1980's Israel tried to form a full-fledged alliance with the large but minority Christian Maronites in Lebanon.

In early 1964 Israel soon had contact - through Joseph - with a Maronite Christian pilot in the Iraqi Air Force. The family felt disaffected with their lot. The father felt frustrated by the increasing pressures the Iraqi government was imposing on him and other Maronite Christians. Some of his friends had even been imprisoned and he was finding it difficult to manage his business. He mentioned to Joseph that he would like to leave the country.

After Joseph first contacted the Israelis, there were many in Israel who preferred to drop the issue as unrealistic. But not Meir Amit. Even when Joseph began demanding more money and many in Israel pegged him as a con-man, Amit pursued it. He had an ally in Yitzhak Rabin, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Armed Forces on the eve (and during) the Six Day War. They contacted a top agent in Baghdad, an American woman, and either on Israeli orders or on her own initiative (sources conflict) she decided to draw out Munir Redfa - a Christian Iraqi air force pilot and a member of Joseph's adopted family.

The American woman was a Mossad agent (it is not clear if she was Jewish) who was not only lively and intelligent but beautiful as well. She mixed in easily in high social circles wherever she went. According to one source, she initiated the contact with Munir Redfa at a party, where the two immediately hit it off. He told her he was a patriotic Iraqi, but he "found himself in violent disagreement with the current war being waged by his government against the minority Kurdish tribesmen in northern Iraq." In the 1960's as in the 1990's, the Kurds tried to maintain their independence in the Arab (and Turkish) world that did not wish to give it to them. As a minority Christian, Munir Redfa was greatly troubled by the fact that he, as a deputy commander of a MiG-21 squadron, was one of those who was asked to lead bombing missions against the almost defenseless Kurds. According to Dennis Eisenberg, Uri Dan, and Eli Landau, Redfa "even confessed a 'sneaking admiration' for the Israelis, who were 'so few against so many Moslems.'" There were other things bothering him as well. He had been passed over as commander of his squadron, he was stationed far from his home in Baghdad, and "was allowed to fly only with small fuel tanks, because he was a Christian." The American woman listened. She continued to see him and their intimacy, despite his marriage and several children, grew.

She exploited the connection to suggest a holiday in Europe in July 1966. He agreed. After a few days there, she "suggested that Munir fly to Israel with her. She had friends there who might be of service to him." She pulled out a brand new passport and tickets.

He then knew that this had to have been planned from the start, and she hadn't been attracted to him for who he was. But he also knew that she was making an offer that could be of great benefit to him. Not only would he be through with the bombing missions he so disagreed with - the Israelis would be paying him1 million dollars. It was as attractive as it was dangerous.

Munir wanted to see that not only his wife and children would be taken safely out of Iraq, but his parents and the rest of his extended family as well. Joseph would see to that. Joseph was concerned that of each family member knew that they were going to leave, it was inevitable, due to human nature, that someone would mention the fact to the wrong person, and the whole plan would go awry. Therefore many of the family members were never even told they were going to leave Iraq. As for Munir Redfa himself, not only did the Israelis agree to pay him very well and grant full protection to his family, but they told him that they would provide him "with Israeli citizenship, a home, and a job for life."

Munir Redfa's mind was made up. Mordecai Hod, the commander of the Israeli Air Force, met him and went over the escape plan with him. He would fly a zig-zag route to Israel to avoid Iraqi and Jordanian radar. IAF commander Hod told him: "'You know how dangerous this is going to be. The flight is 900 kilometers. If your own colleagues guess what you're up to they may send planes to blow you out of the skies. If they don't succeed, the Jordanians may try. Your only hope is to remain calm and follow this route. They do not know it, we do.'" Hod continued; "If you lose your nerve you are a dead man. Once you have left your ordinary flight path there is no turning back." Redfa seemed aware of this and responded simply; "'I will bring you the plane.'"

For the remainder of his stay in Israel Munir Redfa and his Israeli handlers went over his planned escape again and again. "He was amazed to see that they knew almost as much about the goings-on at his airbase as he did. They knew the names of all the personnel, both Russian and Iraqi, and the layout of the entire base. They knew minutely the routine of training flights: long flights on certain days, short on others."

He would have to pick a day when he would be permitted to go on a long-range flight.

Redfa and the American woman went back to Europe and from there to Iraq. Soon members of Redfa's family began leaving the country; one as a tourist, another for medical treatment…

Munir Redfa set his date for August 16, 1966. The Israeli Air Force would be expecting him on one of a number of given days in August. He carried on his business as usual as best he could with co-workers he would never see again. He asked the ground crew to fill his tanks to capacity, something the Russian advisors generally had to sign for. But the Iraqis disliked the Russian advisers, who seemed to hold them in contempt. This worked to Redfa's benefit. As a star pilot, they were to happy to obey his orders, rather than those of the Russians.

He took off. After heading out towards Baghdad, he veered off in the direction of Israel. The ground crew radar picked up a blip on the screen heading west and they frantically radioed him to turn around. He didn't. They warned him they would shoot him down.

He turned the radio off.

Hundreds of miles away Israeli radar picked up the blip on the screen. They sent up a squad of IAF Mirages to escort him. He went through his prearranged signals and they flew alongside him to a base deep in the Negev Desert.

That day, "Mossad agents hired two large vans and picked up the remaining members of the pilot's family, who had left Baghdad ostensibly to have a picnic. They were driven to the Iranian border and guided across by anti-Iraqi Kurdish guerrillas. Safely in Iran, a helicopter collected them and flew them to an airfield, from where an airplane took them to Israel."

Newspapers all over the world carried the sensational story of an Iraqi pilot who had defected with his MiG-21 to Israel. "Like all news stories, it stayed in the papers a few days (with constantly shrinking headlines) and was soon forgotten by most people...Among those who did not forget were military leaders of the United States, France, Britain and other powers. They pressed the Israelis for a glimpse of the aircraft, the first to fall into the hands of a nation friendly to their interests..."

The Russians were furious. Their air power secrets were seriously compromised. They threatened the Israelis ferociously and demanded the plane back.

The Israelis, of course, did not return the plane. They did not, however, turn it over to the United States for the time being in order to temper Russian rage.

Moreover, it diminished the KGB's - and of course the Iraqis' - prestige. Redfa was not an unbalanced cadet, as they may have preferred to believe, but "one of the country's best pilots, and he had been very thoroughly screened by Soviet and Iraqi security before rising to his position as an elite air force pilot - even if he did, as a Christian, face certain drawbacks.

The Israelis did not divulge their part in Munir Redfa's defection for quite some time. It took years for the Russians to put together how the theft of the MiG had been arranged. They assumed from the start that the Mossad was behind it. In this they were correct.

A few months later the IAF did loan the MiG to the United States for testing. It was an essential and very important part of American strategic capabilities. They US Air Force used the MiG in simulated dogfights with the intention of gaining as much insight into the Soviet plane's capability that they could.

For the Israelis the benefit of possession of the plane was even more immediate. In an April 7, 1967 dogfight with the Syrians, the IAF shot down six Syrian MiG's to no Israeli planes. In the June 1967 War, the Israeli Air Force commanded overwhelming air superiority over the Syrian and Egyptian MiG's. Not a little had to do with the fact that an MiG had been flown to Israel less than a year earlier with the connivance of Israeli Intelligence.

Munir Redfa came to Israel with his family and was given a new job and a new life. The American woman saw him perhaps once more after he arrived, but she was committed to her work in the Mossad, which was where her ultimate loyalty lay.

The Iraqi Jew Joseph did not come to Israel, preferring to remain a Zionist from afar in his native Iraq. Presumably, he lived satisfied with what he had done both for the family he loved and the country on which he bestowed his new-found concern and affections.

Development Of The Kfir Multirole Combat Aircraft

The development of this aircraft has been attributed to covert action on the part of Mossad. After General De Gaulle embargoed the sale of arms to Israel, the IAF feared that in the future it would no longer have an upper hand over its regional adversaries that were being re-equipped with more advanced Soviet aircraft. The bulk of the Israeli Air Force had been locked into the Mirage but was quickly facing problems because it had been severely depleted after the Six-Day War. They did not have a better alternative than the Mirage. Mossad was able to acquire the plans for the Mirage III, which were used directly in the design process of the Kfir aircraft series.

The man responsible for this was a Swiss Engineer Alfred Frauenknecht. During the late 1960s, in light of the success of the Mirage III fighter jet in the service of the Israeli air force, the Marcel Dassault company, makers of the aircraft, was working on the development of a new model, the Mirage V, in cooperation with the air force. 50 aircraft of this type were ordered and production began when France’s president Charles de Gaulle placed a weapons’ embargo on Israel. The aircraft were needed to replace the air force losses during the Six Days War and the embargo was a severe blow to the IAF. The decision was taken to produce the aircraft in Israel under the name ‘Nesher’.

In order to enable the production on the aircraft’s ATAR engine, the Mossad made contact with a non-Jewish Swiss engineer named Alfred Frauenknecht who worked in a Swiss aircraft engine factory producing ATAR engines under licence for the Swiss air force. Frauenknecht provided Israel with 200,000 drawings and plans of the engine that were smuggled out of the factory in crates, and received for these a payment of 200,000 US dollars. For these actions Frauenknecht was tried and was sentenced to four and a half years in jail in what was described as Switzerland’s biggest espionage trial since the Second World War. The Israeli military attaché to Switzerland was ordered to leave. During his trial, Frauenknecht said that he wanted to help Israel as the Soviets were helping its enemies and Israel was left exposed to threats as a result of the French embargo.

Israel used the stolen plans to develop its own fighters. The first of these was the Nesher, almost an exact copy of the Mirage 5 (indeed, it's so exact that some sources suggest IAI actually assembled Mirages, clandestinely supplied in kit form by France, rather than manufactured the Neshers itself; but this is unproven). A total of about 60 Neshers appear to have been made, most of which were sold to Argentina at the end of the 1970's under the name of Dagger (where they confronted British forces during the Falklands War). IAI went on to produce the Kfir, a considerably upgraded Mirage derivative with Israeli electronics and a US J79 turbojet engine (the same used on the F-4 Phantom II fighter-bomber, also operated by Israel).


Alfred was sentenced for 4 and a half years for his role in blue-printing and shipping the plans to Israel. He died of a heart attack in January 1991 at the age of 64.

Israel's Master Spy - Eli Cohen

Of all the stories about Eliahu Cohen I chose this first account story as told by his brother Maurice as he was also a spy. Eli Cohen was the Master Spy in Syria that single-handedly aided Israel to win the Six-Day War in 1967 against Egypt, Jordan and Syria. Before he was discovered, he was 3rd in line to be Syria's next President.

By Carla Stockton as told to by Maurice Cohen

I have spent the better part of my life keeping secrets, State secrets family secrets, emotional secrets. I have guarded them, held them close to my heart, and locked them in my mind. Each secret has given me moments of pride, of joy, of pain. But there is one that has been breaking my heart since 1962. It may have saved my country, but has most certainly cost me a piece of my soul. This is the secret of Eliahu Cohen, Israel’s most famous spy.

Eli has been dead for 40 years now, and though I did not kill him, I am fully aware that my failure to disclose what I knew my have sealed his fate. Like Eli, I was a member of Israeli Intelligence, a Mossad agent, now retired. It was the intersection of our lives in that agency that led to my personal hell. I will tell you this story, but let me start closer to the beginning.

A FAMILY OF REFUGEES

In 1914, our father, Shaul, then 12, and his parents left their home in Aleppo, Syria and immigrated to Alexandria, Egypt. Thousands of Jews fled Aleppo that year, and our mother, Sophie, seven at the time, was among them as well.

Egypt was the land where our parents met and where Eli and I were born- he in 1924 and I three years later. We were the second and the third of eight children, seven of whom who survived to adulthood.

As Jews, we were double outcasts. Egyptian Muslims were growing increasingly hostile towards Jews, and the British who ruled Egypt until 1954, did nothing to temper the discrimination. From our earliest childhood, we knew that we were interlopers in Egypt and longed to create a place where we could truly belong.

By the time I was ten, the Zionist movement had gained considerable momentum among young Jews like myself. I joined the Halutzim, the Pioneers a kind of boy scouts for Zionist youth, and by the age of 14, I was a troop leader. We scouts were all-out nationalist for a country that did not yet exist, and our mission was to use our knowledge of Jewish history and culture to inspire younger Jews to join us. Though not yet adults, we sought to hasten the creation of the Jewish State, a land where we could celebrate our heritage without fear or shame.

Eli, already too old to be a scout, was active in the Zionist underground. Egyptian law required all males, including Jews, to serve in the army, but he was rejected on the grounds of questionable loyalty. Instead, Eli enrolled at the University of Cairo to pursue a degree in electronic engineering. At the University, Eli and other Jewish students were persecuted by the Muslim Brotherhood, so he withdrew to continue his studies at home, which I later learned had given him more freedom to work on behalf of the Zionist cause. We, his family, were blissfully ignorant of the fact that Eli was already on shaky ground with the Egyptian authorities. This was the first of Eli’s many secrets.


Eli in Egypt

When I was old enough for the army my father arranged for an exemption and pulled strings to get me appointed to the King’s Guard. In 1946, I went to work as a file clerk for the British Army at the Royal Army Forces Corp head quarter in Ismailia. At night, I studied accounting at La Societe de Comptabilite de France and architecture at the British Institute of Engineering Technology.

But conditions for Jews in Egypt were worsening. One evening, I was arrested and, having no legal identification in my possession, was incarcerated. In the absence of a proper jail, my captors kept me in an outhouse for the night before taking me to Ismailia for arraignment. Sitting in the car along the way, I became gripped by fear when I realized that I had nationalistic Israeli songs written in Hebrew in my pocket.

Cautiously, I ripped the papers into tiny pieces, chewed them to a pulp and threw them out the window. When we reached the police station, a small piece of the paper remained in my pocket. I needed an efficient way to rid myself of the songs. A janitor cleaning the floors became my only opportunity to divest myself of the last scrap. I wrapped it in a one-pound note and dropped it to the floor. The custodian saw the bill and quickly put his foot over it to claim it for himself. The paper landed in the garbage, courtesy of the cleaning man who had eyes only for the money. It was my first act of espionage.

Shortly thereafter, I was discharged from Royal Army Headquarter and it became clear that I wouldn’t be able to find another job in Egypt. It was 1948; Israel had declared statehood and the situation for Jews in Arab lands was becoming ever more dangerous. Consequently, my family decided that my sister Odette, my brother Ezra and I would make aliyah.

It was around that time we first learned Eli had become involved with the Haganah (the underground military force in Israel from 1920-1948 that eventually became the Israel Defense Forces). Mutual friends told me that Eli was connected to people who could produce forged visas for Jews seeking to leave Egypt. When I had difficulty getting my exit papers, I went to Eli and sought his assistance. He denied that he could help. I now understand that his denial was an essential act of self-preservation. Abetting a family member would have compromised his cover and placed him at risk of imprisonment, torture and death.

In time, after much trouble, Ezra, Odette and I received our exit papers and departed for Brindisi, Italy, where we obtained the necessary documents to enter Israel, Ezra was 19, the perfect age to join the now official Israel Defense Forces. I was 21 and took a job at the post office.

Eli remained in Egypt with the rest of our family. But from 1950 on, a new wave of persecution was unleashed against Egyptian Jews. Like thousands of other Jewish families, my parents and younger siblings let everything behind and immigrated to Israel.

Eli stayed. He was now a member of the Israeli intelligence unit that was attempting to sabotage Egypt’s relationships with United States, Britain and other Western powers. Unbeknownst to us, training and planning were underway for what would later be called the Lavon Affair, after Israeli Defense Minister Pinhas Lavon. This spy network, code named “Susanah” was designed to penetrate attack and disrupt civil and military installation within Egypt.

In 1952, the free Officers Movement, a revolutionary group backed by the British and led by Gamal Abdel Nasser (who would become President of Egypt), toppled King Farouk. That same year, Eli was arrested, along with many others on suspicion of engaging in Zionist activities. Eli was questioned extensively by the Egyptian Muchabarat (intelligence agency), but no concrete connection to any subversive movement could be established.

Around this time, my brother was sent to an espionage course in Israel. It had been years since we’d seen our Eli, so you can only imagine our excitement when he telephoned Odette to divulge that he was in the country. She immediately told me the name of his hotel in Tel Aviv, and I jumped in my car to see him. But I missed my chance. His superiors discovered that he had contacted us and spirited him away before I arrived. He was sent back to Egypt.

In 1953, the Egyptian authorities uncovered the Jewish spy ring, which promted the Lavon Affair, and took 11 Jews into custody, Eli among them. Once again, he was released for lack of evidence. Eli’s comrades were not so fortunate. Two were hanged, the others imprisoned. The incident sparked official attacks on Jewish homes, and over the next three years Egyptian Jews were arrested in droves.

In December 1956, Eli was expelled from Egypt for good. With the help of a Jewish agency in Cairo, he crossed the Mediterranean and made aliyah by way of Naples; he moved in with our parents their apartment in Bat Yam and petitioned for a position as a translator for Israel Intelligence Operations. Despite his facility for languages, his extensive intelligence training and his role in the Israeli underground, he was turned down because he was not proficient in Modern Hebrew.

A TIME FOR LOVE


Eli & Nadia’s wedding

Now a private citizen, Eli found work as accountant and inspector for HaMashbir, a chain of retail stores. For a time, it seemed he would just assimilate into Israeli society, obscure and anonymous. I smile to think how he must have enjoyed this brief reprieve from espionage.

I, meanwhile, had become fluent in Hebrew and made great strides in both my personal and professional life. In 1952, I married Hanna Shirazi and took a job as district substitute for post-masters who were ill or on leave. A year later, Hanna and I had our first son, Shaul. Not long after, I became Post master in Eilat. Like all other Israeli men, I also served in the military reserves. While on duty I was constantly asked to join Army Intelligence, but I was a happily married man with growing family and had not the slightest interest in being a hero or in leaving the happy nest I was feathering. So I turned down all offers.

All of us Cohens, as a matter of fact were immersed in our private lives. Even Eli was to find true love above ground. It was I who introduce Nadia Magled to my big brother.

One day, my wife called me at work to ask me to stop in at her sister Hela’s dressmaker’s shop to pick up two dresses she had altered. When I arrived, Hela was fitting a very pretty woman for a new dress. The young woman was clearly curious about me and asked Hela in crisp, succulent Iraqi Arabic from where she knew this fine looking young man. “Is he Ashkenazi? What is his parentage?” After Hela explained that I was her brother-in-law, the young woman blushed and remarked shyly, “If you’d been a bachelor, I would have introduced you to my sister Nadia who lives with our parents across the street”

I smiled and told her, “If your sister Nadia is a pretty as you are, I will gladly arrange for her sister to meet my brother.”

We made all the necessary arrangements, and when Nadia and Eli met, it was immediately clear that they were meant to be together. At age 30, Eliahu cut a dark, handsome figure; he was well spoken and polite. Nadia, 25, was shapely, olive-skinned and slightly taller than Eli.

They were married in August 1959 in a modest ceremony at a Sephardic shul in Tel Aviv and settled near our parents in Bat Yam. Eli, Nadia and soon had their first daughter, Sophie, and they comfortably blended into the landscape of middle-class Israel.

Meanwhile, Israeli intelligence continued to try to recruit me and, in 1960, I took a leave of absence from my job to accept an officer’s commission. Given my knowledge of many languages, I specialized in cryptology.

Eli, now fluent in Hebrew, was also sought after by Israeli Intelligence. He was recruited by the Agaf Ha-Modi’in, a branch of the Israel Defense Forces known by the Hebrew acronym AMAN, meaning simply “intelligence branch”. Enjoying the idyll of home and family, Eli initially refused to enlist. Then, rather mysteriously, he lost his job at Ha Mashbir and, unable to support his family, finally accepted the offer from AMAN.

Neither of us, of course, was aware of the other’s espionage trade, and even if we had been, Eli and could never have discussed our work. What I am about to tell you I have mostly learned in the years since his death

A NEW IDENTITY

After an intensive training period and transfer from the IDF to the Mossad, Eli was dispatched to Argentina. We have family in that country, and some years later, I met our aunt, our mother’s sister, who told me she had seen Eli there.

Eli had explained that he was merely a tourist who brought regards from her nephews in the old country. She suspected, but never knew for a fact, that he was her nephew. What a risk my brother took being cordial with our family members.

Yet it was precisely our family background that made Eli so valuable to the Mossad. Eli, like the rest of us, had spent his childhood absorbing the Aleppo-accented Arabic spoken at home and had heard enough stories about Syria to allow him to appear familiar with its intricate twists and turns.

The Mossad recognized this opportunity and transformed Eli into a new man. Literally, my brother became Kamel Amin Sa’bet, rich Syrian emigre who had inherited vast wealth and a thriving family business from his father. Kamel Amin Sa’bet conspicuously spent his money (provided by his bosses at Mossad) hosting parties for the local Syrian community, making it clear to anyone who would listen that what he really desired was to be back in Syria, contributing to the growth of its government and working toward the destruction of Israel.

He was a talented actor, my brother. He quickly gained the trust of Syrian businessmen privy to the whereabouts of Adolph Eichmann, who was living in Argentina under the assumes name of Richard Klement. Later, while in Syria, Sa’bet was introduced to Karl Rademacher, a senior Eichmann aide who had been involved in the mass murder of Jews before joining the Syrian secret service.

But Eli’s target was Syria itself. In 1960 and 1961, several military coups upended the Syrian government (and its brief union with Egypt as the United Arab Republic), leaving the Ba’ath Party - a secular Socialist Arab group - in control. With the help of the Argentinean Syrians, Kamel Amin Saabet, an avowed Ba’athist, traveled through Zurich, Egypt and Beirut to Damascus, where he was introduced to some of the most influential men in the highest echelons of government. Sa’bet convinced them that he was willing to give his fortune, his hard work and his life to Syria. He settled easily into Damascus society.

The rest of us Cohens, of course, knew nothing of Eli’s other life. He told us that the Israeli government had charged him with the purchase of spare computer parts and other electronic instruments that were off limits to Israelis, for fear they’d be used for military purposes. This job, he added, required him to be based in Europe but travel widely. Looking back, I see I was naïve to believe these fairy tales. But I bought into his lies as easily as did Nadia.

OUR MAN IN DAMASCUS

By this time I had worked my way up through the hierarchy of the Mossad and was toiling in a high security, top secret unit that decoded and encrypted messages. At first I knew nothing about the messages I was decoding; they seemed like random words with no apparent significance. Then, as I honed my skills, it became clear that the transmissions were coming out of Damascus, from the agent we all called “Our Man In Damascus.”

Our Man in Damascus was an incredibly productive spy. In 1962, he solidified the Syrians’ trust in him and was invited to attend the Sixth National Convention of the Ba’ath Party. As a highly respected member of the Syrian National Council of Revolutionary Command and a volunteer for Radio Damascus, our spy had intimate access to both open and closed sessions of the party.


Eli With Arab Leaders on the Golan Heights

He managed to expose Syria’s plans to cut off Israel’s water supply by diverting the headwaters of the Jordan. He also provided the details of a plan drawn up by the Palestinian National Liberation Movement, to attack northern Israel through guerilla warfare. Armed with this knowledge, the Israeli government bombed Syria positions, preventing Syria from destroying the Israeli settlements of Dan, Dafne and Shear Yishub.

Through a twist of fate, I was made responsible for the codes Mossad “activators” used to communicate with Our Man in Damascus. He and his contacts typically sent messages that ended with a personal tidbit. It was these postscripts that led me suspect that Our Man in Damascus was none other than my brother, Eli.

One day a postscript read, “Did Nadia get the Singer sewing machine I sent her?” No code words “Nadia” or “Singer Sewing Machine” appeared in the code book. My superiors informed me that I was not cleared to decode such top secret sensitive materials. I asked my sister-in-law and learned she had indeed recently received a sewing machine.

This astonishing discovery was confirmed when another message concluded with, “Mlle Fifi a commence a marcher”. [ Miss Fifi has began to walk.] I knew that my niece Sophie had been delayed in taking her first steps and that Eli had been concerned about it.

Eli was our spy.

WHOM DO I TELL?

Now that I was certain Our Man in Damascus was my own brother, the secret gnawed at my insides, and I was dying to reveal it. But to whom? And to what end? I was tortured by the knowledge of my brother’s high risk mission. I had ferreted out the truth; now I had to swallow it and keep it deep with my belly.

Some month later, Eli visited and presented young Sophie with a pair of velvet slippers. Embroidered with golden thread, the shoes had sizes in Arabic numbers imprinted on the soles. “Where did you get these slippers?” I inquired. He bought them at a department store in Paris he said. "But", I argued, “why would the sizes be written in Arabic for French sale?” He chided me for interrogating him and said that they were probably manufactured in an Arab country and exported all over the world. He then abruptly and definitively changed the subject.

I decided I had to hear the truth directly from Eli. He knew that I had a hard time getting telephone service in my new apartment. “You work for the Postal Service,” he remarked one day, unaware that I too was a Mossad agent. “it should be easy you to get a line.” I told him I now had a phone and gave the number of his apartment in Damascus, which I had received in a message just before he’d come home. He began writing the number but stopped abruptly and, looking flushed and flustered, mumbled under his breath about needing to run out to the supermarket before it closed. I had gotten under his cover.

Soon after, my commanding officers summoned me to my base and informed me that Eli had spoken to them about the phone number incident. They warned me not to discuss the issue with Eli anymore and to share his secret with no one. And so the truth remained trapped within me.

If I shared the secret with my family, even if they could keep it, I would cause them unspeakable worry and pain. If I breached security and told anyone else, I would place my country in a vulnerable position. One word from me, and Eli’s mission could be aborted, his life endangered. My brother had bravely chosen to put himself in danger to protect his country. I chose to honor his commitment, leaving his fate in God’s hands.

Eli returned to Israel in 1964 to be present at the birth of his third child, his son Shaul. This time, Nadia begged him to stay. He promised her this would be his last trip abroad before returning for good.

And so Our Man in Damascus returned to Syria for one last bout of espionage. He ascended to new heights of power in the Ba’ath Party. With friends in high places who escorted him to high security areas throughout Syria, he managed to photograph strategic strongholds on the Golan Heights. The clandestine information he sent back later aided Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War.

THE END COMES

With the help of Soviet tracking, the Syrian government was able to identify the spy who was transmitting its secrets to Israel. In a pre-dawn raid on his home, Kamel Amin Sa’bet was arrested and imprisoned. He was tortured and tried without counsel. At the time of his arrest, Kamel Amin Sa’bet AKA Eliahu Cohen was third in the line of succession to become president of Syria.


The Execution

Five months after his arrest, on May 18, 1965, Eli was hanged before a crowd of more than 10,000 vengeful Syrians who jeered him as he died. The hanging was televised and we --- his family in Israel --- watched helplessly as our beloved son, husband, brother and father was executed.

Postscript

I indict myself anew on a daily basis. What else might I have done? How might I have saved my brother from such unfathomable suffering? Could I have protected my mother and my sister-in-law, my nieces and nephew, my brothers and sisters, from such pain? As my own judge and jury, I find myself both guilty and innocent. The verdict tortures me.

But in the end, it was Eli alone who could have broken the chain events that took his life. He chose on his own, without the luxury of discussion with his wife or friends or family, to give himself to his work. He heeded a higher power; a greater good.

When God commanded Moses to send spies into Israel to chart the land and study the people who were living there, He wrote Eli’s fate. Each day of my life, I remind myself that nothing I could have said or done had the power to change that.

BRINGING ELI HOME

Maurice Cohen vowed to his mother, as she lay dying, that he would make it his life’s quest to ensure that the bones of his brother Eliahu returned to their rightful resting place in Israel. But to this day, Eli’s remains are still in Syria and have not received a proper Jewish burial.

Eli’s family, including his wife Nadia and daughter Sophie Ben-Dor, continue to fight for the return of Eli’s body.

Sophie recently told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, “Frankly, I don’t believe that this will take place. The problem has been dormant for 40 years; it could easily lie there for another 40 years.”

To offer support to the family’s efforts, or simply to learn more about the Cohen brothers, visit: http://www.elicohen.org.


Maurice Cohen now is retired and lives in Ramat-Gan, Israel

http://www.jewishmag.com/99mag/elicohen/elicohen.htm

interesting stuff. they are the best SS in the world i think. otherwise they wouldnt have survived.