The Israeli Secret Services and the Struggle Against Terrorism Read online

  Table of Contents

  COLUMBIA STUDIES IN TERRORISM AND IRREGULAR WARFARE

  Title Page

  Table of Figures

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction

  CHAPTER ONE - THE EMERGENCE OF ISRAEL’S COUNTERTERRORISM DOCTRINE

  THE RESPONSE TO THE 1936 REVOLT

  THE UN PARTITION RESOLUTION

  THE FORMATION OF THE ISRAELI INTELLIGENCE ORGANIZATIONS

  MECHANISMS OF CONTROL OVER PALESTINIAN CITIZENS OF ISRAEL

  FIRST INDICATIONS OF THE ISRAELI COUNTERTERRORISM DOCTRINE

  CHAPTER TWO - THE PATH TO THE DEFENSIVE MODEL AND BACK

  THE 1967 WAR AND NEW SECURITY CHALLENGES

  THE PLO AND THE FIRST ISRAELI SEMIDEFENSIVE MODEL

  SHARON AND RIMON

  HIJACKINGS AND ISRAELI RESPONSES

  SAYERET MATKAL

  THE FIRST WAVE OF GLOBAL TERRORISM

  MUNICH AND OPERATION WRATH OF GOD

  CHAPTER THREE - RESCUING HOSTAGES

  MA’ALOT

  THE SAVOY HOTEL

  ENTEBBE

  MISGAV AM

  CHAPTER FOUR - THE LEBANESE PUZZLE

  THE FIRST LEBANON WAR

  THE HEZBOLLAH CHALLENGE

  THE ERA OF INTELLIGENCE WARS

  CHAPTER FIVE - NEW CHALLENGES FROM THE WEST BANK AND GAZA

  THE BUS 300 AFFAIR

  THE “MOTHERS BUS”

  ABU JIHAD

  THE INTIFADA AND EMERGENCE OF HAMAS

  CHAPTER SIX - THE GLOBAL CHALLENGE OF IRAN AND HEZBOLLAH

  ABDUCTIONS

  HEZBOLLAH STRIKES BACK

  HEZBOLLAH STRIKES AGAIN

  MOSSAD RETURNS TO LEBANON

  GRAPES OF WRATH

  CHAPTER SEVEN - NEW RIVALS, OLD RESPONSES

  INTELLIGENCE ORGANIZATIONS AND THE PEACE PROCESS

  THE FIRST MAGNA CARTA

  NACHSHON WACHSMAN

  SUICIDE ATTACKS

  BACK TO THE ASSASSINATIONS

  YEHIYA AYASH

  KHALED MASHAL

  THE SECOND MAGNA CARTA

  CHAPTER EIGHT - A WAR AGAINST AN ELUSIVE ENEMY

  THE AL-AQSA INTIFADA

  SPECIAL FORCES AND COUNTERTERRORISM MISSIONS

  THE KIDNAPPING OF ELIYAHU GUREL

  THE ESCALATION OF THE ASSASSINATIONS

  TOWARD A DEFENSIVE MODEL

  COUNTERING THE FINANCING OF TERRORISM

  CHAPTER NINE - THE SECOND LEBANON WAR AND BEYOND

  THE ROAD TO THE SECOND LEBANON WAR

  THE ISRAELI INVASION

  CHAPTER TEN - FIGHTING THE TERRORISM PLAGUE

  CURRENT AND FUTURE CHALLENGES

  POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS

  INTELLIGENCE AND THE ARMED FORCES

  NOTES

  GLOSSARY

  INDEX

  Copyright Page

  Table of Figures

  FIGURE I.1 THE ISRAELI INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY

  FIGURE I.2 ISRAELI THWARTING FORCES

  FIGURE I.3 PALESTINIAN TERRORIST GROUPS, 1957–2007

  FIGURE 1.4 SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT

  FIGURE 1.1 FEDAYEEN ATTACKS, 1952–1957

  FIGURE 1.2 PALESTINIAN TERRORIST ATTACKS, 1952–1956

  FIGURE 2.1 OPERATION WRATH OF GOD AND PALESTINIAN RETALIATION OPERATIONS

  FIGURE 8.1 SUICIDE ATTACKS AND TARGETED KILLINGS DURING THE AL-AQSA INTIFADA

  FIGURE 10.1 PALESTINIAN TERRORIST ATTACKS ON ISRAELI TARGETS, 1948–2006

  FIGURE 10.2 PALESTINIAN TERRORIST ATTACKS ON ISRAELI TARGETS BY TACTIC, 1993–2007

  COLUMBIA STUDIES IN TERRORISM AND IRREGULAR WARFARE

  Bruce Hoffman, Series Editor

  This series seeks to fill a conspicuous gap in the burgeoning literature on terrorism, guerrilla warfare, and insurgency. The series adheres to the highest standards of scholarship and discourse and publishes books that elucidate the strategy, operations, means, motivations, and effects posed by terrorist, guerrilla, and insurgent organizations and movements. It thereby provides a solid and increasingly expanding foundation of knowledge on these subjects for students, established scholars, and informed reading audiences alike.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  WHILE WORKING ON THIS book, I traveled a long and fascinating road. A number of dear friends and colleagues made my work possible. Arie Perliger, who put his own work aside in order to help me accomplish this mission, conducted interviews in Israel, oversaw the work of research assistants, gathered material himself, and read, commented, and corrected the various chapters over and over again. This book could not have been completed without his constant support, and I owe him so much for that. Special thanks to Alex Bialsky, my research assistant, who spent many days interviewing policymakers, former members of the intelligence community, and senior military officials. He also worked tirelessly in gathering information and meticulously checking and corroborating facts. I owe profound thanks to the interviewees as well, some of whom require the protection of anonymity in the pages that follow.

  I owe great thanks, too, to Anne Routon of Columbia University Press, who was my partner in this journey and has always been there to support me with her reassuring words and wise advice. Bruce Hoffman, a dear friend, helped this project from its very first days. I greatly value his advice and support and appreciate his pushing me to write the best book that I could. Gregory McNamee did a wonderful job of editing the manuscript and furthering that goal.

  Gary Freeman, Zoltan Barany, Martha Crenshaw, and Leonard Weinberg generously offered friendship and support, comments, and ideas that helped shape my analysis. I was lucky to spend many hours in discussions with Yoav Gelber, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Israeli Special Forces and diligent historian. He encouraged me to look into the arguments and facts repeatedly and make sure that everything added up. Equally important, he shared with me his experiences as a young officer during the years in which Israel shaped its counter-terrorism doctrine.

  I am also grateful to the National Security Studies Center at the University of Haifa and to its directors, Gabi Ben-Dor and Dan Schueftan, who helped me in a time of need.

  I am lucky to have Galit, Rotem, Shahar, Doron, and Nissim, who were always there to help me with good advice, as well as love and patience. In closing, a word of gratitude and love to my parents, Max and Ruth Pedahzur. My father first instilled in me an interest in politics in general and intelligence affairs in particular. I dedicate this book to him.

  INTRODUCTION

  THE LITERATURE OF COUNTERTERRORISM makes an analytical distinction between the war model, the criminal-justice model, and the reconciliatory model of terrorism. Terrorism, from the perspective of the war model, is regarded as an act of revolutionary warfare. The criminal-justice model considers it a criminal act, and the reconciliatory model sees it as a political problem. In line with these respective views are their different responses to terrorism. The war model places the responsibility for response on the military, which can marshal all the means at its disposal to quash terrorist activities. The criminal-justice model places accountability for contending with the phenomenon on the police, whose actions are restrained by the state legal system.1 The reconciliatory model leaves the problem in the hands of politicians and diplomats, who deal with its root causes through negotiations and compromise (see table I.1). Standing in the background is the defensive model, which does not deal directly with the terrorists or their grievances but rather protects the targets of terrorism.

  These models are not mutually exclusive, and democratic regimes tend to apply one or more of them at the same time. Howev
er, when democracies sense impending threat, they tend to minimize the use of the reconciliatory model and extend the use of defensive measures. If the struggle against terrorism takes place beyond the borders of the democratic state, policymakers are apt to worry less about limiting their methods to constitutionally approved ones and tend to favor the war model.

  Thus far, most of the literature devoted to these models has dealt with the “democratic dilemma,” a predicament presented by Paul Wilkinson in his seminal work Terrorism and the Liberal State (1986):The primary objective of counter-terrorist strategy must be the protection and maintenance of liberal democracy and the rule of law. It cannot be sufficiently stressed that this aim overrides in importance even the objective of eliminating terrorism and political violence as such. Any bloody tyrant can “solve” the problem of political violence if he is prepared to sacrifice all considerations of humanity, and to trample down all constitutional and judicial rights.2

  TABLE I.1COUTERTERRORISM MODELS: A TYPOLOGY

  Source: Ronald D.Crelinsten and Alex Schimid.“Westem Reponses to Terrorism: A Twenty five Year Balance Sheet.”Terrorism and Political Violence 4,no.4 (1992):332-333; Peter Chalk.“The Liberal Response to Terrorism and Political Violence 7.no 4 (1995): 10-44; Peter Chalk, West European Terrorism and Couter-Terrorism: The Evolving Dynamic (London: Macmillan.1996).

  Over the two decades following the publication of Terrorism and the Liberal State, many scholars have devoted attention to the tension between the adherence to democratic values and the ways and means employed by democracies in the struggle against terrorism.3 While most scholars emphasized the question of democratic acceptability, little attention has been given to the other side of the coin—the relative effectiveness of each model in coping with security challenges posed by terrorism. I will address this issue using the Israeli case study. Furthermore, I will look into the various causes for selecting and maintaining particular models and assess the consequences of such decisions for national security. Throughout, I will consider the evolution of these models in light of the evolution of the Israeli intelligence community and counterterrorist military forces, as well as of Palestinian terrorist groups (see figures I.1, I.2, and I.3).

  THE SHAPING OF A COUNTERTERRORISM DOCTRINE

  Israel has never developed an unambiguous and official doctrine for countering terrorism, as Boaz Ganor clearly shows through his interviews with policymakers and heads of the security establishment.4 Each of them, when asked about the goals that should be defined in the struggle against terrorism, had a somewhat different objective in mind and suggested a different response. On one end of the spectrum is Binyamin Netanyahu, who believes that terrorism can be eliminated all together and thus adheres to the war model. The former head of Mossad, Shabtai Shavit, agrees with Netanyahu that terrorism can be eliminated. However, he contends that this policy cannot be executed because of constraints imposed by the international community. Others, including the present head of Mossad, Meir Dagan, and the former chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces, Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, set the bar lower. They argue that terrorism can be contained only to the extent that it does not affect policymakers.

  A survey of over six decades of counterterrorism policies indicates that the hard-liners have the upper hand. In the vast majority of cases, Israel’s struggle against terrorism fits the war model. Although this finding is not surprising, the preference for the more military model is not self-evident. The immense intelligence efforts and thwarting operations carried out by Israel have brought about short-term accomplishments. However, a retrospective analysis of the evolution of terrorism committed against Israel demonstrates that the long-term aims of stamping out terrorism or even containing it have not been achieved. Organizations that suffered setbacks did not dissolve; they simply changed form. Terrorist tactics that Israel was able to suppress were replaced by other, often much more devastating modes of operation.5 In terms of psychological and preventive or deterrent warfare, success was only partial. While state leaders and heads of the security establishment basked in the glorified status accorded to Israel as a major power in the field of counterterrorism, the psychological effect on Palestinian and Lebanese fighters was of no great consequence.6 Not only were they not deterred from continuing to strike at Israel, but their efforts also intensified over the years, and support for the militants among their respective publics only swelled.

  FIGURE I.1 THE ISRAELI INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY

  FIGURE I.2 ISRAELI THWARTING FORCES

  FIGURE I.3 PALESTINIAN TERRORIST GROUPS, 1957–2007

  Why isn’t the war model more effective? The well-known benefits of superior technology and troop size, which are featured in military literature as significant components in deciding wars, do not constitute an advantage in the struggle against terrorism. Unlike military struggles, the lack of symmetry between the state and the terrorists often works in favor of the latter. Many of the groups that employ terrorism are not institutions, and they tend to splinter or change form frequently. They likewise lack a systematic war doctrine or organizational memory, which prompts them to seek constantly means that will help them realize the goals they have set for themselves. They usually do this by copying the tactics of other terrorists who have proven themselves “successful.” If a certain tactic does not meet expectations, it is abandoned, and the quest for alternatives begins again. Intelligence and military security organizations tend to exhibit high levels of institutionalization, a fact that is usually considered an asset. In the struggle against terrorism, however, this is not the case. Institutionalization means cumbersome bureaucracy and lengthy response time. By the time an intelligence organization may have identified the changes in a terrorist group and the armed forces have subsequently made adjustments to cope with them, the terrorists are already in the midst of the next transformation. Furthermore, intelligence and military forces rely on a long-term organizational memory encoded in thick tomes of procedures and written with a substantial investment of deliberation and calculation. Hence, their natural tendency is to rely on accumulated experience and thus to respond to the terrorists’ innovativeness modifying methods drawn from an existing repertoire, which are not necessarily relevant to the challenges immediately facing them.7

  A great deal of scholarly attention has been given to the reasons for and obstacles to successful innovations in security organizations, mostly notably the armed forces. Yet few scholars addressed innovations that were considered or adopted in the face of challenges posed by substate actors. This could be because such innovations are less visible and have a lesser impact on the security establishment as a whole. In most cases, an innovation in the counterterrorism or insurgency realms would include the introduction of new technologies and tactics of small-scale warfare, an expansion of the roles of elite forces, and the establishment of new designated units.

  Despite its dominance in the literature, not all the scholars use the term innovation. In her research of the American intelligence community and its counter-terrorism efforts, Amy Zegart uses the term adaptation instead. She sees adaptation as an organizational change of a substantial scale that leads to improved fit between the organization and its environment.8 These two terms are not synonymous, but in this context they refer to very similar phenomena.

  The lack of consensus regarding the definition of a military innovation leads to some theoretical difficulties that become crucial in the area of counterterrorism. Adam Grissom sees military innovation as a “change in operational praxis that produces a significant increase in military effectiveness as measured by battlefield results.” The problem with this definition is that it does not make a distinction between the very adoption of an innovation and its outcomes. In contrast, Michael Horowitz emphasizes the need to separate the change from the outcome to avoid tautology. I concur with this contention. Innovation precedes its outcome. The degree of success of an innovation should be measured against the stated goals of those who introduced it as well as i
ts ability to mitigate the phenomenon for which it was introduced and its effect on the broader national-security interest.9

  THE ARGUMENT

  Barry Posen suggests that in order to implement a military innovation, the intervention of policymakers, preferably with the assistance of maverick officers, is necessary. A failure of cooperation between civil policymakers and service personnel may end up in the stagnation of the organization. Yet with regard to counterterrorism policies, unlike other situations that require innovations, the higher ranks of the political system operate under a complicated set of pressures. Terrorism is a psychological tactic that is aimed at civilians. A terrorized public that is not satisfied with the government’s response to terrorism can cut short the careers of elected leaders. Thus, policymakers feel pressured to counter the psychological impact of terrorism. The “defensive model” has proven to be successful in offering physical protection to civilian centers. Yet applying it is usually a long process, sometimes much longer than the tenure of an elected policymaker. Hence, it does not have the same instant impact of the war model. Political enemies and, more important, constituents can portray politicians who opt for the defensive model as “hesitant.” Successful offensive operations, which take place immediately after a terrorist attack, reassure the terrorized public, boost morale, and carry political perks that are very appealing for elected officials. Their directives to the military to acquire new technologies, expand the counterterrorism capabilities of existing units, and establish new ones results in no mean measure from these pressures. In the case of intelligence organizations, pressures applied to the heads of the organizations to deliver the goods trickle down to all divisions and are particularly felt by agents working in intelligence gathering and interrogations. The perpetual race against the clock in the attempt to get hold of information forces operatives and interrogators to seek new effective measures in obtaining information. These may include experimenting with new methods for applying physical and mental pressure on informants and detainees. During the first intifada, for instance, there was great pressure on Israeli General Security Service (GSS) investigators in the Gaza Strip to provide counterterrorism intelligence. The large amount of interrogates and the demands and pressure placed by the heads of the GSS on interrogators led to several cases where attempts to extract information from detainees were accompanied by brutal violence. In some cases, it led to several incidents of death. If these new methods are successful, however, heads of state are then inclined to glorify the armed forces and intelligence agencies. On the other hand, failure is an orphan, and when there is failure, members of the security establishment are often required to pay the price.10