radio, maintaining security within Israel’s army, and a bit of counterespionage.
A domestic secret service : Harel, a Shai veteran, would be director of the agency to be called Shabak—an acronym for Sherut ha-Bitachon ha-Klali , or “General Security Service.” Later, its letterhead in English would say “Israel Security Agency,” but it was typically known worldwide by its first two Hebrew initials, Shin Bet.
Harel was then changing his own name from Isser Halperin. Born in Russia in 1912, he arrived in pre-state Palestine in 1930 and volunteered enthusiastically to be an underground fighter. His specialty in Shai was surveillance of right-wing Jews who rejected the authority of Ben-Gurion and the Haganah. Being the head of Shin Bet suited him well, because he viewed enemies within Israel’s borders as just as dangerous as those outside.
The agency was initially assigned broad tasks that including catching foreign spies and spying on Israeli citizens deemed suspicious—mainly the Arab minority. Shin Bet was even put in charge of all prisons for a short time, as well as the security of all government buildings, with a special focus on scientific laboratories and arms factories.
The latter responsibility was transferred a few years later to a security unit within the Ministry of Defense. That unit’s existence was not revealed for more than three decades, when it came to light under the name Lakam, an acronym for Lishka le-Kishrei Mada , the Science Liaison Bureau. It was Lakam, with Eitan as its chief in the mid-1980s, that handled Pollard and caused extreme tension with Israel’s vital ally, America.
A foreign intelligence service : Espionage outside Israel would be in the hands of the Foreign Ministry’s Political Department. Two years later, in 1951, it would morph into the Mossad, under the leadership of Reuven Shiloah. A secretive man by nature, he set the priorities that became lasting hallmarks of Israeli intelligence. Shiloah decreed that the Mossad would have to plant operatives in Arab countries, and that Israeli agencies had a duty to serve as Jewish-Zionist protectors of their people all around the world. Shiloah also insisted on developing modern technology, keeping up with the latest in espionage methods by maintaining ties with friendly agencies in Europe and the United States.
A clandestine immigration service : Ha-Mossad le-Aliyah Bet , “the Institute for Aliyah B,” would continue its role from before Israel’s independence. Despite the word Mossad in its name, this institute was not part of the fabled foreign espionage agency.
Aliyah B would, in the early 1950s, be disbanded in a contentious process that saw its functions divided: some for a unit called Bitzur within the new Mossad; and some for a new agency called Nativ. ( See Chapter 13 .)
In its first years, the embryonic intelligence community was inept. This included the only occasion in which an Israeli suspect was intentionally put to death, and it happened on the very day that the intelligence community’s outlines were organized: June 30, 1948.
On the instructions of military intelligence chief Be’eri, Captain Meir Toubiansky was accused of spying for the British and the Jordanians. Without any lawyer or real consideration for his denials, Toubiansky was shot by a firing squad. Three intelligence officers were the prosecutors, the judges, and the executioners.
It would take a few years until Ben-Gurion acknowledged the injustice, rehabilitated Toubiansky’s reputation, and compensated his family.
The major ineptitudes of this early period also included an absurd episode in which Israel’s spies went on strike. In what was called the Revolt of the Spies, employees of the Foreign Ministry’s Political Department refused to be shifted to Reuven Shiloah’s new Mossad.
Shiloah, with the prime minister’s full backing, responded by reorganizing intelligence functions to exclude foreign ministry professionals. Special
A domestic secret service : Harel, a Shai veteran, would be director of the agency to be called Shabak—an acronym for Sherut ha-Bitachon ha-Klali , or “General Security Service.” Later, its letterhead in English would say “Israel Security Agency,” but it was typically known worldwide by its first two Hebrew initials, Shin Bet.
Harel was then changing his own name from Isser Halperin. Born in Russia in 1912, he arrived in pre-state Palestine in 1930 and volunteered enthusiastically to be an underground fighter. His specialty in Shai was surveillance of right-wing Jews who rejected the authority of Ben-Gurion and the Haganah. Being the head of Shin Bet suited him well, because he viewed enemies within Israel’s borders as just as dangerous as those outside.
The agency was initially assigned broad tasks that including catching foreign spies and spying on Israeli citizens deemed suspicious—mainly the Arab minority. Shin Bet was even put in charge of all prisons for a short time, as well as the security of all government buildings, with a special focus on scientific laboratories and arms factories.
The latter responsibility was transferred a few years later to a security unit within the Ministry of Defense. That unit’s existence was not revealed for more than three decades, when it came to light under the name Lakam, an acronym for Lishka le-Kishrei Mada , the Science Liaison Bureau. It was Lakam, with Eitan as its chief in the mid-1980s, that handled Pollard and caused extreme tension with Israel’s vital ally, America.
A foreign intelligence service : Espionage outside Israel would be in the hands of the Foreign Ministry’s Political Department. Two years later, in 1951, it would morph into the Mossad, under the leadership of Reuven Shiloah. A secretive man by nature, he set the priorities that became lasting hallmarks of Israeli intelligence. Shiloah decreed that the Mossad would have to plant operatives in Arab countries, and that Israeli agencies had a duty to serve as Jewish-Zionist protectors of their people all around the world. Shiloah also insisted on developing modern technology, keeping up with the latest in espionage methods by maintaining ties with friendly agencies in Europe and the United States.
A clandestine immigration service : Ha-Mossad le-Aliyah Bet , “the Institute for Aliyah B,” would continue its role from before Israel’s independence. Despite the word Mossad in its name, this institute was not part of the fabled foreign espionage agency.
Aliyah B would, in the early 1950s, be disbanded in a contentious process that saw its functions divided: some for a unit called Bitzur within the new Mossad; and some for a new agency called Nativ. ( See Chapter 13 .)
In its first years, the embryonic intelligence community was inept. This included the only occasion in which an Israeli suspect was intentionally put to death, and it happened on the very day that the intelligence community’s outlines were organized: June 30, 1948.
On the instructions of military intelligence chief Be’eri, Captain Meir Toubiansky was accused of spying for the British and the Jordanians. Without any lawyer or real consideration for his denials, Toubiansky was shot by a firing squad. Three intelligence officers were the prosecutors, the judges, and the executioners.
It would take a few years until Ben-Gurion acknowledged the injustice, rehabilitated Toubiansky’s reputation, and compensated his family.
The major ineptitudes of this early period also included an absurd episode in which Israel’s spies went on strike. In what was called the Revolt of the Spies, employees of the Foreign Ministry’s Political Department refused to be shifted to Reuven Shiloah’s new Mossad.
Shiloah, with the prime minister’s full backing, responded by reorganizing intelligence functions to exclude foreign ministry professionals. Special
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