Victor Ostrovsky: Former Mossad agent

Victor Ostrovsky: (1) How Mossad Got America to Bomb Libya & Fight Iraq (2) Mossad's training BOTH SIDES in the Sri Lankan civil war; and on its support for Moslem fundamentalists, to derail the peace process; and on its plan to kill George Bush sr. in payback for the peace process he initiated (3) Victor Ostrovsky "the most treacherous Jew in modern Jewish history"
Peter Myers, October 18, 2001; update July 31, 2003. My comments are shown {thus}.
You are at http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers/ostrovsky.html .
Ostrovsky, a former Mossad agent, says its motto is "By way of deception, thou shalt do war".
Mossad, he says, provoked America's air strike on Libya in 1986 by making it appear that terrorist orders were being transmitted from the Libyan government to its embassies around the world. But the messages originated in Israel and were re-transmitted by a special communication device - a "Trojan horse" - Mossad had placed inside Libya.
Mossad next moved against Saddam, drawing the United States to make war against him.
Sayanim are residents of other countries who co-operate with the Katsas (Mossad case-officers).
(1) How Mossad Got America to Bomb Libya & Fight Iraq
Victor Ostrovsky and Claire Hoy, By Way of Deception St Martin's Press, New York 1990.
{Ostrovsky's Foreword}
{p. vii} REVEALING THE FACTS as I know them from my vantage point of four years spent inside the Mossad was by no means an easy task.
Coming from an ardent Zionist background, I had been taught that the state of Israel was incapable of misconduct. That we were the David in the unending struggle against the ever-growing Goliath. That there was no one out there to protect us but ourselves - a feeling reinforced by the Holocaust survivors who lived among us.
We, the new generation of Israelites, the resurrected nation on its own land after more than two thousand years of exile, were entrusted with the fate of the nation as a whole.
The commanders of our army were called champions, not generals. Our leaders were captains at the helm of a great ship. I was elated when I was chosen and granted the privilege to join what I considered to be the elite team of the Mossad.
But it was the twisted ideals and self-centered pragmatism that I encountered inside the Mossad, coupled with this so-called team's greed, lust, and total lack of respect for human life, that motivated me to tell this story.
It is out of love for Israel as a free and just country that I am laying my life on the line by so doing, facing up to those who took it upon themselves to turn the Zionist dream into the present-day nightmare.
{p. viii} The Mossad, being the intelligence body entrusted with the responsibility of plotting the course for the leaders at the helm of the nation, has betrayed that trust. Plotting on its own behalf, and for petty, self-serving reasons, it has set the nation on a collision course with all-out war.
{Claire Hoy's Foreword}
{p. ix} One of the main themes of this book is Victor's belief that Mossad is out of control, that even the prime minister, although ostensibly in charge, has no real authority over its actions ...
{p. xi} The Mossad - believe it or not - has just 30 to 35 case officers, or katsas, operating in the world at any one time. The main reason for this extraordinary low total, as you will read in this book, is that unlike other countries, Israel can tap the significant and loyal cadre of the worldwide Jewish community outside Israel. This is done through a unique system of sayanim, volunteer Jewish helpers.
{Jointly written text - remainder of book}
{p. 52} My first six weeks were uneventful. I worked at the downtown office, essentially as a gofer and filing clerk. But one chilly day in February 1984, I found myself joining 14 others on a small bus. ... This course was to be known as Cadet 16, as it was the sixteenth course of Mossad cadets.
{p. 53} He walked briskly to the head of the table while the other two sat at the back of the room. "My name is Aharon Sherf," he said. "I am the head of the Academy. Welcome to the Mossad. Its full name is Ha Mossad, le Modiyn ve le Tafkidim Mayuhadim [the Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations]. Our motto is: 'By way of deception, thou shalt do war.'
{p. 86} The next day Ran S. delivered a lecture on the sayanim, a unique and important part of the Mossad's operation. Sayanim Ñ assistants Ñ must be 100 percent Jewish. They live abroad, and though they are not Israeli citizens, many are reached through their relatives in Israel. An Israeli with a relative in England, for example, might be asked to write a letter saying the person bearing the letter represents an organization whose main goal is to help save Jewish people in the diaspora. Could the British relative help in any way?
There are thousands of sayanim around the world. In London alone, there are about 2,000 who are active, and another 5,000 on the list. They fulfill many different roles. A car sayan, for example, running a rental agency, could help the Mossad rent a car without having to complete the usual doc-
{p. 87} umentation. An apartment sayan would find accommodation without raising suspicions, a bank sayan could get you money if you needed it in the middle of the night, a doctor sayan would treat a bullet wound without reporting it to the police, and so on. The idea is to have a pool of people available when needed who can provide services but will keep quiet about them out of loyalty to the cause. They are paid only costs. Often the loyalty of sayanim is abused by katsas who take advantage of the available help for their own personal use. There is no way for the sayan to check this.
One thing you know for sure is that even if a Jewish person knows it is the Mossad, he might not agree to work with you Ñ but he won't turn you in. You have at your disposal a nonrisk recruitment system that actually gives you a pool of millions of Jewish people to tap from outside your own borders. It's much easier to operate with what is available on the spot, and sayanim offer incredible practical support everywhere. But they are never put at risk Ñ nor are they privy to classified information.
Suppose during an operation a katsa suddenly had to come up with an electronics store as a cover. A call to a sayan in that business could bring 50 television sets, 200 VCRs Ñ whatever was neededÑfrom his warehouse to your building, and in next to no time, you'd have a store with $3 or $4 million worth of stock in it.
Since most Mossad activity is in Europe, it may be preferable to have a business address in North America. So, there are address sayanim and telephone sayanim. If a katsa has to give out an address or a phone number, he can use the sayan's. And if the sayan gets a letter or a phone call, he will know immediately how to proceed. Some business sayanim have a bank of 20 operators answering phones, typing letters, faxing messages, all a front for the Mossad. The joke is that 60 percent of the business of those telephone answering companies in Europe comes from the Mossad. They'd fold otherwise.
The one problem with the system is that the Mossad does not seem to care how devastating it could be to the status of the Jewish people in the diaspora if it was known. The an-
{p. 88} swer you get if you ask is: "So what's the worst that could happen to those Jews? They'd all come to Israel? Great."
Katsas in the stations are in charge of the sayanim, and most active sayanim will be visited by a katsa once every three months or so, which for the katsa usually means between two and four face-to-face meetings a day with sayanim, along with numerous telephone conversations. The system allows the Mossad to work with a skeleton staff. That's why, for example, a KGB station would employ about 100 people, while a comparable Mossad station would need only six or seven.
{p. 269} Pollard was not Mossad, but many others actively spying, recruiting, organizing, and carrying out covert activities - mainly in New York and Washington, which they refer to as their "playground" - do belong to a special, super-secret division of the Mossad called simply Al, Hebrew for "above" or "on top."
The unit is so secretive, and so separate from the main o ganization, that the majority of Mossad employees don't even know what it does and do not have access to its files on the computer.
But it exists, and employs between 24 and 27 veteran field personnel, three as active katsas. Most, though not all, of their activity is within U.S. borders. Their primary task is to gather information on the Arab world and the PLO, as opposed to gathering intelligence about U.S. activities. But as we shall see, the dividing line is often blurred, and when in doubt, Al doesn't hesitate to cross over it.
To say it doesn't gather information on the Americans is like saying mustard is not the main course, but you do like a little on your hotdog. Say, for example, there's a senator on the arms committee who interests Mossad. Al rarely uses sayanim, but that senator's paperwork, anything happening in his office, would be important information, so an aide would become a target. If an aide was Jewish, he or she would be approached as a sayan. Otherwise, the person would be recruited as an agent, or even just as a friend, with whom to mingle and listen.
The Washington cocktail circuit is very important for that. Certain attaches keep track of it. There is no problem adding someone to that circuit and giving it a legitimate ring.
Suppose, for instance, McDonnell Douglas wants to sell U.S.-made airplanes to Saudi Arabia. Is that a U.S. issue or an Israeli issue? Well, as far as the Institute is concerned, it's Israel's business. When you have something like that in place, it's very difficult not to use it. So they do.
{p. 270} One of the more famous of Al's activities involved the theft of research material from some major U.S. aircraft-manufacturing firms to help Israel secure a five-year, $25.8 million contract in January 1986 to supply the U.S. navy (shipboard) and marine corps with 21 16-foot-long drones, or unmanned Mazlat Pioneer 1 aircraft, plus the accompanying ground control, launch, and recovery equipment. The drones, which have a television monitor mounted underneath, are used in military reconnaissance work. Mazlat, a subsidiary of the state-run Israeli Aeronautical Industries and Tadiran, "won" the contract after outbidding U.S. firms in a 1985 tender.
In reality, Al stole the research. Israel had been working on a drone, but was not nearly far enough advanced to enter this competition. When you don't have to include research recovery costs in your bid, it makes a substantial difference.
After winning the contract, Mazlat went into partnership with AAI Corp. of Baltimore, Maryland, to complete it.
Al is similar to Tsomet, but it does not come under the jurisdiction of the head of Tsomet. Rather, it reports directly to the head of Mossad. Unlike normal Mossad stations, it does not operate inside the Israeli embassy. Its stations are located in safe houses or apartments.
The three Al teams are set up as a station, or unit. Let's say that for some reason relations between Israel and Great Britain collapsed tomorrow and the Mossad had to leave the United Kingdom. They could dispatch an Al team to London and have a complete clandestine setup the next day. The Al katsas are among the most experienced in the Institute.
The United States is one place where the consequences for messing up are immense. But not working through the embassy creates difficulties, especially with communications. If Al people are caught in the United States, they're jailed as spies. They have no diplomatic immunity. The worst that can happen to a katsa in a normal station, because he has diplomatic immunity, is deportation. Officially, the Mossad has a liaison station in Washington, but nothing else.
{p. 271} The Americans don't realize how much information is given to us through NATO, information that can be manipulated to present a much more vivid picture. ...
Al's stations, while outside the embassy, still operate like stations for the most part. They communicate directly to Tel Aviv headquarters either by telephone, telex, or computer modem. They do not use burst communications systems, because even if the Americans couldn't break down the messages, they would know there was clandestine activity in the neighborhood, something the Mossad wants to avoid. Distance is also a factor.
{p. 276} In a country where just about everybody serves in the army, military service is important. That's why you end up with a government that is 70 percent generals. People don't seem to understand what's wrong with that - with people whose nostrils flare at the smell of gunpowder.
{p. 277} In the midst of all this, the Mossad had made its first contact with the opium growers in Thailand. The Americans were trying to force farmers to stop producing opium and grow coffee instead. The Mossad's idea was to get in there, help them grow coffee, but at the same time help them export opium as a means of raising money for Mossad operations.
{p. 286} The Mossad still doesn't admit to the existence of Al. Inside the Institute, it's said that the Mossad does not work in the United States. But most Mossad people know that Al exists, even if they don't know exactly what it does. The biggest joke in all this is that, when the LAKAM broke out with the Pollard case, Mossad people always said, "There's one thing for sure. We don't work in the United States."
{end quotes}
Victor Ostrovsky, The Other Side of Deception HarperCollinsPublishers New York 1994.
{p. 24} Thursday, February 13, 1986, 07:45
{p. 31} Friday, February 21
{p. 32} It seemed that the whole building was going berserk. Everybody and his dog were looking for information that could stop Jordan's King Hussein's efforts for a peace initiative. ...
The American Jewish community was divided into a three-stage action team. First were the individual sayanim (if the situation had been reversed and the United States had convinced Americans working in Israel to work secretly on behalf of the United States, they would be treated as spies by the Israeli government). Then there was the large pro-Israeli lobby. It would mobilize the Jewish community in a forceful effort in whatever direction the Mossad pointed them. And last was B'nai Brith. Members of that organization could be relied on to make friends among non-Jews and tarnish as anti-Semitic whomever they couldn't sway to the Israeli cause. With that sort of one-two-three tactic, there was no way we could strike out.
{p. 113} "It's the old Trojan dick trick." He lit a cigarette.
"What's that?" I couldn't help smiling; I'd never heard it called that before.
"I knew that would get your attention," he said, grinning. "Shimon activated Operation Trojan in February of this year." {the only Shimon in the index is Shimon Peres}
I nodded. I'd still been in the Mossad when that order was given, and because of my naval background and acquaintance with most of the commanders in the navy, I participated in the planning for the operation as liaison with the navy.
A Trojan was a special communication device that could be planted by naval commandos deep inside enemy territory. The device would act as a relay station for misleading transmissions made by the disinformation unit in the Mossad, called LAP {footnote: LAP: LohAma Psicologit. Psychological warfare, or, as it's known in the West, disinformation}, and intended to be received by American and British listening stations. Originating from an IDF navy ship out at sea, the prerecorded digital transmissions could be picked up only by the Trojan. The device would then rebroadcast the transmission on another frequency, one used for official business in the enemy country, at which point the transmission would finally be picked up by American ears in Britain.
The listeners would have no doubt they had intercepted a genuine communication, hence the name Trojan, reminiscent of the mythical Trojan horse. Further, the content of the messages, once deciphered, would confirm information from other intelligence sources, namely the Mossad. The only catch was that the Trojan itself would have to be located as close as possible to the normal origin of such transmissions, because of the sophisticated methods of triangulation the Americans and others would use to verify the source.
In the particular operation Ephraim was referring to, two elite units in the military had been made responsible for the delivery of the Trojan device to the proper location. One was the Matkal {footnote: Matkal: Top military reconnaissance unit of the Israeli army} reconnaissance unit and the other was Flotilla 13, the naval commandos. The
{p. 114} commandos were charged with the task of planting the Trojan device in Tripoli, Libya.
On the night of February 17-18, two Israeli missile boats, the SAAR 4-class Moledet, armed with Harpoon and Gabriel surface-tosurface missiles, among other weaponry, and the Geula, a Hohit-class mlsslle boat with a helicopter pad and regular SAAR 4-class armament, conducted what seemed like a routine patrol of the Mediterranean, heading for the Sicilian channel and passing just outside the territorial waters of Libya. Just north of Tripoli, the warships, which were vlsible to radar both in Tripoli and on the Italian island of Lampedusa, slowed down to about four knots - just long enough to allow a team of twelve naval commandos in four wet submarines nicknamed "pigs" and two low-profiled speedboats called "birds" to disembark. The pigs could carry two commandos each and all their fighting gear. The birds, equipped with an MG 7.62-caliber machine gun mounted over the bow and an array of antitank shoulder-carried missiles, could facilitate six commandos each, while towing the empty plgs. The birds brought the pigs as close to the shore as possible, thus cutting down the distance the pigs would have to travel on their own. (The pigs were submersible and silent but relatively slow.)
Two miles off the Libyan coast, the lights of Tripoli could be seen glistening in the southeast. Eight commandos slipped quietly into the plgs and headed for shore. The birds stayed behind at the rendezvous pomt, ready to take action should the situation arise. Once they reached the beach, the commandos left their cigarlike transporters submerged in the shallow water and headed inland, carrying a dark green Trojan cylinder six feet long and seven inches in diameter. It took two men to carry it.
A gray van was parked on the side of the road about one hundred feet from the water, on the coastal highway leading from Sabratah to Tripoli and on to Benghazi. There was hardly any traffic at that time of night. The driver of the van seemed to be repairing a flat tire. He stopped working as the team approached and opened the back doors of the van. He was a Mossad combatant. Without a word said, four of the men entered the van and headed for the city. The other four returned to the water, where they took a defensive position by the submerged pigs. Their job was to hold this position to ensure an escape route for the team now headed for the city.
At the same time, a squadron of Israeli fighters was refueling south of Crete, ready to assist. They were capable of keeping any ground forces away from the commandos, allowing them a not-soclean getaway. At this point, the small commando unit was divided
{p. 115} into three details - its most vulnerable state. Were any of the details to run into enemy forces, they were instructed to act with extreme prejudice before the enemy turned hostile.
The van parked at the back of an apartment building on Al Jamhuriyh Street in Tripoli, less than three blocks away from the Bab al Azizia barracks that were known to house Qadhafi's headquarters and residence. By then, the men in the van had changed into civilian clothing. Two stayed with the van as lookouts and the other two helped the Mossad combatant take the cylinder to the top floor of the five-story building. The cylinder was wrapped in a carpet.
In the apartment, the top section of the cylinder was opened and a small dishlike antenna was unfolded and placed in front of the window facing north. The unit was activated, and the Trojan horse was in place.
The Mossad combatant had rented the apartment for six months and had paid the rent in advance. There was no reason for anyone except the combatant to enter the apartment. However, if someone should decide to do so, the Trojan would self-destruct, taking with it most of the upper part of the building. The three men headed back to the van and to their rendezvous with their friends on the beach.
After dropping the commandos at the beach, the combatant headed back for the city, where he would monitor the Trojan unit for the next few weeks. The commandos wasted no time and headed out to sea. They didn't want to be caught in Libyan waters at daybreak. They reached the birds and headed at full speed to a prearranged pickup coordinate, where they met with the missile boats that had brought them in.
By the end of March, the Americans were already intercepting messages broadcast by the Trojan, which was only activated during heavy communication traffic hours. Using the Trojan, the Mossad tried to make it appear that a long series of terrorist orders were being transmitted to various Libyan embassies around the world (or, as they were called by the Libyans, Peoples' Bureaus). As the Mossad had hoped, the transmissions were deciphered by the Americans and construed as ample proof that the Libyans were active sponsors of terrorism. What's more, the Americans pointed out, Mossad reports confirmed it.
The French and the Spanish, though, were not buying into the new stream of information. To them, it seemed suspicious that suddenly, out of the blue, the Libyans, who'd been extremely careful in the past, would start advertising their future actions. They also found it suspicious that in several instances Mossad reports were worded similarly
{p. 116} to coded Libyan communications. They argued further that, had there truly been after-the-fact Libyan communications regarding the attack, then the terrorist attack on the La Belle discotheque { La Belle discotheque: The terrorist attack on this location was said to have been linked to the Libyans and was the catalyst for the April 14 bombing of Llbya by the Amerlcans} in West Berlin on April 5 could have been prevented, since surely there would have been communications before, enabling intelligence agencies listening in to prevent It. Since the attack wasn't prevented, they reasoned that it must not be the Libyans who did it, and the "new communications" must be bogus. The French and the Spanish were right. The information was bogus, and the Mossad didn't have a clue who planted the bomb that killed one American serviceman and wounded several others. But the Mossad was tied in to many of the European terrorist organizations, and it was convinced that in the volatile atmosphere that had engulfed Europe, a bombing with an American victim was just a matter of time Heads of the Mossad were counting on the American promise to retaliate with vengeance against any country that could be proven to support terrorism. The Trojan gave the Americans the proof they needed. The Mossad also plugged into the equation Qadhafi's lunatic image and momentous declarations, which were really only meant for internal consumption. It must be remembered that Qadhafi had marked a line in the water at that time, closing off the Gulf of Sidra as Libyan territorial waters and calling the new maritime border the line of death (an action that didn't exactly give him a moderate image). Ultimately, the Americans fell for the Mossad ploy head over heels dragging the British and the Germans somewhat reluctantly in with them. Operation Trojan was one of the Mossad's greatest successes. It brought about the air strike on Libya that President Reagan had promised - a strike that had three important consequences. First, it derailed a deal for the release of the American hostages in Lebanon, thus preserving the Hizballah (Party of God) as the number one enemy in the eyes of the West. Second, it sent a message to the entire Arab world, telling them exactly where the United States stood regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict. Third, it boosted the Mossad's image of itself, since it was they who, by ingenious sleight of hand, had prodded the United States to do what was right. It was only the French who didn't buy into the Mossad trick and
{p. 117} were determined not to ally themselves with the aggressive American act. The French refused to allow the American bombers to fly over their territory on their way to attack Libya.
On April 14, 1986, one hundred and sixty American aircraft dropped over sixty tons of bombs on Libya. The attackers bombed Tripoli international airport, Bab al Azizia barracks, Sidi Bilal naval base, the city of Benghazi, and the Benine airfield outside Benghazi. The strike force consisted of two main bodies, one originating in England and the other from flattops in the Mediterranean. From England came twenty-four F-111s from Lakenheath, five EF-111s from Upper Heyford, and twenty-eight refueling tankers from Mildenhall and Fairford. In the attack, the air force F-111s and the EF-111s were joined by eighteen A-6 and A-7 strike and strike support aircraft, six F\A-18 fighters, fourteen EA-6B electronic jammer planes, and other support platforms. The navy planes were catapulted from the carriers Coral Sea and America. On the Libyan side, there were approximately forty civilian casualties, including Qadhafi's adopted daughter. On the American side, a pilot and his weapons officer were killed when their F-111 exploded.
After the bombing, the Hizballah broke off negotiations regarding the hostages they held in Beirut and executed three of them, including one American named Peter Kilburn. As for the French, they were rewarded for their nonparticipation in the attack by the release at the end of June of two French journalists held hostage in Beirut. (As it happened, a stray bomb hit the French embassy in Tripoli during the raid.)
Ephraim had spelled it all out for me and confirmed some of the information I'd already known. He then went on. "After the bombing of Libya, our friend Qadhafi is sure to stay out of the picture for some time. Iraq and Saddam Hussein are the next target. We're starting now to build him up as the big villain. It will take some time, but in the end, there's no doubt it'll work."
"But isn't Saddam regarded as moderate toward us, allied with Jordan, the big enemy of Iran and Syria?"
"Yes, that's why I'm opposed to this action. But that's the directive, and I must follow it. Hopefully, you and I will be done with our little operation before anything big happens. After all, we have already destroyed his nuclear facility, and we are making money by sellmg hlm technology and equipment through South Africa."
{p. 254} In the following weeks, more and more discoveries were made regarding the big gun and other elements of the Saddam war machine. The Mossad had all but saturated the intelligence field with information regarding the evil intentions of Saddam the Terrible, banking on the fact that before long, he'd have enough rope to hang himself. It was very clear what the Mossad's overall goal was. It wanted the West to do its bidding, just as the Americans had in Libya with the bombing of Qadhafi. After all, Israel didn't possess carriers and ample air power, and although it was capable of bombing a refugee camp in Tunis, that was not the same. The Mossad leaders knew that if they could make Saddam appear bad enough and a threat to the Gulf oil supply, of which he'd been the protector up to that point, then the United States and its allies would not let him get away with anything, but would take measures that would all but eliminate his army and his weapons potential, especially if they were led to believe that this might just be their last chance before he went nuclear.
(2) Mossad's training BOTH SIDES in the Sri Lankan civil war; and on its support for Moslem fundamentalists, to derail the peace process; and on its plan to kill George Bush snr, in payback for the peace process he initiated.
More quotes from Ostrovsky's two books on Mossad:
Victor Ostrovsky and Claire Hoy, By Way of Deception St Martin's Press, New York 1990.
{p. 130} Sympathy for the Tamils runs high in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, where 40 million Tamils live. Many Sri Lankan Tamils, escaping the bloodshed, have sought refuge there, and the Sri Lankan government has accused Indian officials of arming and training the Tamils. They should be accusing the Mossad.
The Tamils were training at the commando naval base, learning penetration techniques, mining landings, communications, and how to sabotage ships similar to the Devora. There were about 28 men in each group, so it was decided that Yosy should take the Tamils to Haifa that night while I took the Sinhalese to Tel Aviv, thus avoiding any chance encounters.
The real problem started about two weeks into the courses, when both the Tamils and Sinhalese - unknown to each other, of course - were training at Kfar Sirkin. It is a fairly large base, but even so, on one occasion the two groups passed within a few yards of each other while they were out jogging. After their basic training routine at Kfar Sirkin, the Sinhalese were taken to the naval base to be taught essentially how to deal with all the techniques the Israelis had just taught the Tamils. It was pretty hectic. We had to dream up punishments or night training exercises just to keep them busy, so that both groups wouldn't be in Tel Aviv at the same time. The actions of this one man (Amy) could have jeopardized the political situation in Israel if these groups had met. I'm sure Peres wouldn't have slept at night if he'd known this was going on. But, of course, he didn't know.
When the three weeks were just about up and the Sinhalese were preparing to go to Atlit, the top-secret naval commando base, Amy told me he wouldn't be going with them. The Sayret Matcal would take over their training. This was the top intelligence reconnaissance group, the one that carried out the famous Entebbe raid. (The naval commandos are the equivalent of the American Seals.)
"Look, we have a problem," said Amy. "We have a group of 27 SWAT team guys from India coming in."
{p. 131} "My God," I said "What is this? We've got Sinhalese, Tamils, and now Indians. Who's next?" ...
At the same time, I was meeting with a Taiwanese air-force general named Key, the representative of their intelligence community in Israel. He worked out of the Japanese embassy, and he wanted to buy weapons. I was told to show him around, but not to sell to him, since the Taiwanese would replicate in two days anything they bought, and end up competing with Israel on the market.
{p. 221} That was why Israel wanted to have their own to test, but they couldn't openly buy it from the French. France had an embargo on selling weapons to Israel. A lot of countries still do, because they know that the moment Israel has certain weapons, it will copy them.
{p. 222} And just to show how nondiscriminatory the Mossad is, it trained both sides in the bloody ongoing civil unrest in Sri Lanka: the Tamils and the Sinhalese, as well as the Indians who were sent in to restore order.
Victor Ostrovsky, The Other Side of Deception HarperCollinsPublishers New York 1994.
{p. 196} But since we were not yet ready to set up the Israeli spy ring for the Jordanians as I'd promised, I couldn't put Ephraim off much longer. He felt that there was a need to inoculate Egyptian intelligence against the Mossad. That had to be done before some incident occurred that would expose the Mossad's assistance (mainly logistical) to the Muslim fundamentalists through contacts in Afghanistan.
The peace with Egypt was pressing hard on the Israeli right wing. In itself, the peace, so vigilantly kept by the Egyptians, was living proof that the Arabs are a people with whom peace is possible, and that they're not at all what the Mossad and other elements of the right have portrayed them to be. Egypt has kept its peace with Israel, even though Israel became the aggressor in Lebanon in 1982 and despite
{p. 197} the Mossad's warnings that the Egyptians were in fact in the middle of a ten-year military buildup that would bring about a war with Israel in 1986-87 (a war that never materialized).
The Mossad realized that it had to come up with a new threat to the region, a threat of such magnitude that it would justify whatever action the Mossad might see fit to take.
The right-wing elements in the Mossad (and in the whole country, for that matter) had what they regarded as a sound philosophy: They believed (correctly, as it happened) that Israel was the strongest military presence in the Middle East. In fact, they believed that the military might of what had become known as "fortress Israel" was greater than that of all of the Arab armies combined, and was responsible for whatever security Israel possessed. The right wing believed then - and they still believe - that this strength arises from the need to answer the constant threat of war.
The corollary belief was that peace overtures would inevitably start a process of corrosion that would weaken the military and eventually bring about the demise of the state of Israel, since, the philosophy goes, its Arab neighbors are untrustworthy, and no treaty signed by them is worth the paper it's written on.
Supporting the radical elements of Muslim fundamentalism sat well with the Mossad's general plan for the region. An Arab world run by fundamentalists would not be a party to any negotiations with the West, thus leaving Israel again as the only democratic, rational country in the region. And if the Mossad could arrange for the Hamas (Palestinian fundamentalists) to take over the Palestinian streets from the PLO, then the picture would be complete.
{p. 247} The Mossad regarded Saddam Hussein as their biggest asset in the area, since he was totally irrational as far as international politics was concerned, and was therefore all the more likely to make a stupid move that the Mossad could take advantage of.
What the Mossad really feared was that Iraq's gigantic army, which had survived the Iran-Iraq war and was being supplied by the West and financed by Saudi Arabia, would fall into the hands of a leader who might be more palatable to the West and still be a threat to Israel.
The first step was taken in November 1988, when the Mossad told the Israeli foreign office to stop all talks with the Iraqis regarding a peace front. At that time, secret negotiations were taking place between Israelis, Jordanians, and Iraqis under the auspices of the Egyptians and with the blessings of the French and the Americans. The Mossad manipulated it so that Iraq looked as if it were the only country unwilling to talk, thereby convincing the Americans that Iraq had a different agenda.
By January 1989, the Mossad LAP machine was busy portraying Saddam as a tyrant and a danger to the world. The Mossad activated every asset it had, in every place possible, from volunteer agents in Amnesty Interna-ional to fully bought members of the U.S. Congress. Saddam had been killing his own people, the cry went; what could his enemies expect? The gruesome photos of dead Kurdish mothers clutching their dead babies after a gas attack by Saddam's army were real, and the acts were horrendous. But the Kurds were entangled in an all-out guerrilla war with the regime in Baghdad and had been supported for years by the Mossad, who sent arms and advisers to the mountain camps of the Barazany family; this attack by the Iraqis could hardly be called an attack on their own people. But, as Uri said to me, once the orchestra starts to play, all you can do is hum along.
The media was supplied with inside information and tips from reliable sources on how the crazed leader of Iraq killed people with his bare hands and used missiles to attack Iranian cities. What they neglected to tell the media was that most of the targeting for the missiles was done by the Mossad with the help of American satellites. The Mossad was grooming Saddam for a fall, but not his own. They wanted the Americans to do the work of destroying that gigantic army in the Iraqi desert so that Israel would not have to face it one day on its own border. That in itself was a noble cause for an Israeli, but to endanger the world with the possibility of global war and the deaths of thousands of Americans was sheer madness.
{p. 252} It was time to draw attention to Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.
Only three months before, on December 5, 1989, the Iraqis had launched the Al-Abid, a three-stage ballistic missile. The Iraqis claimed it was a satellite launcher that Gerald Bull, a Canadian scientist, was helping them develop. Israeli intelligence knew that the launch, although trumpeted as a great success, was in fact a total failure, and that the program would never reach its goals. But that secret was not shared with the media. On the contrary, the missile launch was exaggerated and blown out of proportion.
The message that Israeli intelligence sent out was this: Now all the pieces of the puzzle are fitting together. This maniac is developing a nuclear capability (remember the Israeli attack on the Iraqi reactor in 1981) and pursuing chemical warfare (as seen in his attacks on his own people, the Kurds). What's more, he despises the Western media, regarding them as Israeli spies. Quite soon, he's going to have the ability to launch a missile from anywhere in Iraq to anywhere he wants in the Middle East and beyond.
{p. 264} Several days later, I managed to make contact with Ephraim. I learned that the Mossad was going to let me be for now. If any steps were to be taken against me, they would be in the disinformation department and not against my person. I still knew that this was a very unstable guarantee and that if I should leave Canada and venture
{p. 265} even as far as the United States, things could change rather fast.
Accordingly, I decided to publicize By Way of Deception by doing radio shows across the United States and Canada via phone. I managed over two hundred shows in less than three months, and I also did a long string of television shows by satellite.
From Toronto, I appeared on Good Morning America with Charles Gibson, and found him to be as charming an interviewer as he was a host. It was quite a treat for me, since I'd watched him every morning from the day he'd debuted on the show.
Then there was the Larry King Show, by which time the gag order was lifted, where I received somewhat rougher treatment. To build some contentiousness into the hour, the show's producers had invited Amos Perelmuter, a professor from the American University in Washington, D.C., to join King and me. From the start, it was clear that Perelmuter was an enthusiastic supporter of the state of Israel, and that what he'd heard about my book - he admitted he hadn't read it - he didn't like.
There was never enough time on such shows to put Perelmuter and other "designated champions of Israel" on the spot. How did they know that everything I was saying was lies? I was the one who'd served in the Mossad, not they. Why was it that these loyal Americans were willing to accept any mud thrown at the CIA without even giving it a second thought, but insisted on defending to the hilt an intelligence agency of a foreign country that had been known to spy on the United States (as in the Pollard case) and hadn't refrained from attacking American interests (as in the case of the Lavon2 affair in Egypt, among others)?
The first wave of fury the book caused was due to its revelation that the Mossad had advance knowledge of the notorious suicide bombing in Beirut (including the make and color of the car) but didn't pass on that information to American intelligence. In October 1983, two hundred and forty-one U.S. marines were killed when the car, rigged with explosives, rammed their barracks in Beirut. In many instances, this story from the book was taken out of context and told
{p. 277} WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1991, MADRID
Air Force One was about to touch down, followed by the second twin Air Force One. The two jumbo jets (which are identical in all but the call numbers inscribed on their fuselages; one carries the president and the second brings along the rest of the entourage and is used as a backup in case of emergency) were en route to deliver the president of the United States and a large media contingent to the Madrid peace talks that were about to start between Israel and all its Arab neighbors, including Syria and the Palestinians, who were part of the Jordanian delegation.
In the months leading up to this theatrical occasion, the American president had truly believed he'd be able to bring about a change in the hardheaded attitudes that had prevailed in the region for decades. In an effort to bring the right-wing government of Yitzhak Shamir to the negotiating table in what was to be an international peace conference, the president had applied the kind of pressure that an American president rarely has been brave enough to apply. Against the wishes of an angry Jewish community, George Herbert Bush had put a freeze on all loan guarantees to Israel, which were to come to a total of ten billion dollars over the next five years. This freeze was not intended to punish Israel for the construction of settlements in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip (regarded by the United States as illegal,) but to force the cash-strapped Likud government to the negotiating table.
Upon making that decision, the president was instantly placed on the blacklist of every Jewish organization in the United States, and regarded as the greatest enemy of the state of Israel. In Israel, posters depicting the president with a pharaoh's headgear and the inscription "We have overcome the pharaohs, we will overcome Bush" were
{p. 278} pasted across the country. Shamir called the president's action "AmBush."
Israeli messengers in all the communities across the United States immediately went into high gear, launching attacks against the president. They fed the media an endless stream of criticism, while trying at the same time to make it clear to Vice President Dan Quayle that he was still their sweetheart and that what the president was doing in no way affected their opinion of him.
This love affair with a vice president was not a new thing; it had been almost standard procedure ever since the creation of the state of Israel. Any time a president was not on the best of terms with Israel, the Jewish organizations were instructed to cozy up to the vice president. That was the case with Dwight Eisenhower, whom Israel regarded as the worst president in history (although, ironically, the vice president they regarded as a friend, namely Richard Nixon, himself became an enemy once he was president). It was what lay behind the strong support Israel and the Jewish community gave to Lyndon Johnson, who almost doubled aid to Israel in his first year as president, after John Kennedy had come down hard on the Israeli nuclear program, believing it was a first and dangerous step in the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the region.
That strategy was behind their hatred for Nixon and their admiration for Gerald Ford. And then there was Jimmy Carter, whose whole administration was regarded as a big mistake as far as Israel was concerned, a mistake that had cost Israel the whole of the Sinai in return for a lukewarm peace with Egypt.
And now there was this peace process, put forth by the country club idiot. The right-wingers' silent cry was to somehow stop the process, which they believed would lead to a compromise that would force Israel to return more land. Refusing to believe that such a compromise would ever be made, settlers in the Occupied Territories had launched a new wave of construction, with the unrelenting help of Ariel Sharon, the minister of housing.
A certain right-wing clique in the Mossad regarded the situation as a life-or-death crisis and decided to take matters into their own hands, to solve the problem once and for all. They believed that Shamir would have ordered what they were about to do if he hadn't been gagged by politics. Like many others before them, in countless countries and administrations, they were going to do what the leadership really wanted but couldn't ask for, while at the same time leaving the leadership out of the loop - they were going to become Israeli versions of Colonel Oliver North, only on a much more lethal level.
{p. 279} To this clique, it was clear what they must do. There was no doubt that Bush would be out of his element on October 30 when he arrived in Madrid to open the peace talks. This was going to be the most protected event of the year, with so many potential enemies meeting in one place. On top of that, there were all those who were against the talks: the Palestinian extremists and the Iranians and the Libyans, not to mention the decimated Iraqis with their endless calls for revenge for the Gulf War.
The Spanish government had mobilized more than ten thousand police and civil guards. In addition, the American Secret Service, the Soviet KGB, and all the security services of all the countries involved would be on hand.
The Madrid Royal Palace would be the safest place on the planet at the time, unless you had the security plans and could find a flaw in them. That was exactly what the Mossad planned to do. It was clear from the start that the assassination would be blamed on the Palestinians - perhaps ending once and for all their irritating resistance and making them the people most hated by all Americans.
Three Palestinian extremists were taken by a Kidon unit from their hiding place in Beirut and relocated incommunicado in a special detention location in the Negev desert. The three were Beijdun Salameh, Mohammed Hussein, and Hussein Shahin.
At the same time, various threats, some real and some not, were made against the president. The Mossad clique added its share, in order to more precisely define the threat as if it were coming from a group affiliated with none other than Abu Nidal. They knew that name carried with it a certain guarantee of getting attention and keeping it. So if something were to happen, the media would be quick to react and say, "We knew about it, and don't forget where you saw it first."
Several days before the event, it was leaked to the Spanish police that the three terrorists were on their way to Madrid and that they were probably planning some extravagant action. Since the Mossad had all the security arrangements in hand, it would not be a problem for this particular clique to bring the "killers" as close as they might want to the president and then stage a killing. In the ensuing confusion, the Mossad people would kill the "perpetrators," scoring yet another victory for the Mossad. They'd be very sorry that they hadn't been able to save the president, but protecting him was not their job to begin with. With all the security forces involved and the assassins dead, it would be very difficult to discover where the security breach had been, except that several of the countries involved in the confer-
{p. 281} ence, such as Syria, were regarded as countries that assisted terrorists. With that in mind, it would be a foregone conclusion where the breach was.
As far as this Mossad clique was concerned, it was a win-win situation.
Ephraim called me on Tuesday, October 1. I could sense from the tone of his voice that he was extremely stressed. "They're out to kill Bush," he said. At first, I didn't understand what he was talking about. I thought he meant that they were going to ruin the president. I'd already heard of several books that were in the making on the man, and there was a smear campaign regarding his alleged involvement in the Iran-Contra affair (which I knew personally to be fake).
"What's new about that? They've been out to get him for a long time."
"I mean really kill, as in assassinate."
"What are you talking about? You can't be serious. They would never dare do something like that."
"Don't go naive on me now," he said. "They're going to do it during the Madrid peace talks."
"Why don't you call the CIA and tell them? I mean, this isn't just some little operation you don't want to be involved in."
"I'll call whoever I have in the European intelligence services. I don't have friends in the American, not people I can trust, anyway."
"So what do you want me to do?"
"We are going to do what we can at our end. But nothing we will do will become public. I want you to make this thing public. If they know that the Americans know about it, there is a good chance they will not go ahead."
I knew that what he said was correct. If I could draw attention to it and make it public, that would do more to stop them than all the intelligence agencies put together. The trick would be to make it public without coming on like some lunatic with yet another conspiracy theory. I would have to say something in a relatively small forum and hope it would get out. If that didn't work, I'd contact some reporters I knew and give them the lowdown.
As it happened, I was invited to be a speaker at a luncheon held at the Parliament buildings in Ottawa for a group called the Middle East Discussion Group. It's a loosely formed think tank supported by the National Council on Canadian-Arab Relations, headed by a former Liberal MP named Ian Watson. The aim of this group is to inform members of Parliament and the diplomatic community-on issues that might not be freely accessed by the media and to promote dialog on the Middle East.
The luncheon was attended by some twenty members of the think tank and a few MPs. I made a short presentation in which I explained the goals of the Mossad and the danger it presented to any peace initiative in the region. I also said that in my opinion, as things stood, the only chance the Middle East had for peace would be the cutting off of financial aid to Israel by the United States. I emphasized that a large chunk of this aid finds its way to the West Bank and the settlements, which were probably the biggest stumbling block to the peace initiative. Then I opened the floor to questions.
I was asked what the Mossad would do to stop the process that was now taking place. I said that from sources I had, and based on my knowledge of the Mossad, I would not be at all surprised if there was a plot right at this moment to kill the president of the United States and to throw the blame on some extreme Palestinian group.
Later, I learned that one of the people at the luncheon had called an ex-congressman from California, Pete McCloskey. The substance of what I'd said was conveyed to him, and since McCloskey was an old and close friend of the president's, the caller felt that he might want to take some action.
On October 15, McCloskey called me and introduced himself. He said that he'd heard from a friend what I'd said about the president and wanted to know if in my opinion there was a real threat, or was this only a metaphor of some kind, to make a point? I made it clear to him that there was no metaphor involved and that I was dead serious regarding the threat to the president. I also said that I believed that exposing this threat might be enough to eliminate it, since to carry it out would then become too risky.
He said he could come to Ottawa within a few days and asked me if I'd be willing to meet with him. I saw no reason why not, and we made an appointment for October 19, which was a weekend.
I met Pete at the Westin Hotel, and we walked over to a small coffee shop where we sat for several hours. He asked me questions from every possible angle, trying to understand what I was talking about. I could see that he was looking for information he could present that would make the threat realistic. There was no way I could tell him that I'd gotten the information straight from the horse's mouth, but I had to let him know that I was not completely disconnected from the Mossad. That in itself was a risk; it was the first time I'd allowed this to come out. I felt compelled, however, by the stakes involved.
{p. 282} The next day, Sunday, October 20, McCloskey was in Washington to participate in the meetings of the Commission on National and Community Services. He stayed at the Hotel Phoenix Park, from which he called the Secret Service at the White House. He was referred to Special Agent Allan Dillon at the Secret Service offices, 1050 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C.
Pete faxed Dillon a copy of the memo he'd written after our meeting in Ottawa. The same day, he met with a former White House aide from the Ford era, named Don Penny, who gave him the spin on me. I was not at all surprised when McCloskey told me later what Penny had told him: that he'd heard about me from Senator Sam Nunn and other sources in the CIA who said that I was a traitor to Israel and totally unreliable. And that if McCloskey associated with me, he'd be putting a target on his own back. As it turned out, Pete later spoke to Nunn, but the senator could not recall talking about me. Meanwhile, a well-known Washington columnist, Rowland Evans, told Pete that he'd asked his sources in the CIA about me several months earlier, and they'd told him that I was "for real."
McCloskey had an interview on October 22 with agent Terry Gallagher from the State Department Diplomatic Protection and then, the same day, a meeting with Dillon from the Secret Service. On October 24, the Secret Service asked to speak to me. They placed a formal request via the American embassy in Ottawa through CSIS (the Canadian security service), and I met with a member of the Secret Service in the presence of a member of CSIS.
I told the man what I thought was going to take place, only omitting that I'd obtained the information from an active member of the Mossad. I did make it clear to him that I had a connection, which I mainly used to learn about impending personal danger.
The information leaked to the media, and in a syndicated column, Jack Anderson presened the whole story. So did Jane Hunter in her newsletter, which is a must for any Washingtonian specializing in the Middle East.
I was confident that by now the president was no longer in imminent danger, although the less time he spent in Madrid, the better. But the decision to eliminate him would not be withdrawn; it would only be postponed. I had pointed out to the Secret Service agent that the president was extremely vulnerable aboard Air Force One, both to attack by a surface-to-air missile and to a piece of explosive luggage that could be carried aboard by an unsuspecting re-porter who didn't realize that a segment of his recording or photographic equipment had been switched for a deadly device.
{p. 283} From Ephraim, I heard later that after the president had landed in Madrid, the American embassy there received a bomb threat on the phone, and that a section of the embassy was evacuated while the president was in the building. But the rest of the plan was called off, and even though the Spanish police received the names and descriptions of the three supposed assassins, they were never let out of the holding facility in the Negev. Later, they were transferred to the Nes Ziyyona research facility, where they were terminated.
On October 31, the president was back in Washington and was about to visit his house in Kennebunkport, Maine, which had been damaged in a storm that had devastated the entire coast. The Secret Service put out a memo on November 1 that was distributed to Air Force One passengers. It said, "There is a very capable system in place to beat terrorism from sabotaging the jet. However, if there is a weak spot, it would be with the personal belongings brought aboard the aircraft from the motorcade just before departure. ..."
{p. 284} OCTOOER 30 1991
Robert Maxwell's contact was not in the best of moods when he received a call on a special secure line at the Israeli embassy in Madrid. Maxwell was phoning from London, saying it was imperative that a meeting be set up. He was willing to come to Madrid.
The ties between Maxwell and the Mossad went back a long way. Elements within the Mossad had offered to finance Maxwell's first big business ventures, and in later years Maxwell received inside information on global matters from the Office. Maxwell was originally codenamed "the Little Czech," and the sobriquet stuck. Only a handful of people in the Israeli intelligence community knew who the Little Czech was, yet he provided an unending supply of slush money for the organization whenever it ran low.
For years, Maxwell would hit financial lows whenever the Mossad was in the midst of expensive operations that could not be funded legitimately and when other less legitimate sources were unavailable, as was the case after the American invasion of Panama in 1990, which dried up the Mossad's income from drug trafficking and forced Maxwell to dig deep into his corporate pockets.
But the Mossad had used its ace in the hole one time too many. Asking Maxwell to get involved in a matter of secondary importance (namely, the Vanunu affair) had been a big mistake, for which the media mogul would be made to pay the price.
That involvement caused suspicion in the British Parliament that there was no smoke without fire, particularly after the publication of a book by an American reporter claiming Maxwll was a Mossad agent. Maxwell retaliated in a lawsuit, but the ground was starting to burn under his feet. The Mossad was late in giving him back his money, and the usual
{p. 285} last-minute rescue of his financial empire was looking less and less feasible.
For Maxwell, what was already bad was about to get worse. His call couldn't have been more poorly timed. Israel was participating in a peace negotiation process that the Mossad top clique believed would be detrimental to the country's security. At the same time, news was reaching the Office of a growing scandal caused by Mossad involvement in Germany. This scandal was a result of Uri's having made a call to the Hamburg River Police informing them that a shipment of arms was about to be loaded onto an Israeli ship.
The arms consisted of Soviet tanks and antiaircraft equipment, concealed in large crates marked agricultural equipment. The shipment had been arranged with the help of the BND, without the knowledge of the German government or the Ministry of Defense. It was exactly the same equipment that the Ministry of Defense had refused to send to Israel in March of the same year, because they believed the shipment would defy the German law forbidding the shipment of war materiel to a conflict zone.
The Mossad's right-wing element wasn't sure to what extent this scandal would grow. They remembered very well the scandal that had occurred in 1978 when the German police had allowed Mossad officers posing as German intelligence officers to interrogate Palestinians in German prisons. If the German government could contain the situation, things would be fine. But once the story was in the hands of the media, there was no telling where it would go.
And then came this call from Maxwell, insisting he must meet his contact on a matter of great urgency. The mogul was rebuffed at first, but then he issued a veiled threat: Now that he was being investigated by Parliament and the British media, if he wasn't able to straighten out his financial affairs, he wasn't sure he could keep the Kryuchkov meeting a secret.
What he was referring to (and in doing so, he sealed his fate) was a meeting that he'd helped arrange between the Mossad liaison and the former head of the KGB, Vladimir Kryuchkov, who was now jailed in Number Four Remand Center in Moscow for his role in the Soviet Union's August coup to oust Mikhail Gorbachev.
At that meeting, which took place on Maxwell's yacht at anchor in Yugoslav waters, Mossad support for the plot to oust Gorbachev was discussed. The Mossad promised to bring about, through its politlcal connections, an early recognition of the new regime, as well as other logistical assistance for the cop. In exchange, it requested that
{p. 286} all Soviet Jews be released, or rather expelled, which would create a massive exodus of people that would be too large to be absorbed by other countries and would therefore go to Israel.
Certain right-wingers within the government had believed this meeting with the coup plotters was a necessity. They knew that if the Soviet Union were to stop being the enemy, there'd no longer be a threat from the East, and the strategic value of Israel to its greatest ally, the United States, would diminish. Alliances between the United States and the Arab nations in the region would then be a realistic prospect.
It was Maxwell who'd helped create the ties with the now-defunct KGB. The right-wingers realized it would be a devastating blow to Israel's standing in the West if the world were to learn that the Mossad had participated in any way, as minute as that participation might be, in the attempted coup to stop the democratization of the Soviet Union. It would be perceived as treason against the West. Maxwell was now using the Mossad's participation as a threat, however veiled, to force an immediate burst of aid to his ailing empire. His contact asked him to call back in a few hours.
A small meeting of right-wingers at Mossad headquarters resulted in a consensus to terminate Maxwell. At first, the participants thought it would take several weeks to put together a plan, but then someone pointed out that the process could be accelerated if the Little Czech could be made to travel to a rendezvous where the Mossad would be waiting to strike.
Maxwell was asked to come to Spain the following day. His contact promised that things would be worked out and that there was no need to panic. The mogul was asked to sail on his yacht to Madeira and wait there for a message.
Maxwell arrived in Gibraltar on October 31, 1991, boarded his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine, and set sail for Madeira, as instructed. There he waited for directions. Meanwhile, the Mossad was getting read to strike. On Friday, November 1, a special Mossad troubleshooting team that was in Spain to cover the peace talks was dispatched. The team flew to Morocco, where they were met by a confederate who'd already taken care of all the necessary equipment and other arrangements.
At first, Maxwell was told that he meeting would take place in Madeira and that he'd receive as much money as he needed to calm the situation. Additional moneys would be advanced to him later. All this was to be kept completely quiet, since there was no point in pro-
{p. 287} viding more fodder for his enemies, who would have liked nothing better than to show his direct connection to the Mossad.
On November 2, the Mossad learned that Maxwell had called his son in England and scheduled a meeting with him on the island. Maxwell was told to cancel the meeting. He was also told that the meeting with the money people would now take place on the island of Tenerife.
When he reached Santa Cruz on the island of Tenerife, he headed for a meeting in the Hotel Mency. As he dined alone in the hotel restaurant, someone walked over to him and gave him a message indicating that he should be in Los Cristos on the other side of the island the next morning. He was to make his way there in his yacht, sailing around the island of Grand Canary.
I learned all this in a phone conversation with Ephraim. He had no idea how the Kidon team had managed to get to Maxwell at sea while the yacht was cruising at fifteen knots, but making it look impossible was part of the Kidon magic. Some time during the night of November 4-5, the Mossad's problem was laid to rest in the salty waters of the Atlantic.
After an autopsy that raised more questions than it answered, a second autopsy was held in Israel under the watchful eye of the security apparatus. Whatever was not detected then was buried forever on Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, the resting place for the nation's most revered heroes.
"He had done more for Israel than can today be said," Prime Minister Shamir eulogized at Maxwell's burial.
{end of selections}
(3) Victor Ostrovsky "the most treacherous Jew in modern Jewish history"
Special Report
The Contrasting Media Treatment of Israeli and Islamic Death Threats
By Victor Ostrovsky
Washington Report JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1995, Pages 17, 88
http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/0195/9501017.htm
I was seated in the Ottawa studios of Canadian Television's "Canada A.M.," getting ready for an interview with Valerie Pringle, hostess of Canada's national morning show. I knew that Josef Lapid, an Israeli columnist and former general manager of the Israeli Broadcasting Corporation, was going to be interviewed before me from Tel Aviv via telephone. He was invited to appear on the show to explain comments he had made about me on Israeli television.
There, on a show called "Popolitika," he had said that Mossad, Israel's external intelligence service, with which I once worked, should arrange for me to have a car accident. He had then elaborated on this in his column in the mass circulation Israeli daily newspaper Ma'ariv, in which he wrote that I should be assassinated and that it should not have to be done by the Israeli government, but rather by an individual who should take responsibility to do the job.
Lapid's wrath was in response to excerpts from my new book, The Other Side of Deception, published in the largest Israeli newspaper, Yediot Ahronot. The book‹published in the United States by HarperCollins‹deals with my activities in and against the Mossad. Following is the transcript of that CTV interview on Oct. 21, the aftermath of which I found to be quite incredible.
VALERIE PRINGLE (Anchor): Victor Ostrovsky is a former member of Israel's spy agency, the Mossad, who wrote the book. I guess the first one that caused an enormous stir was called By Way of Deception: An Insider's Portrait of the Mossad. It angered many people around the world. The Israeli government tried to prevent its publication. Another book is out, called The Other Side of Deception: A Rogue Agent Exposes the Mossad Secret Agenda. Again it's caused a furor. One Israeli columnist has gone on to say that Ostrovsky should be killed for his treachery.
In a moment Victor Ostrovsky will be with us from our Ottawa studio, but first, on the line from Tel Aviv, is that journalist, Josef Lapid.
You've called for Victor Ostrovsky basically to be killed. Why have you done that?
JOSEF LAPID: Well, in this country, as you probably know, Israelis occasionally die for their country. And I don't think that anybody should make a living out of betraying it. I think that Ostrovsky is the most treacherous Jew in modern Jewish history. And he has no right to live, except if he's prepared to return to Israel and stand trial.
PRINGLE: Do you feel it's a responsible statement to say what you've said?
LAPID: Oh yes, I fully believe in that. And unfortunately the Mossad cannot do it because we cannot endanger our relations with Canada. But I hope there will be a decent Jew in Canada who does it for us.
PRINGLE: You hope this. You could live with his blood on your hands?
LAPID: Oh no. It's to...only it will not be his blood on my hands. It will be justice to a man who does the most horrible thing that any Jew can think of, and that is that he's selling out the Jewish state and the Jewish people for money to our enemies. There is absolutely nothing worse that a human being, if he can be called a human being, can do.
PRINGLE: What response have you had to this statement, which is, you know, basically the sort of jihad that Salman Rushdie has had‹or fatwa, sorry.
LAPID: No no no. Rushdie has expressed his views in a novel, and there is no reason why anybody should not express his views in a novel. I am talking about somebody working for the Israeli Mossad and then going abroad and selling for money whatever he learned there. Ninety percent of what he's writing is simply lies and inventions, but there is 10 percent truth, and I'm not against his inventions, but I'm against his telling any truth that he learned here.
PRINGLE: Have you been answered in Israel?
LAPID: ... So this comparing him to Salman Rushdie is a compliment which Mr. Ostrovsky does not deserve.
PRINGLE: Just to briefly wrap up, have you been censured in Israel for what you say?
LAPID: I?
PRINGLE: Yes.
LAPID: Nobody is ever censored in Israel. It's a free country.
PRINGLE: No, but censured! Have people said "this is appalling what you've said. We don't agree with you."
LAPID: Oh, I think‹yes, I've had reactions. Some people thought it is appalling. The great majority of the reactions were very favorable. And I think I do express the opinion of the great majority of Israelis and the great majority, too, of Jews anywhere.
PRINGLE: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Lapid. I don't, you know, know about whether or not this is the opinion of Israelis or if they agree with what Mr. Lapid said.
Several things were going through my mind as I was listening to Mr. Lapid. On the one hand I could see the smiling faces of the Judeo-Nazis also known as the "Kahane Chai" people in their paramilitary training camps across Canada and the U.S., rubbing their hands in satisfaction, having just received a call to arms from the so-called "respectable center" of the Israeli political scene. And although this mental picture was disturbing, at the same time I was pleased that at last the public could see the ugly face of Israeli nationalist militancy, demonstrating that Israeli zealots were no different than other extremists in the region.
A Shocking Stranglehold
It was only in the days following that revealing interview that incredulity replaced my satisfaction. I realized that what I had thought to be an Israeli influence on American and Canadian media through the Jewish community in the United States and Canada was in fact a stranglehold. Many thousands of people must have heard for themselves Lapid's call to "any decent Jew in Canada" to assassinate me on behalf of the state of Israel. But the subsequent refusal of the North American media to report the appeal, much less condemn or even discuss it, was more shocking and far more frightening to me than the call itself.
I then realized that the occupation of the North American media is complete. In subjects dealing with the Middle East in general and Israel in particular, there no longer is a free press.
Had this call for assassination been made by a Muslim, that same media would have been all over it, first reporting the story and then keeping it alive by themselves, or provoking responses from Muslim leaders the world over. And should such respondents not be unequivocal in their opposition to such a call, they would instantly have been branded terrorists and, needless to say, "anti-Semitic."
I had always known there was a double standard when it came to dealing with subjects that were dear to the Jewish community. I had not known, however, how hypocritical that community and the media that lie at its feet can be. I had known for some time that this community has all but taken over the film industry and has a strong grip on Washington, having the strongest lobby there. Now, through intimidation and double dealing, it obviously has taken over large portions of the media. To all those who knew this all along, and were silent, and to those who remain silent now ‹ shame on you.
Victor Ostrovsky, a former Mossad case officer, is the author of two exposes of Israeli covert action, By Way of Deception, published in 1990, and The Other Side of Deception, published in 1994. The former is available from the AET Book Club for $5 and the latter is available from AET for $18.
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Ostrovsky knows that being famous keeps him alive.
Another former Israeli intelligence officer, Ari Ben Menashe, spills the beans in his book Profits of War: vanunu.html.
To order By Way of Deception from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0937165107/qid=1000881043/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2_2/t/107-8176546-7978956
To order The Other Side of Deception from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0937165115/qid=1000883018/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_2_3/t/107-8176546-7978956
To buy Victor Ostrovsky's books second-hand: http://dogbert.abebooks.com/abe/BookSearch?an=victor+ostrovsky&tn=deception.
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