pan-Arab nationalism led by Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser.
The Israeli who noticed this helpful reality more than anyone else was the Mossad chief, Reuven Shiloah. He could see that Britain and France wanted to remain relevant in a post-colonial Middle East, and America was trying to establish its own toehold.
To make Israel more valuable, Shiloah launched an almost inconceivable form of outreach. He found that secret contacts could, astonishingly, be established in Arab countries that were officially hostile. The logistical details were difficult, including late-night border crossings and coded communications, but back-channel links with Israel’s neighbors could be built—even before Israel was officially born.
As Ben-Gurion’s top clandestine diplomat, Shiloah took part in meetings with King Abdullah and other top officials of Transjordan. They reached a tacit understanding whereby the Palestinian state envisioned by the United Nations partition vote of 1947 was aborted well before birth. This, too, was a fateful moment that resulted from intelligence work: an unspoken conspiracy that played out during the war of 1948. Israel overran some of the majority-Arab parts of Palestine after the British left, and Abdullah’s army seized the West Bank of the Jordan River—annexing the land and renaming his kingdom Jordan. There was no serious attempt by Transjordan, unlike Egypt and the other Arab countries, to destroy Israel.
King Abdullah became not only an “agent of influence” for Israel in the Arab world—an intelligence catchphrase to describe a person in a foreign country whose political goals fit your own country’s—but a paid agent. His Jewish liaisons paid him thousands of dollars for his services. Only Abdullah’s assassination by a fellow Muslim in July 1951 prevented his signing a peace treaty with Israel.
In Syria, the army chief of staff, Colonel Hosni Zaim, seized power in March 1949 and offered peace to Israel. Events overtook his seemingly pacific generosity, and no treaty was signed. Only decades later was it revealed that Zaim had been on the payroll of American, French, and even Israeli intelligence agencies. CIA officers actually helped him plot his coup. Israel had other contacts, often based on bribery, within the Egyptian and Iraqi leadership.
Shiloah realized, however, that the ability of Israeli operatives to gain access to Arab leaders could not change the basic political and strategic facts of Middle Eastern life: that Israel’s immediate neighbors (known as the “inner circle”) would continue to hate the State of Israel and to perpetuate a state of war.
Shiloah also knew there were other geographic and ethnic factors in the region. The inner circle was surrounded by an outer circle, which he called “the periphery” of non-Arab nations; and the Arab states themselves had religious and ethnic minorities. Friendships could be formed with the peripheral nations and with the minority groups.
Any force that opposed or fought Arab nationalism was considered to be a potential ally of Israel: the Maronite minority in Lebanon, the Druze in Syria, the Kurds in Iraq, and the Christians in southern Sudan, who all suffered under the yoke of the Muslim majorities in their countries. Iran and Turkey were always proud to point out that, although Muslim, they were not Arabs.
Thus was born a complex and covert side of Israeli foreign policy, and the Mossad was in charge. This, too, would be a lasting and unique feature of Israeli intelligence. No one, not even an American president, could ever assume that Israel was entirely cut off from anyone. Presidents discovered, in fact, that the Mossad had contacts and assets seemingly everywhere. Even Israeli prime ministers were sometimes surprised.
One of the most significant connections that Shiloah launched was with the Kurds, a stateless people who lived mostly in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. The Mossad chief had been in Iraq’s
The Israeli who noticed this helpful reality more than anyone else was the Mossad chief, Reuven Shiloah. He could see that Britain and France wanted to remain relevant in a post-colonial Middle East, and America was trying to establish its own toehold.
To make Israel more valuable, Shiloah launched an almost inconceivable form of outreach. He found that secret contacts could, astonishingly, be established in Arab countries that were officially hostile. The logistical details were difficult, including late-night border crossings and coded communications, but back-channel links with Israel’s neighbors could be built—even before Israel was officially born.
As Ben-Gurion’s top clandestine diplomat, Shiloah took part in meetings with King Abdullah and other top officials of Transjordan. They reached a tacit understanding whereby the Palestinian state envisioned by the United Nations partition vote of 1947 was aborted well before birth. This, too, was a fateful moment that resulted from intelligence work: an unspoken conspiracy that played out during the war of 1948. Israel overran some of the majority-Arab parts of Palestine after the British left, and Abdullah’s army seized the West Bank of the Jordan River—annexing the land and renaming his kingdom Jordan. There was no serious attempt by Transjordan, unlike Egypt and the other Arab countries, to destroy Israel.
King Abdullah became not only an “agent of influence” for Israel in the Arab world—an intelligence catchphrase to describe a person in a foreign country whose political goals fit your own country’s—but a paid agent. His Jewish liaisons paid him thousands of dollars for his services. Only Abdullah’s assassination by a fellow Muslim in July 1951 prevented his signing a peace treaty with Israel.
In Syria, the army chief of staff, Colonel Hosni Zaim, seized power in March 1949 and offered peace to Israel. Events overtook his seemingly pacific generosity, and no treaty was signed. Only decades later was it revealed that Zaim had been on the payroll of American, French, and even Israeli intelligence agencies. CIA officers actually helped him plot his coup. Israel had other contacts, often based on bribery, within the Egyptian and Iraqi leadership.
Shiloah realized, however, that the ability of Israeli operatives to gain access to Arab leaders could not change the basic political and strategic facts of Middle Eastern life: that Israel’s immediate neighbors (known as the “inner circle”) would continue to hate the State of Israel and to perpetuate a state of war.
Shiloah also knew there were other geographic and ethnic factors in the region. The inner circle was surrounded by an outer circle, which he called “the periphery” of non-Arab nations; and the Arab states themselves had religious and ethnic minorities. Friendships could be formed with the peripheral nations and with the minority groups.
Any force that opposed or fought Arab nationalism was considered to be a potential ally of Israel: the Maronite minority in Lebanon, the Druze in Syria, the Kurds in Iraq, and the Christians in southern Sudan, who all suffered under the yoke of the Muslim majorities in their countries. Iran and Turkey were always proud to point out that, although Muslim, they were not Arabs.
Thus was born a complex and covert side of Israeli foreign policy, and the Mossad was in charge. This, too, would be a lasting and unique feature of Israeli intelligence. No one, not even an American president, could ever assume that Israel was entirely cut off from anyone. Presidents discovered, in fact, that the Mossad had contacts and assets seemingly everywhere. Even Israeli prime ministers were sometimes surprised.
One of the most significant connections that Shiloah launched was with the Kurds, a stateless people who lived mostly in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. The Mossad chief had been in Iraq’s
Similar Books
