Jersusalem "off the table"

[GMDino]

This was a good listen today.

https://www.npr.org/2018/01/31/582099085/journalist-details-israels-secret-history-of-targeted-assassinations

Quote:Journalist Details Israel's 'Secret History' Of Targeted Assassinations

Ronen Bergman says that while Israel's shootings, poisonings, bombings and drone strikes against its perceived enemies were "tactical successes," they were also diplomatically harmful.




This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Our guest, Israeli investigative reporter Ronen Bergman, says that Israel has developed the most robust streamlined assassination machine in history. His new book, based on a thousand interviews, chronicles decades of shootings, poisonings, bombings and drone strikes. The targets were perceived enemies of the Jewish state, ranging from British colonial officials in the 1940s to leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah and the PLO to Iranian nuclear scientists. Bergman describes the planning and approval process for targeted killings, which typically involved young military and intelligence operatives making the case for a strike to the country's prime minister.

Bergman writes that Israeli assassination teams were effective at eliminating their targets but often at a moral and political price their leaders would only come to understand years after their missions. Ronen Bergman is a senior correspondent for military and intelligence affairs for Yedioth Ahronoth, the country's largest daily newspaper, and a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine. He spoke to FRESH AIR's Dave Davies about his new book "Rise And Kill First: The Secret History Of Israel's Targeted Assassinations."

DAVE DAVIES, BYLINE: Well, Ronen Bergman, welcome to FRESH AIR. Why do you think it's important to write about this subject, about targeted killings?


RONEN BERGMAN: Because this tool has been used by Israel for a long time. The history of Israeli intelligence secretly but profoundly affected the history of the country and the history of the region and sometimes the history of the world. And targeted killings were the main tool that was used. That's the first. And the second because other countries nowadays are using this kind of way, especially the United States. And I think the United States has a lot to learn from the operational and intelligence vast experience of Israel but also from the moral price that Israel has paid and still paying for use of such an aggressive measure.


DAVIES: You describe an operation in October of 1982. Israeli military and intelligence forces were trying to assassinate Yasser Arafat by shooting an airplane out of the sky over the Mediterranean. Arafat then, of course, the head of the PLO, the Palestine Liberation Organization. Tell us what happened here.


BERGMAN: The hunt for the person who was codenamed The Head of the Fish, Yasser Arafat, was the most extensive and long term in the history of Israeli intelligence. It started back in 1964 and lasted for decades. Israel tried to kill him numerous times. Most of them happened just before, during and after the Israeli invasion to Lebanon in 1982. Now, there was one point when Prime Minister Menachem Begin promised President Ronald Reagan not to hurt Yasser Arafat. And that was the point when Arafat willingly was - accepted the sort of cease-fire and evacuated Beirut in August.


Just after that, the defense minister of Israel, Ariel Sharon - who was, I would say, obsessed to kill Arafat - ordered Israeli intelligence to trace him down and the air force to take out airplanes in which Arafat was. That day, in October, the Mossad identified Yasser Arafat going on a Buffalo cargo airplane from Athens to Cairo. They said the target - the Head of the Fish - has grown beard to conceal himself, but it is Yasser Arafat. The chief of staff, General - Brigadier General Eitan ordered the chief of the air force, Iviry, to take down the airplane. But he had his own doubts. He said, I don't get it. I don't understand why Arafat, who wasn't supposed to be in Athens, would go to Cairo, where he doesn't have anything to do at that time. And also, why would he go in this kind of airplane, which is not distinguished enough for a person of his prestige?

Then, under severe pressure from the Ministry of Defense and the chief of staff, the chief of the air force had to stall for time. The F-15 were already in air. They saw the Buffalo cargo plane with the alleged Yasser Arafat. But the chief of the air force demanded for more time and more corroboration and all checks by the Mossad, Israeli military intelligence. And only the very last minute, it turned out that Arafat was on board but it was not Yasser. It was his brother, the chief of the - Fathi Arafat, the physician, a children's doctor who was the head of the Palestinian Red Crescent and was mobilizing 30 wounded children from Athens to be treated in Cairo. So on the very last minute, his life and the lives of these children were saved.

Long read / listen but very interesting.


Glad they are "our" side with such a program.