Mossad: Cover Story (2017): Season 1, Episode 1 - Episode #1.1 - full transcript
-Hello.
-Hello, my friend.
Can we start?
Yes.
In the early 1950s, you discovered an IDF
officer was acting as a double agent.
- You mean Alexander Israeli.
- Exactly.
Can you tell us what became of him?
Alexander, who was a captain
in the Israeli Air Force,
contacted the Egyptian embassy in Rome,
and reached an agreement with them
to supply them with documents
about the IDF and the Air Force.
In exchange,
he'd...
receive money.
The moment we found out,
we used a trick to find him,
then got him into a car in Paris,
driven by one of our guys,
and from there
we put him on a plane to Israel.
They gave him a shot of something
in order to put him under,
and it killed him.
And then? Was there panic?
There wasn't any panic.
Throughout my work at the Mossad,
I don't recall
anything resembling panic.
Weren't you ever worried about
the whole story blowing up in your faces?
Certainly. Look,
if the story had been made public,
our whole network of agents in Egypt
would have been exposed.
So the decision was made, justifiably,
to keep it a secret,
and to disappear the body.
So what did you do with the body?
What did they do with the body?
In the end,
they threw it into the sea.
You simply opened the hatch
and threw him into the sea?
Exactly. Yes.
And when you look back on it today,
- aren't you bothered by...
- You think it should bother me?
At the time, nothing done in the name
of completing my mission bothered me.
But you could have just buried him,
and not reported that he'd been
detained and then buried.
That's... a tactical consideration.
As they say in Yiddish,
"Could've gone this way,
could've gone that way."
This thing doesn't shoot, I hope.
The hit squad, which came from abroad,
arrived in Tunis yesterday.
When "The Engineer,”
Mohammad Al-Zawiri, arrived,
they approached him and shot
him several times at point-blank range.
The Tunisian media claims
that "The Engineer" had deep connections
to the military wing of Hamas.
There's talk of a Tunisian journalist
who interviewed him,
spoke with him,
shortly before his assassination,
and later continued on to the airport.
UNDERCOVER:
JUST LIKE IN THE MOVIES
Interesting, no?
Routine.
- Like in the movies.
- What?
Maybe we're also part of a front
for a Mossad operation
that we have no idea about.
Even worse: Maybe you're a front
for Iranian intelligence.
Maybe you're about to assassinate me.
It's impossible to know.
You never know.
It's a dirty business.
...Assassination of a leading
Irani nuclear scientist...
The Mossad's special
overseas assassinations unit...
- "Kidon".
- Yes. They're behind this.
The assassination of Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh,
a crime the police are pinning squarely
on the Israeli
intelligence agency, Mossad.
In the international media,
the Mossad's image has been
that of Murder, Inc.
Mr. Minister, one comment on Mossad.
I think that you saw too many
movies about the James Bond,
and I prefer you to see more movies.
Is it just an image, or is it the truth?
I agree with you that the Mossad's image
has been built up this way over the years.
That's reality. There's nothing to...
there's nothing to be said about it,
but it's a marginal part of Mossad's work.
At what point is the decision made
to use this tool of assassination?
Look, if a terrorist organization
wants to carry out attacks here,
you could start a conventional war
of one kind or another,
and reach their bases,
and fight them face-to-face,
I'm exaggerating on purpose,
and ultimately defeat them,
or you could deal with them differently.
You could make sure that part
of its leadership becomes inactive.
You can deal with it by...
gathering information about
things that are happening there.
You can deal with it
using intelligence or covert methods.
That's the purpose of Mossad.
"By wise counsel thou shalt make thy war."
Now, our image...
Do you think this "Murder, Inc." image
has helped you in the Middle East?
I do, yes. In general, yes.
The long arm of Israel can reach anywhere
it thinks it needs to go, and...
It's a matter of image,
but it's also true.
Let's put it this way:
The image isn't far from reality,
and sometimes reality
is stranger than fiction.
And by saying that,
I've contributed to the image.
Okay.
So when does Mossad begin to be seen
as an all-powerful organization?
Adolf Eichmann is captured.
One of the worst monsters of all time
is now in Jewish hands.
Suddenly, in 1960, Ben-Gurion gets up
to speak at the Knesset and says,
"We've captured the Nazi criminal,
on the other side of the world,
"and brought him to Israel
to stand trial."
People around the world were shocked.
They said: "Wow, what an organization.
What capabilities."
Ladies and gentlemen,
before you stands
the destroyer of a people,
an enemy of the human race.
When you left for Buenos Aires
to capture Eichmann,
did you feel that you were
leaving on a historical mission?
Certainly, yes.
Look, we staked out his house.
I walked up and said to him, in Spanish,
"Un momentito, Senõr",
and subdued him with a chokehold.
Then we put him into the car.
The man stayed silent the whole trip.
We arrived at a room
we'd prepared for him,
and the first question was:
"What's your name?"
He replied: "Ricardo Klement."
He'd been living in Argentina
as Ricardo Klement.
Then we asked: "What's your SS number?"
And here,
he provided his precise SS number.
"And now, what's your name?"
And then he said: "Adolf Eichmann."
And a few seconds later, he said,
"I'd like a drink,
"and if you've got any red wine,
I'd like some red wine."
We didn't have any red wine.
Did you, at any point,
think about killing him?
Never.
Our orders were unambiguous:
"Do whatever you can
to bring him back alive."
Didn't you feel any sense of vengeance?
No, I didn't.
I didn't feel vindictive,
I felt proud of our ability.
What did this do for Mossad, PR-wise?
There's no doubt that
the moment it was made public,
it resonated.
I can only say that...
I don't think the Mossad,
at that time, was interested in PR.
It was a unit, that is...
an isolated entity,
that was preoccupied
with more important matters.
Colonel Nasser holds a parade,
and it seemed clear that
the whole parade was designed
to impress the world
with Egypt's military strength.
Nasser and peace have never coexisted.
We think that Nasser
is the enemy of peace with Israel.
As he himself has said:
"A river of blood and a sea of fire."
I think we must take him at his word.
We're talking about the year 1960.
The State of Israel was 10 years old.
We'd already been through two wars,
and we all knew that Nasser
was preparing the next war.
The Egyptians recruited
some 100 German scientists,
some working in Germany,
but most in Egypt.
A German unit in Egypt
was developing long-range missiles,
capable of reaching any point in Israel.
What do we do about it?
When I suggested recruiting Skorzeny,
to the head of operations, he said:
"May a hair sprout from the palm
of my hand if you manage to do it."
Colonel Otto Skorzeny was the most daring
commando the Nazi war machine produced.
He was once considered
the most dangerous man in Europe.
Wasn't he
one of the officers closest to Hitler?
Yes. He was in charge
of the German army’s commandos.
He was...
a great military man.
Il Duce is free, people are happy...
So while you're chasing
former Nazis all over the world,
you recruit an ex-Nazi officer
into Mossad's service?
It was a positive step, which helped us
reach every technician, and every...
German official in Egypt.
Herr Skorzeny, you must have been
approached since the war by other nations,
to indulge in military activities of
the kind you indulged in during the war.
- Is this correct?
- Yes... Yes, exactly.
What did they want you to do?
Oh, some special work.
How did you manage to recruit
such a high-ranking Nazi officer?
The idea was to offer Skorzeny
freedom from fear.
This court sentences
Adolf Eichmann to death.
Eichmann was hanged.
No ex-Nazi, anywhere in the world,
could know whether or not he was a target.
You essentially promised not to kill him.
Something like that, yes.
We said we wouldn't touch him.
On the contrary, we'd protect him.
As you probably know,
there have been some recent news stories
that the people who kidnapped Eichmann
are also looking for you.
They can come,
and I will receive them duly.
- How do you mean, duly?
- Oh, how they deserve it.
Didn't it frighten you?
Cooperating with a
war-scarred Nazi criminal?
I've got scars of my own.
Multiple scars.
Suppose the Israelis came after you.
Would you be captured alive?
If, for instance, they get me
during my sleep, I couldn't hinder them.
But if I would stay alive,
that's another question.
- You don't think you would stay alive?
- It depends.
Skorzeny provided information and...
took part in intimidating the scientists.
It started with anonymous letters
and telephone calls
to the scientists themselves,
and their families.
A letter bomb was sent
to one scientists' address in Cairo,
and it blinded his secretary,
but the scientist was unharmed.
In southern Germany, Kleinwaechter...
they tried to assassinate him, and failed.
One of the heads of the program, Krug,
left his office one day
and never came back.
WAS KIDNAPED AND IS DEAD
In terms of intelligence work,
there's nothing out of the ordinary here.
The mafia works exactly the same way
when it wants to take over
a certain part of the city,
and take over the prostitution racket,
or the drug trade.
By January 1965,
there wasn't a single German
scientist or engineer left in Egypt.
You know, his friends
had no idea he'd betrayed them.
At his funeral, you can see them
giving Nazi salutes.
- Really?
- Yes, it's on YouTube.
Okay, I'll take a look.
Skorzeny, YouTube.
Can you take us back to the moment
when you first heard
about the attack on the
Israeli athletes in Munich?
This is a news flash from the Olympic
village in Munich where early this morning
armed Palestinian guerrillas raided
the sleeping quarters of the Israeli team.
The gunmen shot dead two Israelis,
and are now holding twenty athletes
and six officials as hostages.
Before I flew there,
the Germans stated unambiguously that
there was no way Israeli soldiers would
be involved in rescuing the athletes.
Golda said to me:
"Zvika, I'm asking you,
I'm asking you to go,
so that at the very least
we'll know what happened there."
When I arrived,
the German police ignored me.
I asked them:
"Tell me, what are you doing?"
They didn't say a word to me.
"We don't have to answer to you.
We're handling their rescue."
We stood along the path that led
from the building where,
the athletes were being held,
to the helicopter pad.
On both sides stood
tens of thousands of people.
And then I saw...
a sight that I will never forget.
The athletes,
bound, hand and foot, to one another,
dragging themselves along.
Next to them, the Arabs,
walking along the path.
Absolute silence.
And I looked upon a changed Germany.
Where's the German army?
What's going on here?
I know they're heading up that hill, and
that I'll ride in one of the helicopters.
They wouldn't let me board
the helicopter, the German police.
They didn't want me there.
I pushed through...
and got on the helicopter.
I'm lying next to a German sniper.
They shot using rifles...
old German rifles.
No sniper scopes, nothing.
It was heartbreaking,
because they threw
a phosphorus grenade at the helicopter,
and the helicopter caught fire.
Of all the people...
no one was left alive.
It was a sight
I will never forget, as long as I live.
Germany...
let them say whatever
they will about Germany.
That's not what I saw.
One generation isn't enough.
Prime Minister, if the world governments
do nothing, what will you do?
- We'll have to protect ourselves.
- How?
I don't know.
I'll tell you honestly. If I did know
what we were going to do,
I don't think I would tell you.
How did you intend
to deal with terrorist organizations?
Look,
in every war,
there's intelligence,
there's self-defense,
and preventative measures.
By "preventative measures",
do you mean targeted killings?
- Listen...
- You received an order from Golda
to assassinate the terrorist leaders
who carried out the Munich massacre.
Where did you hear that?
It's been reported.
It's been spoken about.
What?
- Israel didn't carry out assassinations?
- I don't... where did you...
The papers said so.
Golda didn't order me.
Why?
Because I didn't need to be ordered.
We had to prevent casualties,
and save Israeli lives and assets,
wherever they may be.
In some instances,
we knew about certain enemy activities,
and when we had no other choice,
we had to make sure
that this viper wouldn’t bite us.
I warned them, and I told
my brothers: "Be careful!
"The Mossad will hunt us down
one by one."
Suddenly, Palestinian leaders
started meeting unnatural deaths.
One Palestinian blew up
in his bed in Nicosia.
Another Palestinian's car blew up.
You live peacefully in France. Does that
mean that you don't fear for your life?
No, I do not,
but I prefer not to tempt the Devil.
Numerous Palestinians, of various ranks,
had their lives cut short,
and everyone quickly understood that
this was a coordinated Israeli operation.
The leaders of these murderers,
either fled Europe,
or died there.***
The Palestinian revolution continues
to take strong, solid and stable strides
towards the realization
of its ultimate goal:
the establishment of a democratic
Palestinian state on Palestinian land.
You served in Europe before Munich.
Couldn't you tell that Palestinian
terror cells were operating there?
Look, I was head of the Europe division.
The Palestinian movement
was recruiting students into Fatah,
and I learned that they were
preparing to create violent cells,
to carry out terror attacks against Jews,
from among the student population.
And among them were Abu Jihad
and Yasser, and I suggested:
"Let's kill this thing in its infancy."
I said: "Let's take care of these guys.
If you like, individually.
If you like, all at once."
And the answer was "No.”
What do you mean by
"individually" and "all at once?"
"Individually" is where
I pick off one person.
"All at once" is when I know they'll all
be in a room together and I kill them all.
How do you kill them all?
- From a technical standpoint?
- Yes.
Very simple.
- What, you enter with guns blazing?
- You enter,
and shoot whoever
you think needs to be shot.
And what about a bomb?
- Even I didn't want to do that.
- Why not?
Because it would kill innocent people.
You don't kill unrelated parties.
You kill your adversaries,
your enemies, because by killing them,
you're saving the lives of others.
That's the rule.
Do you believe that assassinations
have proven to be an effective tool?
Each instance needs to be
examined on its own merits,
but, in general, it's an effective tool.
So you support
this policy of assassinations?
I wouldn't call it
“a policy of assassinations."
I call it "Targeting terrorists,
both low- and high-ranking."
It's one of the tools,
alongside many, many others,
that should be used
in our war on terror.
What about targeting terrorist leaders,
or heads of state?
I'll give you my personal opinion:
Terrorist leaders, yes.
Heads of state, no.
Did you think Khaled Mashaal
was an important enough figure
to justify an assassination
attempt against him?
People were wrong about Mashaal then,
that he wasn't senior enough
to be bothered with at all.
As he was then, so he is now:
the leader of Hamas.
In the space of a month, in Jerusalem,
there were two attacks
which left many dead,
and dozens injured.
Men, women, and children,
small children, were murdered.
As prime minister, it's my responsibility
to do everything in my power
to fight this terrorist evil.
And we, the intelligence agencies,
were asked
to suggest ways of dealing with Hamas.
Weren't you afraid that
if something went wrong,
it could complicate
Israel's relationship with King Hussein?
Yes, certainly,
which is why, at first, I didn't initiate
an operation there,
but rather, thousands of kilometers
away from Jordan,
and not targeting Khaled Mashaal.
Why?
Because of the sensitivity.
The operation went ahead.
Did you intend to
assassinate someone else?
The combatants were already in place.
Then, one Friday,
the Defense Minister and Director of
Shin Bet went to see the Prime Minister,
and said, "Why are we sending the
Mossad's fine operatives over there?
Why not to Jordan, the place
where all this evil originates?"
And the Prime Minister said:
"Fine, to Jordan."
I was exploding with rage.
I said: "How can this be?
They're deciding on a Mossad mission
without me even...
in the room? Without consulting me?
What is the meaning of this?
It's just not done."
I find the Prime Minister,
and I talk to him.
And I raise my voice, too.
I spent the weekend finding out
if we were even able to do it.
The responsibility was mine,
because finally,
after looking into it, I said:
"It's feasible, and they can do it."
Was it your first time
on an assassination mission?
I won't go into my operational past,
but I will note that the Mashaal mission
was ten years into my service
in Mossad's operations unit.
It's common for an intelligence officer
to join the unit on its mission.
How do you head out on a mission
aimed at assassinating a human being?
I had...
Let me put it differently,
I was completely at peace
with the decision to assassinate Mashaal.
The Prime Minister's order
was to carry it out quietly,
because he knew
that a conspicuous operation in Amman,
such as placing a bomb in Mashaal's car,
or shooting him
with a sniper rifle from a distance,
or shooting him with a handgun
at close range,
would lead to a huge crisis
in Israeli-Jordanian relations,
and so he ordered us
to carry out a quiet operation,
an operation that would go undetected.
We developed a chemical which, upon
coming into contact with a person's skin,
several hours later,
that person becomes ill,
passes out, and expires.
The unit experimented
on unsuspecting people in the street.
Two people approach
the subject from behind.
One sprays him, and the other
shakes and opens a cola can,
causing the can's contents
to spray all over.
The person who was sprayed,
when he turns around,
just sees a shaken up can of cola,
and thinks that's what sprayed him.
I came to Jordan
carrying the antidote with me,
so that if one of our guys were exposed
to the poison intended for Mashaal,
he could find me and get the antidote.
That morning, I was by the hotel pool.
Someone from the unit, who wasn't
supposed to be there, showed up.
I got up and we stepped aside,
and this person said:
"Problems."
Last Thursday, near the
Hamas offices in Amman.
Khaled Mashaal is walking with
his sons and a bodyguard.
A Hyundai pulls up to them,
and two men emerge.
They approach Mashaal, press a device
against his head, and escape.
Mashaal collapses,
and his bodyguard hails a cab
and gives chase.
How did you feel when you heard
the operation had gone wrong?
I can explain it with one word,
two words:
Like shit.
After a few minutes' drive,
the assassins try to switch cars,
but when they get out of their car,
Mashaal's bodyguard attacks them,
and the Jordanian police arrives.
Mashaal is taken to the hospital
in critical condition.
We think the Mossad intelligence service
is behind of this failed
assassination attempt.
There can be no doubt
that such moves are wholly unacceptable.
Hussein said
that if Mashaal dies, he'll have
a Palestinian uprising on his hands,
and he'll have no choice
but to execute the two combatants.
So they decided
to make a deal with Hussein:
We'd save Mashaal's life,
using the antidote,
and the two captured combatants
would be released.
Their attempt failed,
their cards have been exposed,
and they are the big losers
in all of the recent events.
I think there was...
something very positive there,
but which led to a serious mishap,
and that was excessive motivation.
Because my briefing was,
"If there's anyone near Mashaal,
no matter who,
do not act."
And Mashaal, unexpectedly,
came out with his driver
and two children.
And they went ahead anyway.
Do you think the attempt
to assassinate Mashaal, in retrospect,
was worth the risk?
Let me put it another way.
There are very few operations where,
in hindsight, if something went wrong,
you can say they were worth it.
When you look at...
the contribution of...
a department, a Mossad hit squad,
you don't base it on one operation.
You look at 300.
One of them might go wrong along the way,
and then you might ask, "What for?"
But of course, that's not the point.
It's one out of 300.
If 200 of 300 are successful,
we'll have hit our goal.
How do you determine whether
an assassination is worth the risk?
It's a very practical consideration.
First of all, you ask:
What are you doing this for?
What is the intention, exactly?
There may be many.
It could be disrupting
something already underway,
or retaliation,
or whatever else.
You have your intentions.
- Revenge?
- That too, certainly.
Lebanon's Hezbollah says Israel
assassinated one of its top leaders.
Imad Mughniyeh, one of the group's
top military commanders,
died in a car bombing in Syria.
When Imad Mughniyeh met his demise,
the popping of champagne corks
could be heard all around the world.
He was among the first to use truck bombs.
His attack on the American Marine
barracks in Beirut,
the planes he'd hijacked...
There's the famous picture
of him holding a gun
to the head of a TWA pilot
whose plane he hijacked to Damascus.
The Americans wanted him,
the French wanted him,
the Saudis wanted him,
the Egyptians wanted him,
the Kuwaitis wanted him, and so did we.
You have murdered Hajj Imad
outside the natural battle arena.
Zionists, if you want
this kind of open war
then let the whole world hear,
let there be open war!
Death to Israel!
When you assassinate someone,
aren't you opening a Pandora's box?
You assassinate someone,
and he kills one of yours,
and you kill one of his,
- and he kills one of yours...
- I don't accept this argument.
It's an incorrect, defeatist argument.
The one opening Pandora's box
is the first suicide bomber.
Did they expect us to forget?
To say: "Okay, so you killed some people,
but we'll forgive and forget,
just so you don't get mad at us again."
Is that a better way, in your opinion?
Is that even possible?
The need to retaliate is understandable,
but what kind of a difference
can it make in the long run?
Has it helped Israel in the long run?
Not really.
Not really.
But it did create...
For the terrorist decision-makers,
it gave them pause.
A terrorist who's on the run is completely
different from a terrorist who isn't.
Look at Hassan Nasrallah.
He's been living in a bunker
for quite some time.
Is this significant
in terms of Israel's deterrence
against Hezbollah, yes or no?
I don't know the answer.
The fact is that for the past few years,
there's been no direct Hezbollah activity
against the State of Israel.
Did the premature death
of Sheikh Ahmad Yassin
benefit the State of Israel, yes or no?
I think it did.
I think that at the end of the day,
his successors,
before sending out suicide bombers,
thought and knew that if
they got involved in such an act,
they'd have to pay a price.
In war, both sides get hurt.
One side gets hurt when a suicide bomber
blows up a bus in Tel Aviv,
and the other gets hurt when
a building collapses on him in Gaza.
Is that what I'd like to see
in the next life,
where you'll be whatever you'll be?
No, not at all.
Is this what reality, unfortunately,
forces us to deal with? Yes.
In the cybernetic age,
where everything's out in the open,
how does this affect an intelligence
organization like Mossad?
Well, that's a professional question.
I think that the modern world
is one where the familiar
rules of spycraft have changed.
All of your work building your cover,
all of your movements,
have become much more complicated,
more complex,
even more dangerous,
to a large extent.
- For example, that thing in Dubai.
- Yes.
Where some intelligence organization
left a lot of fingerprints.
Was this a success or a failure
for that organization?
I don't know.
A Hamas commander is murdered
in his Dubai hotel room.
Israel is under pressure
to explain its involvement.
What will be the international impact?
What can you tell us about
the assassination of Mabhouh?
How can I comment on something
Israel never claimed responsibility for?
The security cameras at Dubai airport
and at the hotel captured it all.
Here we see Mabhouh entering the hotel.
Two of the suspects, in tennis clothes,
enter the elevator with him,
and appear to follow him
in order to find out his room number.
Dubai Police claim that a crew
of 11 European mercenaries,
pictured here,
carried out Mabhouh's assassination.
It's rather strange that none of them,
having been filmed by so many cameras...
None of them was ever caught.
Looks like...
whoever planned it
did a good enough job
and took that into account.
It excites the imagination, no?
I think it’s clear
that whoever did the murder
didn’t really mind being seen on CCTV.
They say the security cameras in Dubai
were made by an Israeli company.
Could be, I don't know.
Is this a success or a failure,
when an operation like this is exposed?
You tell me.
You tell me.
The political use of killing,
is it moral in your eyes?
In killing... Let's make a distinction.
The political use of killing
is what armies do.
Do you have a problem with that?
An army, by definition,
is when you take young men and women,
put them in uniform,
teach them to kill,
and say, "The day your country decides
that, for political reasons,
you have to kill your counterparts
on the other side, go and do it."
And they all say, “Yes.”
And they do it.
So, by that definition,
that's what most countries do.
The question is, under what conditions,
and what are your objectives?
I'm asking, does Israel have a set code?
- Of what?
- About the use of assassinations.
- Ah, what they call "assassinations?"
- Yes.
Terrorists, and their leaders.
Leaders are a separate case.
On the face of it, on the positive side,
you can say: If you're already
going to take someone's life,
target the ones responsible.
Why should foot soldiers pay the price?
It's also economical.
Instead of killing an entire army,
you take out the commander.
But on the other hand,
leaders are wary of ordering
the assassination of heads of state,
as this might also apply to them,
and there is a sort of pact:
"Don't do it to me,
and I won't do it to you."
What does Israel do?
As we've seen,
it draws a line.
It doesn't do all it can.
If we wanted to, we could
kill leaders in the region.
But in the same breath,
if it's an existential matter,
and if you think
you need to target leaders,
and if you're willing to pay the price,
then this is also an option.
Were you ever involved in
deciding a leader's fate?
Yes... OK.
Here I can tell you
about an uneasy feeling
that haunts me to this day.
January, 1979.
Khomeini comes to power in Iran.
In a month, he’ll be ruling the country,
turning it into an Islamic Republic,
but up until then, we were allied
with the Shah's regime,
and we were very close to the Shah
and to Iranian intelligence.
At that time,
the director of Mossad called me and said,
"You're going to head the Tehran branch."
I basically went in order to see
what was going on in Iran,
because it was clear there were
extremist underground currents,
and you could say
that neither the Shah nor Khomeini
realized how quickly it would all
fall into his hands.
But at some point,
when they began to feel the danger,
someone important came to me and said:
Put on a jacket and tie
and come with me to meet
the king of kings, 'Shahin Shah'
and hear his request
that the Mossad assassinate Khomeini."
The request arrived by urgent telegram
to the office of Haka, director of Mossad,
and he called an urgent meeting.
I was the intelligence officer on Iran.
So Haka says:
"We got a telegram from Geizi.
They're asking us to kill Khomeini.
What do you say?"
Before I could answer,
the guy sitting next to me,
a veteran who had spent years in Iran,
butts in and says: "Don't worry.
Let Khomeini return to Tehran.
The army and SAVAK won't let him rule.
They'll kill him."
Haka looks at me again,
and I'm running scenarios through
my head at breakneck speed.
What happens if we succeed?
What would the Americans say?
And what about the French?
And the Russians?
What happens if we fail?
And who is this Khomeini, anyway?
What do we know about him?
And after...
thinking for a moment, I say to Haka:
"I can't give you an answer.
We don't know enough about Khomeini."
And Haka says:
"Okay, we're not doing it."
I answer the guy:
"Sorry, not in our wheelhouse.
We're not the world police.
It's your problem. Do as you see fit."
A month later,
Khomeini seized control of Iran.
Looking back,
my failure to make a decision
haunts me to this day.
If Yossi Alpher were sitting
in front of Haka today,
what would his answer be?
In light of all that's happened
with the Islamic regime In Iran
since Khomeini came to power,
and all the damage it's done
in the Middle East,
I would give a different answer.
A few years ago,
friends said to me,
"What is this nonsense?
If we had the chance to take out Hitler,
before he came to power,
would we also have said
'We're not the world police?’”
I was left with my mouth open,
unable to answer.
I'll allow myself to philosophize a bit.
Let's say we'd done it.
Let's say we'd had a shot
at assassinating Khomeini.
Would the world, and Iran, have known
what we'd saved them from?
Rafi, three...
In the First Lebanon War,
the idea of assassinating Arafat
was raised once again.
This nation will not give up!
Yes. Arik Sharon set up a team
in order to assassinate Arafat.
We actually went in,
myself as well,
to Yasser Arafat's headquarters.
He escaped.
It would have been easy, actually,
because he was out in the open,
but... it wasn't done.
Do you, personally,
think it was a mistake?
Historically speaking, yes.
Explain.
Look...
Had we assassinated Yasser Arafat
at that time, and only him,
a separation between us and the
Palestinians could have been achieved,
and I'm convinced
that it's still achievable.
Do you really think
that assassinating a single person
can change the course of history?
Exactly.
Like Rabin's murder, in contrast.
So throughout your years
of Mossad service,
did you ever feel a pang of regret,
where they wouldn't let you do
something you felt was necessary?
Look,
if memory serves, I've never felt
a pang of regret in my life.
Subtitle translation by
-Hello, my friend.
Can we start?
Yes.
In the early 1950s, you discovered an IDF
officer was acting as a double agent.
- You mean Alexander Israeli.
- Exactly.
Can you tell us what became of him?
Alexander, who was a captain
in the Israeli Air Force,
contacted the Egyptian embassy in Rome,
and reached an agreement with them
to supply them with documents
about the IDF and the Air Force.
In exchange,
he'd...
receive money.
The moment we found out,
we used a trick to find him,
then got him into a car in Paris,
driven by one of our guys,
and from there
we put him on a plane to Israel.
They gave him a shot of something
in order to put him under,
and it killed him.
And then? Was there panic?
There wasn't any panic.
Throughout my work at the Mossad,
I don't recall
anything resembling panic.
Weren't you ever worried about
the whole story blowing up in your faces?
Certainly. Look,
if the story had been made public,
our whole network of agents in Egypt
would have been exposed.
So the decision was made, justifiably,
to keep it a secret,
and to disappear the body.
So what did you do with the body?
What did they do with the body?
In the end,
they threw it into the sea.
You simply opened the hatch
and threw him into the sea?
Exactly. Yes.
And when you look back on it today,
- aren't you bothered by...
- You think it should bother me?
At the time, nothing done in the name
of completing my mission bothered me.
But you could have just buried him,
and not reported that he'd been
detained and then buried.
That's... a tactical consideration.
As they say in Yiddish,
"Could've gone this way,
could've gone that way."
This thing doesn't shoot, I hope.
The hit squad, which came from abroad,
arrived in Tunis yesterday.
When "The Engineer,”
Mohammad Al-Zawiri, arrived,
they approached him and shot
him several times at point-blank range.
The Tunisian media claims
that "The Engineer" had deep connections
to the military wing of Hamas.
There's talk of a Tunisian journalist
who interviewed him,
spoke with him,
shortly before his assassination,
and later continued on to the airport.
UNDERCOVER:
JUST LIKE IN THE MOVIES
Interesting, no?
Routine.
- Like in the movies.
- What?
Maybe we're also part of a front
for a Mossad operation
that we have no idea about.
Even worse: Maybe you're a front
for Iranian intelligence.
Maybe you're about to assassinate me.
It's impossible to know.
You never know.
It's a dirty business.
...Assassination of a leading
Irani nuclear scientist...
The Mossad's special
overseas assassinations unit...
- "Kidon".
- Yes. They're behind this.
The assassination of Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh,
a crime the police are pinning squarely
on the Israeli
intelligence agency, Mossad.
In the international media,
the Mossad's image has been
that of Murder, Inc.
Mr. Minister, one comment on Mossad.
I think that you saw too many
movies about the James Bond,
and I prefer you to see more movies.
Is it just an image, or is it the truth?
I agree with you that the Mossad's image
has been built up this way over the years.
That's reality. There's nothing to...
there's nothing to be said about it,
but it's a marginal part of Mossad's work.
At what point is the decision made
to use this tool of assassination?
Look, if a terrorist organization
wants to carry out attacks here,
you could start a conventional war
of one kind or another,
and reach their bases,
and fight them face-to-face,
I'm exaggerating on purpose,
and ultimately defeat them,
or you could deal with them differently.
You could make sure that part
of its leadership becomes inactive.
You can deal with it by...
gathering information about
things that are happening there.
You can deal with it
using intelligence or covert methods.
That's the purpose of Mossad.
"By wise counsel thou shalt make thy war."
Now, our image...
Do you think this "Murder, Inc." image
has helped you in the Middle East?
I do, yes. In general, yes.
The long arm of Israel can reach anywhere
it thinks it needs to go, and...
It's a matter of image,
but it's also true.
Let's put it this way:
The image isn't far from reality,
and sometimes reality
is stranger than fiction.
And by saying that,
I've contributed to the image.
Okay.
So when does Mossad begin to be seen
as an all-powerful organization?
Adolf Eichmann is captured.
One of the worst monsters of all time
is now in Jewish hands.
Suddenly, in 1960, Ben-Gurion gets up
to speak at the Knesset and says,
"We've captured the Nazi criminal,
on the other side of the world,
"and brought him to Israel
to stand trial."
People around the world were shocked.
They said: "Wow, what an organization.
What capabilities."
Ladies and gentlemen,
before you stands
the destroyer of a people,
an enemy of the human race.
When you left for Buenos Aires
to capture Eichmann,
did you feel that you were
leaving on a historical mission?
Certainly, yes.
Look, we staked out his house.
I walked up and said to him, in Spanish,
"Un momentito, Senõr",
and subdued him with a chokehold.
Then we put him into the car.
The man stayed silent the whole trip.
We arrived at a room
we'd prepared for him,
and the first question was:
"What's your name?"
He replied: "Ricardo Klement."
He'd been living in Argentina
as Ricardo Klement.
Then we asked: "What's your SS number?"
And here,
he provided his precise SS number.
"And now, what's your name?"
And then he said: "Adolf Eichmann."
And a few seconds later, he said,
"I'd like a drink,
"and if you've got any red wine,
I'd like some red wine."
We didn't have any red wine.
Did you, at any point,
think about killing him?
Never.
Our orders were unambiguous:
"Do whatever you can
to bring him back alive."
Didn't you feel any sense of vengeance?
No, I didn't.
I didn't feel vindictive,
I felt proud of our ability.
What did this do for Mossad, PR-wise?
There's no doubt that
the moment it was made public,
it resonated.
I can only say that...
I don't think the Mossad,
at that time, was interested in PR.
It was a unit, that is...
an isolated entity,
that was preoccupied
with more important matters.
Colonel Nasser holds a parade,
and it seemed clear that
the whole parade was designed
to impress the world
with Egypt's military strength.
Nasser and peace have never coexisted.
We think that Nasser
is the enemy of peace with Israel.
As he himself has said:
"A river of blood and a sea of fire."
I think we must take him at his word.
We're talking about the year 1960.
The State of Israel was 10 years old.
We'd already been through two wars,
and we all knew that Nasser
was preparing the next war.
The Egyptians recruited
some 100 German scientists,
some working in Germany,
but most in Egypt.
A German unit in Egypt
was developing long-range missiles,
capable of reaching any point in Israel.
What do we do about it?
When I suggested recruiting Skorzeny,
to the head of operations, he said:
"May a hair sprout from the palm
of my hand if you manage to do it."
Colonel Otto Skorzeny was the most daring
commando the Nazi war machine produced.
He was once considered
the most dangerous man in Europe.
Wasn't he
one of the officers closest to Hitler?
Yes. He was in charge
of the German army’s commandos.
He was...
a great military man.
Il Duce is free, people are happy...
So while you're chasing
former Nazis all over the world,
you recruit an ex-Nazi officer
into Mossad's service?
It was a positive step, which helped us
reach every technician, and every...
German official in Egypt.
Herr Skorzeny, you must have been
approached since the war by other nations,
to indulge in military activities of
the kind you indulged in during the war.
- Is this correct?
- Yes... Yes, exactly.
What did they want you to do?
Oh, some special work.
How did you manage to recruit
such a high-ranking Nazi officer?
The idea was to offer Skorzeny
freedom from fear.
This court sentences
Adolf Eichmann to death.
Eichmann was hanged.
No ex-Nazi, anywhere in the world,
could know whether or not he was a target.
You essentially promised not to kill him.
Something like that, yes.
We said we wouldn't touch him.
On the contrary, we'd protect him.
As you probably know,
there have been some recent news stories
that the people who kidnapped Eichmann
are also looking for you.
They can come,
and I will receive them duly.
- How do you mean, duly?
- Oh, how they deserve it.
Didn't it frighten you?
Cooperating with a
war-scarred Nazi criminal?
I've got scars of my own.
Multiple scars.
Suppose the Israelis came after you.
Would you be captured alive?
If, for instance, they get me
during my sleep, I couldn't hinder them.
But if I would stay alive,
that's another question.
- You don't think you would stay alive?
- It depends.
Skorzeny provided information and...
took part in intimidating the scientists.
It started with anonymous letters
and telephone calls
to the scientists themselves,
and their families.
A letter bomb was sent
to one scientists' address in Cairo,
and it blinded his secretary,
but the scientist was unharmed.
In southern Germany, Kleinwaechter...
they tried to assassinate him, and failed.
One of the heads of the program, Krug,
left his office one day
and never came back.
WAS KIDNAPED AND IS DEAD
In terms of intelligence work,
there's nothing out of the ordinary here.
The mafia works exactly the same way
when it wants to take over
a certain part of the city,
and take over the prostitution racket,
or the drug trade.
By January 1965,
there wasn't a single German
scientist or engineer left in Egypt.
You know, his friends
had no idea he'd betrayed them.
At his funeral, you can see them
giving Nazi salutes.
- Really?
- Yes, it's on YouTube.
Okay, I'll take a look.
Skorzeny, YouTube.
Can you take us back to the moment
when you first heard
about the attack on the
Israeli athletes in Munich?
This is a news flash from the Olympic
village in Munich where early this morning
armed Palestinian guerrillas raided
the sleeping quarters of the Israeli team.
The gunmen shot dead two Israelis,
and are now holding twenty athletes
and six officials as hostages.
Before I flew there,
the Germans stated unambiguously that
there was no way Israeli soldiers would
be involved in rescuing the athletes.
Golda said to me:
"Zvika, I'm asking you,
I'm asking you to go,
so that at the very least
we'll know what happened there."
When I arrived,
the German police ignored me.
I asked them:
"Tell me, what are you doing?"
They didn't say a word to me.
"We don't have to answer to you.
We're handling their rescue."
We stood along the path that led
from the building where,
the athletes were being held,
to the helicopter pad.
On both sides stood
tens of thousands of people.
And then I saw...
a sight that I will never forget.
The athletes,
bound, hand and foot, to one another,
dragging themselves along.
Next to them, the Arabs,
walking along the path.
Absolute silence.
And I looked upon a changed Germany.
Where's the German army?
What's going on here?
I know they're heading up that hill, and
that I'll ride in one of the helicopters.
They wouldn't let me board
the helicopter, the German police.
They didn't want me there.
I pushed through...
and got on the helicopter.
I'm lying next to a German sniper.
They shot using rifles...
old German rifles.
No sniper scopes, nothing.
It was heartbreaking,
because they threw
a phosphorus grenade at the helicopter,
and the helicopter caught fire.
Of all the people...
no one was left alive.
It was a sight
I will never forget, as long as I live.
Germany...
let them say whatever
they will about Germany.
That's not what I saw.
One generation isn't enough.
Prime Minister, if the world governments
do nothing, what will you do?
- We'll have to protect ourselves.
- How?
I don't know.
I'll tell you honestly. If I did know
what we were going to do,
I don't think I would tell you.
How did you intend
to deal with terrorist organizations?
Look,
in every war,
there's intelligence,
there's self-defense,
and preventative measures.
By "preventative measures",
do you mean targeted killings?
- Listen...
- You received an order from Golda
to assassinate the terrorist leaders
who carried out the Munich massacre.
Where did you hear that?
It's been reported.
It's been spoken about.
What?
- Israel didn't carry out assassinations?
- I don't... where did you...
The papers said so.
Golda didn't order me.
Why?
Because I didn't need to be ordered.
We had to prevent casualties,
and save Israeli lives and assets,
wherever they may be.
In some instances,
we knew about certain enemy activities,
and when we had no other choice,
we had to make sure
that this viper wouldn’t bite us.
I warned them, and I told
my brothers: "Be careful!
"The Mossad will hunt us down
one by one."
Suddenly, Palestinian leaders
started meeting unnatural deaths.
One Palestinian blew up
in his bed in Nicosia.
Another Palestinian's car blew up.
You live peacefully in France. Does that
mean that you don't fear for your life?
No, I do not,
but I prefer not to tempt the Devil.
Numerous Palestinians, of various ranks,
had their lives cut short,
and everyone quickly understood that
this was a coordinated Israeli operation.
The leaders of these murderers,
either fled Europe,
or died there.***
The Palestinian revolution continues
to take strong, solid and stable strides
towards the realization
of its ultimate goal:
the establishment of a democratic
Palestinian state on Palestinian land.
You served in Europe before Munich.
Couldn't you tell that Palestinian
terror cells were operating there?
Look, I was head of the Europe division.
The Palestinian movement
was recruiting students into Fatah,
and I learned that they were
preparing to create violent cells,
to carry out terror attacks against Jews,
from among the student population.
And among them were Abu Jihad
and Yasser, and I suggested:
"Let's kill this thing in its infancy."
I said: "Let's take care of these guys.
If you like, individually.
If you like, all at once."
And the answer was "No.”
What do you mean by
"individually" and "all at once?"
"Individually" is where
I pick off one person.
"All at once" is when I know they'll all
be in a room together and I kill them all.
How do you kill them all?
- From a technical standpoint?
- Yes.
Very simple.
- What, you enter with guns blazing?
- You enter,
and shoot whoever
you think needs to be shot.
And what about a bomb?
- Even I didn't want to do that.
- Why not?
Because it would kill innocent people.
You don't kill unrelated parties.
You kill your adversaries,
your enemies, because by killing them,
you're saving the lives of others.
That's the rule.
Do you believe that assassinations
have proven to be an effective tool?
Each instance needs to be
examined on its own merits,
but, in general, it's an effective tool.
So you support
this policy of assassinations?
I wouldn't call it
“a policy of assassinations."
I call it "Targeting terrorists,
both low- and high-ranking."
It's one of the tools,
alongside many, many others,
that should be used
in our war on terror.
What about targeting terrorist leaders,
or heads of state?
I'll give you my personal opinion:
Terrorist leaders, yes.
Heads of state, no.
Did you think Khaled Mashaal
was an important enough figure
to justify an assassination
attempt against him?
People were wrong about Mashaal then,
that he wasn't senior enough
to be bothered with at all.
As he was then, so he is now:
the leader of Hamas.
In the space of a month, in Jerusalem,
there were two attacks
which left many dead,
and dozens injured.
Men, women, and children,
small children, were murdered.
As prime minister, it's my responsibility
to do everything in my power
to fight this terrorist evil.
And we, the intelligence agencies,
were asked
to suggest ways of dealing with Hamas.
Weren't you afraid that
if something went wrong,
it could complicate
Israel's relationship with King Hussein?
Yes, certainly,
which is why, at first, I didn't initiate
an operation there,
but rather, thousands of kilometers
away from Jordan,
and not targeting Khaled Mashaal.
Why?
Because of the sensitivity.
The operation went ahead.
Did you intend to
assassinate someone else?
The combatants were already in place.
Then, one Friday,
the Defense Minister and Director of
Shin Bet went to see the Prime Minister,
and said, "Why are we sending the
Mossad's fine operatives over there?
Why not to Jordan, the place
where all this evil originates?"
And the Prime Minister said:
"Fine, to Jordan."
I was exploding with rage.
I said: "How can this be?
They're deciding on a Mossad mission
without me even...
in the room? Without consulting me?
What is the meaning of this?
It's just not done."
I find the Prime Minister,
and I talk to him.
And I raise my voice, too.
I spent the weekend finding out
if we were even able to do it.
The responsibility was mine,
because finally,
after looking into it, I said:
"It's feasible, and they can do it."
Was it your first time
on an assassination mission?
I won't go into my operational past,
but I will note that the Mashaal mission
was ten years into my service
in Mossad's operations unit.
It's common for an intelligence officer
to join the unit on its mission.
How do you head out on a mission
aimed at assassinating a human being?
I had...
Let me put it differently,
I was completely at peace
with the decision to assassinate Mashaal.
The Prime Minister's order
was to carry it out quietly,
because he knew
that a conspicuous operation in Amman,
such as placing a bomb in Mashaal's car,
or shooting him
with a sniper rifle from a distance,
or shooting him with a handgun
at close range,
would lead to a huge crisis
in Israeli-Jordanian relations,
and so he ordered us
to carry out a quiet operation,
an operation that would go undetected.
We developed a chemical which, upon
coming into contact with a person's skin,
several hours later,
that person becomes ill,
passes out, and expires.
The unit experimented
on unsuspecting people in the street.
Two people approach
the subject from behind.
One sprays him, and the other
shakes and opens a cola can,
causing the can's contents
to spray all over.
The person who was sprayed,
when he turns around,
just sees a shaken up can of cola,
and thinks that's what sprayed him.
I came to Jordan
carrying the antidote with me,
so that if one of our guys were exposed
to the poison intended for Mashaal,
he could find me and get the antidote.
That morning, I was by the hotel pool.
Someone from the unit, who wasn't
supposed to be there, showed up.
I got up and we stepped aside,
and this person said:
"Problems."
Last Thursday, near the
Hamas offices in Amman.
Khaled Mashaal is walking with
his sons and a bodyguard.
A Hyundai pulls up to them,
and two men emerge.
They approach Mashaal, press a device
against his head, and escape.
Mashaal collapses,
and his bodyguard hails a cab
and gives chase.
How did you feel when you heard
the operation had gone wrong?
I can explain it with one word,
two words:
Like shit.
After a few minutes' drive,
the assassins try to switch cars,
but when they get out of their car,
Mashaal's bodyguard attacks them,
and the Jordanian police arrives.
Mashaal is taken to the hospital
in critical condition.
We think the Mossad intelligence service
is behind of this failed
assassination attempt.
There can be no doubt
that such moves are wholly unacceptable.
Hussein said
that if Mashaal dies, he'll have
a Palestinian uprising on his hands,
and he'll have no choice
but to execute the two combatants.
So they decided
to make a deal with Hussein:
We'd save Mashaal's life,
using the antidote,
and the two captured combatants
would be released.
Their attempt failed,
their cards have been exposed,
and they are the big losers
in all of the recent events.
I think there was...
something very positive there,
but which led to a serious mishap,
and that was excessive motivation.
Because my briefing was,
"If there's anyone near Mashaal,
no matter who,
do not act."
And Mashaal, unexpectedly,
came out with his driver
and two children.
And they went ahead anyway.
Do you think the attempt
to assassinate Mashaal, in retrospect,
was worth the risk?
Let me put it another way.
There are very few operations where,
in hindsight, if something went wrong,
you can say they were worth it.
When you look at...
the contribution of...
a department, a Mossad hit squad,
you don't base it on one operation.
You look at 300.
One of them might go wrong along the way,
and then you might ask, "What for?"
But of course, that's not the point.
It's one out of 300.
If 200 of 300 are successful,
we'll have hit our goal.
How do you determine whether
an assassination is worth the risk?
It's a very practical consideration.
First of all, you ask:
What are you doing this for?
What is the intention, exactly?
There may be many.
It could be disrupting
something already underway,
or retaliation,
or whatever else.
You have your intentions.
- Revenge?
- That too, certainly.
Lebanon's Hezbollah says Israel
assassinated one of its top leaders.
Imad Mughniyeh, one of the group's
top military commanders,
died in a car bombing in Syria.
When Imad Mughniyeh met his demise,
the popping of champagne corks
could be heard all around the world.
He was among the first to use truck bombs.
His attack on the American Marine
barracks in Beirut,
the planes he'd hijacked...
There's the famous picture
of him holding a gun
to the head of a TWA pilot
whose plane he hijacked to Damascus.
The Americans wanted him,
the French wanted him,
the Saudis wanted him,
the Egyptians wanted him,
the Kuwaitis wanted him, and so did we.
You have murdered Hajj Imad
outside the natural battle arena.
Zionists, if you want
this kind of open war
then let the whole world hear,
let there be open war!
Death to Israel!
When you assassinate someone,
aren't you opening a Pandora's box?
You assassinate someone,
and he kills one of yours,
and you kill one of his,
- and he kills one of yours...
- I don't accept this argument.
It's an incorrect, defeatist argument.
The one opening Pandora's box
is the first suicide bomber.
Did they expect us to forget?
To say: "Okay, so you killed some people,
but we'll forgive and forget,
just so you don't get mad at us again."
Is that a better way, in your opinion?
Is that even possible?
The need to retaliate is understandable,
but what kind of a difference
can it make in the long run?
Has it helped Israel in the long run?
Not really.
Not really.
But it did create...
For the terrorist decision-makers,
it gave them pause.
A terrorist who's on the run is completely
different from a terrorist who isn't.
Look at Hassan Nasrallah.
He's been living in a bunker
for quite some time.
Is this significant
in terms of Israel's deterrence
against Hezbollah, yes or no?
I don't know the answer.
The fact is that for the past few years,
there's been no direct Hezbollah activity
against the State of Israel.
Did the premature death
of Sheikh Ahmad Yassin
benefit the State of Israel, yes or no?
I think it did.
I think that at the end of the day,
his successors,
before sending out suicide bombers,
thought and knew that if
they got involved in such an act,
they'd have to pay a price.
In war, both sides get hurt.
One side gets hurt when a suicide bomber
blows up a bus in Tel Aviv,
and the other gets hurt when
a building collapses on him in Gaza.
Is that what I'd like to see
in the next life,
where you'll be whatever you'll be?
No, not at all.
Is this what reality, unfortunately,
forces us to deal with? Yes.
In the cybernetic age,
where everything's out in the open,
how does this affect an intelligence
organization like Mossad?
Well, that's a professional question.
I think that the modern world
is one where the familiar
rules of spycraft have changed.
All of your work building your cover,
all of your movements,
have become much more complicated,
more complex,
even more dangerous,
to a large extent.
- For example, that thing in Dubai.
- Yes.
Where some intelligence organization
left a lot of fingerprints.
Was this a success or a failure
for that organization?
I don't know.
A Hamas commander is murdered
in his Dubai hotel room.
Israel is under pressure
to explain its involvement.
What will be the international impact?
What can you tell us about
the assassination of Mabhouh?
How can I comment on something
Israel never claimed responsibility for?
The security cameras at Dubai airport
and at the hotel captured it all.
Here we see Mabhouh entering the hotel.
Two of the suspects, in tennis clothes,
enter the elevator with him,
and appear to follow him
in order to find out his room number.
Dubai Police claim that a crew
of 11 European mercenaries,
pictured here,
carried out Mabhouh's assassination.
It's rather strange that none of them,
having been filmed by so many cameras...
None of them was ever caught.
Looks like...
whoever planned it
did a good enough job
and took that into account.
It excites the imagination, no?
I think it’s clear
that whoever did the murder
didn’t really mind being seen on CCTV.
They say the security cameras in Dubai
were made by an Israeli company.
Could be, I don't know.
Is this a success or a failure,
when an operation like this is exposed?
You tell me.
You tell me.
The political use of killing,
is it moral in your eyes?
In killing... Let's make a distinction.
The political use of killing
is what armies do.
Do you have a problem with that?
An army, by definition,
is when you take young men and women,
put them in uniform,
teach them to kill,
and say, "The day your country decides
that, for political reasons,
you have to kill your counterparts
on the other side, go and do it."
And they all say, “Yes.”
And they do it.
So, by that definition,
that's what most countries do.
The question is, under what conditions,
and what are your objectives?
I'm asking, does Israel have a set code?
- Of what?
- About the use of assassinations.
- Ah, what they call "assassinations?"
- Yes.
Terrorists, and their leaders.
Leaders are a separate case.
On the face of it, on the positive side,
you can say: If you're already
going to take someone's life,
target the ones responsible.
Why should foot soldiers pay the price?
It's also economical.
Instead of killing an entire army,
you take out the commander.
But on the other hand,
leaders are wary of ordering
the assassination of heads of state,
as this might also apply to them,
and there is a sort of pact:
"Don't do it to me,
and I won't do it to you."
What does Israel do?
As we've seen,
it draws a line.
It doesn't do all it can.
If we wanted to, we could
kill leaders in the region.
But in the same breath,
if it's an existential matter,
and if you think
you need to target leaders,
and if you're willing to pay the price,
then this is also an option.
Were you ever involved in
deciding a leader's fate?
Yes... OK.
Here I can tell you
about an uneasy feeling
that haunts me to this day.
January, 1979.
Khomeini comes to power in Iran.
In a month, he’ll be ruling the country,
turning it into an Islamic Republic,
but up until then, we were allied
with the Shah's regime,
and we were very close to the Shah
and to Iranian intelligence.
At that time,
the director of Mossad called me and said,
"You're going to head the Tehran branch."
I basically went in order to see
what was going on in Iran,
because it was clear there were
extremist underground currents,
and you could say
that neither the Shah nor Khomeini
realized how quickly it would all
fall into his hands.
But at some point,
when they began to feel the danger,
someone important came to me and said:
Put on a jacket and tie
and come with me to meet
the king of kings, 'Shahin Shah'
and hear his request
that the Mossad assassinate Khomeini."
The request arrived by urgent telegram
to the office of Haka, director of Mossad,
and he called an urgent meeting.
I was the intelligence officer on Iran.
So Haka says:
"We got a telegram from Geizi.
They're asking us to kill Khomeini.
What do you say?"
Before I could answer,
the guy sitting next to me,
a veteran who had spent years in Iran,
butts in and says: "Don't worry.
Let Khomeini return to Tehran.
The army and SAVAK won't let him rule.
They'll kill him."
Haka looks at me again,
and I'm running scenarios through
my head at breakneck speed.
What happens if we succeed?
What would the Americans say?
And what about the French?
And the Russians?
What happens if we fail?
And who is this Khomeini, anyway?
What do we know about him?
And after...
thinking for a moment, I say to Haka:
"I can't give you an answer.
We don't know enough about Khomeini."
And Haka says:
"Okay, we're not doing it."
I answer the guy:
"Sorry, not in our wheelhouse.
We're not the world police.
It's your problem. Do as you see fit."
A month later,
Khomeini seized control of Iran.
Looking back,
my failure to make a decision
haunts me to this day.
If Yossi Alpher were sitting
in front of Haka today,
what would his answer be?
In light of all that's happened
with the Islamic regime In Iran
since Khomeini came to power,
and all the damage it's done
in the Middle East,
I would give a different answer.
A few years ago,
friends said to me,
"What is this nonsense?
If we had the chance to take out Hitler,
before he came to power,
would we also have said
'We're not the world police?’”
I was left with my mouth open,
unable to answer.
I'll allow myself to philosophize a bit.
Let's say we'd done it.
Let's say we'd had a shot
at assassinating Khomeini.
Would the world, and Iran, have known
what we'd saved them from?
Rafi, three...
In the First Lebanon War,
the idea of assassinating Arafat
was raised once again.
This nation will not give up!
Yes. Arik Sharon set up a team
in order to assassinate Arafat.
We actually went in,
myself as well,
to Yasser Arafat's headquarters.
He escaped.
It would have been easy, actually,
because he was out in the open,
but... it wasn't done.
Do you, personally,
think it was a mistake?
Historically speaking, yes.
Explain.
Look...
Had we assassinated Yasser Arafat
at that time, and only him,
a separation between us and the
Palestinians could have been achieved,
and I'm convinced
that it's still achievable.
Do you really think
that assassinating a single person
can change the course of history?
Exactly.
Like Rabin's murder, in contrast.
So throughout your years
of Mossad service,
did you ever feel a pang of regret,
where they wouldn't let you do
something you felt was necessary?
Look,
if memory serves, I've never felt
a pang of regret in my life.
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