The conclusion was that the legion’s efforts were negligible. In the
case of Egypt, in 1955 MI assessed that because of the Israeli reprisals
the Egyptian authorities were promoting infiltrators into Israel, who
instead of being known merely as “border-crossers” were accorded a
new title, fedayeen. This term denotes something more heroic, and
Egypt set up a battalion of fedayeen.
The reprisals policy was a point of controversy between Director of
Military Intelligence (DMI) Yehoshafat Harkabi, who maintained
that a substantial change had occurred in Egyptian policy toward al-
lowing more terrorist infiltration into Israel, and Chief of the General
Staff Lieutenant General Moshe Dayan, who held that no change had
occurred in Egyptian behavior. Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion
judged between the two assessments and adopted the DMI’s position.
However, MI did not dispute the necessity of military reprisals. It sim-
ply emphasized the need for thorough study of the fedayeen: who ex-
actly they were, how they worked, seasonal patterns in their infiltra-
tion, and a comparison with infiltration from Jordan to reach some
conclusions on the best means to contain it. For this purpose, MI made
use of the so-called village files—the targets for reprisals. These files,
prepared by the legendary intelligence officer Gideon Mahanaimi,
contained detailed information on every Jordanian village, including
air reconnaissance photographs taken frequently from Piper aircraft.
Mahanaimi updated the files constantly. Other information included in
the files was obtained from interrogations of Palestinian Arabs de-
tained after illegally infiltrating into Israel. The files were updated at
short notice just prior to any reprisal operation. In addition, eavesdrop-
ping units were usually located on a hill close to the area where the
reprisal was carried out; they informed the combat troops of the arrival
of Jordanian reinforcements.
The reprisals policy did not greatly contribute to stopping infiltra-
tion into Israel for hostile purposes, and thus infiltration and retalia-
tion became a matter of routine. The only advantage was that reprisal
raids augmented the training and fighting experience of Israeli com-
bat troops. The reprisals policy also gave the IDF an opportunity to
practice the combined operation of combat troops and intelligence as
well other support units.RESEARCH 2.See HEKER 2.238 • RESEARCH 206-102 (04) Q-Z.qxd 3/24/06 7:25 AM Page 238