Historical Dictionary of Israeli Intelligence

Also in the 1950s, the ISA successfully elicited information on the So-

viet Union and the Soviet bloc by questioning new immigrants to Israel

from those countries; this vital information was conveyed to the United

States, then at the height of the Cold War. Furthermore, the ISA obtained

from the new immigrants Soviet identity cards, which were of use to the

United States in dispatching its agents clandestinely to the USSR. This

contributed to the development of the Israel-U.S. intelligence coopera-

tion in subsequent years. Israeli agents obtained Khrushchev’s Speech in

1956; it too was handed over to the United States, and this likewise pro-

moted these intelligence ties.

In recent years, the ISA has won major victories in the war on Pales-

tinian terrorism against Israeli civilians. Numerous early warnings of

imminent terror attacks, around 50 each day, are received. Nevertheless,

the volume of terrorism has been substantially contained.

GRAVE FAILURES AS WELL

Along with the impressive successes, Israeli intelligence, like every intel-

ligence community, has failed in many instances, and these are the activi-

ties most talked about. Many of the failures led to great political scandals.

The earliest of these is known as the 1954 Bad Business. This was a

kind of covert action in which members of a Jewish espionage network

in Egypt carried out a series of sabotage attacks against Western targets

that were meant to be seen as having been committed by Egyptians gen-

erally, thus driving a wedge between Great Britain and the United States

and Egypt. The detection of the perpetrators of these deeds resulted in

a major political scandal and the eventual resignation of Israeli prime

ministers and ministers.

Another MI failure was the Night of Ducks debacle in 1959, when a

general call-up exercise of the reserves was broadcast over Israel Radio,

without prior announcement that any such exercise was to be held. As a

result, the Arab armies believed that Israel was preparing for war and

went into a state of high alert. This again led to a scandal and the forced

resignation of Israeli generals, including the DMI at the time, Major

General Yehoshafat Harkabi.

MI is known for a long series of assessment failures, many due to

miscollection of information. The first is the Rotem Affair in February

INTRODUCTION• xlvii

06-102 (01) FM.qxd 3/24/06 7:22 AM Page xlvii