Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who played a prominent
role in attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers during the current
Al-Aqsa Intifada. In return, the Mossad agents, who would otherwise
have faced the death penalty for attempted murder, were released.
In July 2004, New Zealand imposed diplomatic sanctions against Is-
rael over an incident in which two Israelis, Uriel Kelman and Eli Cara,
allegedly working for the Mossad, attempted to fraudulently obtain
New Zealand passports.
One ISA debacle is the arrest and torture of IDF lieutenant Izzat
Nafsu for alleged treason. Another is the Bus 300 Affair. This grim af-
fair of the summary killing of two Palestinian terrorists after their sur-
render was discovered by the Israeli press. Its exposure led to the con-
coction of a tissue of lies by an ISA officer, who claimed that Brigadier
General Yitzhak Mordechay had beaten the terrorists to death before de-
livering their bodies to ISA officers.OVERSEEING THE ISRAELI INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY
Given the importance of intelligence, and especially the possibility of
failures, oversight is essential. First and foremost is parliamentary over-
sight by the Knesset Subcommittee for Intelligence and Secret Services.
After almost every debacle, a commission of inquiry is appointed to
study the matter, to determine the reasons for the failure, and to recom-
mend improvements.
Following the 1954 Bad Business, four committees were appointed
to investigate it. The first was the Ulshan-Dori Commission in 1955.
Then came the Amiad Commission in 1958, followed by the Cohen
Commission in 1960; the last to investigate this scandal was the Com-
mittee of Seven that same year. The problem was that none of these
committees was a state commission of inquiry.
In 1963, still in the wake of the Bad Business but also following on
the heels of the Damocles Operation, the Yadin-Sherf Commission rec-
ommended some kind of structural change in the Israeli intelligence
community, making it more pluralistic. In a sense, the Yadin-Sherf
Commission attempted to duplicate the U.S. pluralistic structure, which
had evolved naturally. The recommendation on pluralism at that time
was not implemented.INTRODUCTION• xlix06-102 (01) FM.qxd 3/24/06 7:22 AM Page xlix