The Consortium
Israel's Botched Hit: Flash of Truth Amid Lies
By Robert Parry
On Sept. 25, a two-man Israeli hit team was on the prowl in Amman, Jordan,
looking for Hamas leader Khaled Meshal. Obeying secret orders to avenge
suicide bombings in Israel, the assassins drove a non-descript drab-green
Hyundai to Meshal's house and followed him on his route to work.
When Meshal climbed out of his car, the assassins jumped out, too.
According to witnesses, one assassin had a gray device strapped to his arm
and approached Meshal from behind. The assassin lifted his arm in the
direction of Meshal's left ear. The device emitted a popping sound -- and
forced a lethal toxin into Meshal's skin.
The assassins fled. Meshal collapsed and was rushed to a hospital. There,
doctors puzzled over the curious malady that soon left Meshal clinging to
life on a respirator.
But this dramatic incident did not end as a medical mystery. Instead, it
touched off an international furor. Enraged by an assassination attempt
in his own capital, Jordan's King Hussein blamed Israel and demanded that
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu deliver the antidote to save Meshal's
life. If Netanyahu refused, King Hussein warned of reprisals, including
the possible severing of relations with Israel.
Under normal circumstances, Netanyahu might have weathered this diplomatic
storm behind a protective barrier of intelligence "deniability." He might
have rejected allegations of Israeli complicity and pretended not to know
what had caused Meshal's illness.
Meshal might have died an unexplained death and the truth would have
disappeared into a haze of historical suspicions. There even might have
been some mocking stories in The New Republic or other staunchly
pro-Israeli publications commenting on the cultural proclivity of Arabs to
believe in baseless "conspiracy theories." Israeli assassins with a
mysterious toxin? The Israelis, of all people, using poison gas?
But the Meshal affair was one of those rare moments when truth was plucked
from the thicket of intelligence deceptions. This happened -- as it does
occasionally -- because of the capture of clear physical evidence that
could not be cleverly spun by propagandists. Netanyahu could not dismiss
King Hussein's allegations because Meshal's bodyguards chased the assassins
-- first on foot, then by car and then on foot again.
One bodyguard, trained in martial arts, subdued one of the assassins by
force and the other surrendered. Their false identities as Canadian
tourists quickly collapsed and the two were identified as agents of
Israel's foreign intelligence service, the Mossad. Netanyahu had no choice
but to admit Israeli complicity. His fall-back was to justify the attack
as appropriate retaliation for the suicide bombings. [For details on the
Meshal case, see Barton Gellman's account in The Washington Post,
Oct. 6, 1997]
But the Meshal case carries another lesson: investigators should not reject
too quickly other stories of controversial Israeli intelligence operations.
Since World War II, Israeli operatives have engaged in many daring exploits,
first to found the Jewish state and since then to defend its fragile
security. One storied Israeli intelligence operation kidnapped Nazi war
criminal Adolf Eichmann in Argentina in 1960 and brought him to Israel for
execution.
The legacy of the Holocaust and the hostility of many Arab neighbors have
pushed Israelis into this harsh pragmatism where the ends can be made to
justify the means, where rough justice exacts an eye for an eye, even when
revenge is inflicted on a group, not the guilty individual. When
international controversy does flare, Israel can rely on sympathizers in
Western countries to protect its P.R. flanks.
Out in the Cold
That was the case, too, in the early 1990s when Israel faced a potential
P.R. disaster with the defection of possibly the most knowledgeable
intelligence agent ever: Ari Ben-Menashe. A 10-year veteran of an Israeli
military intelligence office called the External Relations Department,
Ben-Menashe was arrested in the United States in late 1989 on charges of
trying to sell C-130 cargo planes to Iran.
After the arrest, the Israeli government informed federal prosecutors and
U.S. journalists that Ben-Menashe had never worked for Israeli intelligence.
Left out in the cold, Ben-Menashe began divulging some of Israel's most
closely held secrets. Over time, those secrets included:
--Details about Israel's nuclear program and collaboration with South
Africa's white-supremacist government in developing and testing nuclear
weapons.
--Allegations that the government of Menachem Begin cooperated with the
Reagan-Bush campaign and with conservative European intelligence services
to ship arms to Iran in 1980, thus undermining President Carter's efforts
to free 52 American hostages.
--Accounts of secret Israeli diplomacy to disrupt a CIA-sanctioned
operation to funnel military hardware to Saddam Hussein's Iraq during the
1980s.
--Israeli use of British publishing magnate Robert Maxwell as an
intelligence operative who disseminated propaganda and arranged clandestine
weapons shipments through the Eastern Bloc.
I was one of the first reporters to interview Ben-Menashe, in New York
City's federal prison in February 1990 when I was still a correspondent for
Newsweek. He was a difficult interview, brash and arrogant,
talking down to me as though I were someone who couldn't be expected to
grasp the more complicated picture. He outlined an intelligence world --
almost an alternative history -- that existed beneath the surface of events
that common citizens would know.
When I informed Ben-Menashe that Israel was denying any connection to him,
he arranged with his mother to send me a package of his personal documents.
They included letters of reference establishing that he indeed had worked
for ERD, an arm of the Aman or military intelligence.
Confronted with the documents, Israeli officials grudgingly admitted
Ben-Menashe's employment in the intelligence community. But they then
retreated to a new cover story: that Ben-Menashe was a "low-level
translator" who never traveled on government business.
Key Friends
This cover story was equally implausible and, off-the-record, Israeli
officials admitted to me and other skeptical journalists that it wasn't
true. The officials acknowledged that the Iranian-born Ben-Menashe had
undertaken sensitive missions for Israel, in part because of his
proficiency in speaking Farsi and Arabic. One senior military intelligence
officer confirmed to me that Ben-Menashe also had operated in then-communist
Poland for the Israeli government.
Israel, however, relied on some of its closest allies in the U.S. news
media to promote the "low-level translator" story. Steven Emerson, a
writer for The New Republic and The Wall Street Journal's
editorial page, cited the line repeatedly, adding that his Israeli contacts
had shared with him their other claim, that Ben-Menashe was "delusional."
(Emerson's journalistic career suffered a string of embarrassing setbacks
in the mid-1990s. After the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995, he
rushed onto TV news shows and pointed the finger of guilt at Islamic
radicals. A subsequent article by investigative reporter Robert I. Friedman
disclosed how Emerson had closely coordinated his anti-Arab journalism with
hard-line Israeli officials. Likud party leaders even stayed at Emerson's
apartment during their frequent trips to Washington. [For details, see
The Nation, May 15, 1995])
But in 1991, Emerson and other Ben-Menashe debunkers were riding high.
They savaged any American investigator who tried to examine his allegations
carefully. In this strategy, Israel was aided by the fact that Ben-Menashe's
charges were extremely dangerous as well to then-President George Bush and
senior CIA officials, including Robert Gates, who was Bush's choice to
become CIA director.
In effect, Ben-Menashe depicted an intelligence coup in 1980, with the CIA
conspiring behind President Carter's back to put Ronald Reagan and George
Bush, a former CIA director, into power. Ben-Menashe alleged that Bush and
Gates played direct roles in the operation, allegations that they
vigorously denied. However, at the center of the controversy, known
popularly as the "October Surprise" case, was the late William J. Casey,
Ronald Reagan's campaign chief in 1980 and then his first CIA director.
Press Attacks
In 1991, these suspicions about Bush's hand in a 1980 intelligence coup
were rising as a potentially devastating threat to Bush's re-election which
was then considered a very strong bet. Quickly, Bush's many friends at
conservative and mainstream publications joined with Israel's influential
press allies to put the story down.
In a string of press attacks, Ben-Menashe was inundated with character
assassination. The New Republic and my former employers at
Newsweek led the way, claiming to have disproved the October
Surprise story by establishing alibis for Casey's whereabouts on key days
when he was alleged to be meeting with Iranians in Europe. Those alibis
would later be disproved, although no official corrections would ever be
run. [For details, see my books, Trick or Treason and The
October Surprise X-Files.]
Amid the growing controversies around his allegations, Ben-Menashe won
acquittal of the criminal charges against him. A jury in New York
apparently accepted his legitimacy as an Israeli intelligence officer on a
secret mission. Eventually dozens of government officials, other witnesses
and documents corroborated additional aspects of Ben-Menashe's allegations.
But Ben-Menashe often undercut his own credibility by over-promising what
he could deliver in terms of documents or contacts with high-level officials
in the Middle East. Still, his biggest problem appeared to be that he
challenged too many powerful interests at once. The acceptance of the
October Surprise allegations alone would have destroyed the legitimacy of
12 years of Republican rule, forced investigations into illegal CIA political
operations and damaged Israel's image.
Also infuriating the Israelis was Ben-Menashe's account of the highly
sensitive Israeli nuclear weapons program. In fall 1986, a former employee
at Israel's Dimona nuclear facility, Mordecai Vanunu, divulged secrets of
that program to the Sunday Times of London. Israel went to the
extraordinary lengths to capture Vanunu in Europe and spirit him back to
Israel for imprisonment.
Ben-Menashe touched that same raw nerve when he gave more nuclear details
to investigative reporter Seymour M. Hersh. Hersh checked and cross-checked
Ben-Menashe's story about the Israeli arsenal and Maxwell's espionage role.
Initially a strong skeptic about Ben-Menashe, Hersh grew convinced that
Ben-Menashe was "golden" -- in Hersh's word -- and included Ben-Menashe's
corroborated accounts in The Samson Option, Hersh's 1991 book
about Israel's nuclear weapons stockpile.
For doing so, Hersh came under heavy attack from pro-Israeli journalists in
the United States and in Great Britain, especially those connected to
Maxwell's empire. Despite the furor, Ben-Menashe's accounts published in
The Samson Option largely prevailed. After Maxwell's mysterious
death at sea off the Canary Islands on Nov. 5, 1991, Maxwell received the
rare honor of a burial in Jerusalem's historic Mount of Olives and Hersh
won two libel cases brought by Maxwell associates.
Weak Democrats
Still, the smear campaigns against Ben-Menashe took their toll. Weak
Democratic leaders -- particularly Sen. David Boren of Oklahoma and Lee
Hamilton of Indiana -- caved under Republican pressure. Boren brushed
aside Ben-Menashe's testimony and cleared the way for Gates to be confirmed
as CIA director. In 1992-93, Hamilton oversaw an October Surprise
investigation, which defended Republican innocence by concealing testimony
and documentary evidence which pointed toward Reagan-Bush guilt. [See
The October Surprise X-Files.]
Meanwhile, Hersh and others who had drawn accurate information from
Ben-Menashe retreated under fire. Hersh began calling Ben-Menashe "a liar,"
presumably because Ben-Menashe had failed to fulfill a promise that he
could get a visa for Hersh to travel to Iran. When I've talked with Hersh
over the years since then, he has not offered a single example of a
substantive factual claim by Ben-Menashe that proved to be false. But like
others, Hersh recognized the danger to his career and resented Ben-Menashe's
bravado.
On many occasions, I shared Hersh's frustration with Ben-Menashe's
behavior. The ex-Israeli agent sometimes dangled promises of more
documents and then failed to deliver. But I was unable to disprove
conclusively any of his substantive allegations, even when they first
sounded highly implausible to me.
But the calumny heaped upon those who fairly examined these questions was
so extraordinary that nearly everyone backed off or suffered great harm.
Gary Sick, a serious scholar of U.S.-Iran relations who would have been in
line for a senior State Department job under President Clinton, was turned
into a political pariah for his conclusion that the October Surprise
allegations were true. [See Gary Sick's book, October Surprise.]
PBS Frontline, which recruited me to report two documentaries on
the issue, became a whipping boy for conservatives who cited those programs
as a justification for slashing the PBS budget.
As individuals scrambled to salvage their careers and reputations, the
integrity of the historical record crumbled. Ironically, the Democrats
most responsible for the collapse -- Hamilton and Boren -- earned kudos
for their "bipartisanship" and "conscience."
Another Chance
But there was still a chance for the truth to emerge in the early years of
the Clinton administration. Along two separate tracks, Iranian government
emissaries sought out contacts with the Clinton newcomers. Primarily,
these emissaries wanted to test out the possibility of improved U.S.-Iranian
relations and possibly gain release of Iranian assets frozen since 1979.
As part of those overtures, the Iranian emissaries informed the White House
that the long-denied stories about a Republican-Iranian deal in 1980 were
true. Sources close to the White House told me that this information was
delivered directly to President Clinton. But Clinton turned his back on
the overtures because hard documentary evidence was lacking and because of
continued concerns about the Iranian government's support for international
terrorism.
(One Clinton source identified Kamal Kharrazi as part of this Iranian
initiative. Kharrazi then was Iranian representative to the United Nations,
but he is now foreign minister under Iran's new, more moderate government.)
Though official Washington seems to have little interest in fixing old
political and journalistic errors, some early history books of the era
accept the October Surprise story as fact. Peter Bourne's Jimmy Carter
biography, published this year, describes the Republican sabotage almost
matter-of-factly.
Bourne recounts an interview with Bassam Abu Sharif, a top aide to Yasir
Arafat, describing a request from "a senior Reagan advisor" who flew to
Lebanon in July 1980 seeking Arafat's "influence in Tehran to delay the
[hostage] release until after the election."
(In 1996, Arafat confirmed this account in a private meeting with Carter,
according to the scholarly journal, Diplomatic History, Fall
1996. Later, the ex-president confirmed to me that Arafat had supplied
the information about the Republican operation.)
On another front, Bourne adds that Casey "had established his own channels
to Tehran through relationships in the French intelligence community."
Those contacts permitted Casey to open up direct negotiations with Iranians
in Europe.
These European intelligence figures "were professional operatives who not
only had the necessary international contacts and were coldbloodedly
involved in breaking of governments through clandestine deals and furtive
manipulation, they were also people who could keep secrets even if it meant
perjuring themselves."
Bourne also cites an obvious motive for CIA officers to help in the plot.
"Carter was widely disliked [by them] while Casey and Reagan's vice
presidential nominee, George Bush, were considered members of the club,"
Bourne notes.
In Israel, Bourne writes, Prime Minister Menachem Begin had concluded that
Carter would lose and began "to cover Israel's bets surreptitiously with
the Republicans." Explaining why the 1992-93 congressional inquiry rejected
the October Surprise allegations, Bournes adds that the members of Congress
lacked "definitive evidence" and may have feared that a full investigation
would "reveal far greater involvement of Israel than had already come to
light."
Brzezinski's View
In an interview, Carter's national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski
told me that the Carter White House was well aware that the Begin government
had "an obvious preference for a Reagan victory." That animosity could be
traced back to Carter's opposition to Jewish settlements on the West Bank.
David Kimche, a senior Begin aide and former Mossad official, has corroborated
Brzezinski's point. "Begin was being set up for diplomatic slaughter by
the master butchers in Washington," Kimche wrote about Israeli concerns for
a second Carter term, when the president would be freed from the electoral
pressures of the American Jewish community. [See Kimche's book, The
Last Option.]
Despite the shifting assessments of historians, Ben-Menashe remained the
odd man out. Angry about his disclosures, Israel subjected him to years of
harassment. As he shuttled from country to country, he always feared sudden
deportation to Israel -- the Vanunu option -- or worse. He finally settled
in Montreal, married a Canadian woman and obtained Canadian citizenship.
Now in his late 40s, he works for an international commodities broker and
tries to put the controversies of the 1980s behind him.
But the attempted murder of Khaled Meshal offers a reminder of how far
Israel is prepared to go when its security interests are threatened -- and
how hard it is to know the history even when it happens right before our
eyes. ~
Copyright (c) 1997
Return to Other Story
Index
Return to Main Archive
Index
Return to Consortium
Main Menu.