WhatsappEven before the State of Israel was formed, the slowly forming State of Israel had secret activities going on to smuggle in weapons. It was clear that when the State of Israel would be declared, Arabs in the Land of Israel and from countries surrounding the Land of Israel would not sit quietly.
In the days leading up to the declaration of the State of Israel and in the days following the declaration in May 1948, Arabs attacked Israel – from more than five directions. Israel lacked manpower. But more than manpower, they lacked firepower. Israel sent emissaries to Europe in order to purchase weapons from countries that had leftover weapons from World War II. There are even stories about Arab emissaries and Jewish emissaries on the same plane flying out to purchase the leftover weapons.
But Israel did not just purchase weapons. They even created their own bullets factory. But they sorely lacked machine guns, tanks, and aircraft. The smuggling operations continued throughout Israel’s War of Independence. And at the very beginning of the State of Israel, David Ben-Gurion officially formed Israel’s secret service.
There have been so many operations that have become public such as the capture of Adolf Eichmann in Argentina and the master spy, Elie Cohen, who became an assistant to the Minister of Defense of Syria. Although he was captured and hanged, the information he passed on to Israel would save the lives of hundreds, if not thousands, of Israelis, and enable Israel to capture the Golan in the Six Day War.
Today, the activities of Israel’s Secret Service are probably more focused on the Iranian nuclear threat more than anything else. The day will come when it will be revealed that spies in Iran and cyber warfare have kept the threats from Iran from reaching the boiling point of threatening Israel with nuclear blackmail.
Inevitably, mistakes are made in the dangerous world of spies and surveillance. But the amazing accomplishments more than make up for the failures that sometimes give Israel’s spy agencies a black eye.
