 | This article contains too many or overly lengthy quotations for an encyclopedic entry.(January 2019) |
The Spy Machine is a UK documentary special about the work of the Mossad, written and narrated by Gordon Thomas. [1]
It was made by Open Media and Israfilm and first broadcast by Channel 4 in May 1998. [2] [3] The producer/director was Per-Eric Hawthorne.
The Observer said:
Israel 50: The Spy Machine serves as a clear reminder that Israel is just another country deploying the same old methods to maintain power. Elderly agents of Mossad reminisce, just like their counterparts in MI6 or the CIA, about the good old days of the Cold War, when they had free rein to infiltrate and assassinate state enemies...The killing of Abu Jihad, Arafat's right-hand man, was the last straw for the politicians, who realised when the Oslo negotiations began that Jihad would have been a very valuable asset for Israeli interests...But Ehud Barak, ex-Mossad agent and now leader of the Labour Party suggests that the best way to gather information is to listen to the BBC and read a newspaper. [4]
The Times described the film:
Channel 4's "Israel 50" strand has covered an impressive range of aspects of that nation's life and history, but this must have been the most chilling...A string of former supreme heads of Israeli Intelligence, heads and deputy heads of Mossad and former agents talked with disconcerting frankness about their operations...Rafi Eitan, who snatched Eichmann, would have killed him instantly if a problem had arisen...This was a sympathetic film, which began with a haunting visit to a secret Mossad memorial in the form of an elaborate maze. Here the names of agents tortured, killed or simply disappeared are carved in shaded stone walls. Their daring, efficiency and inventiveness were celebrated. But the subtext was clear also. Mossad has been a loose cannon, capable of manipulating politicians and imposing a ferociously hawkish agenda often against the nation's interest. [5]
...and also wrote:
The documentary team also interviewed Mossad's "most successful spy" who talked about his undercover operations in Syria, Lebanon and other Arab countries during an espionage career lasting 25 years. Named only as Yakooba, the spy...played a crucial role in averting a full-scale Syrian tank attack (and) underwent plastic surgery to change his face. [6]
The Belfast News Letter said this was the first time ever that Rafael "Rafi" Eitan, legendary first director of operations, was captured on film and went on to claim
"the Israelis themselves are desperately unhappy about the Channel 4 film. It accuses Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of personally authorising the murder of several of the country's Muslim enemies. Channel 4 used Israfilm, which is headed by Zvi Spielmann, a military intelligence veteran who used to head the Israeli censor's office, to open doors for its journalists. They were given unprecedented access to Eitan, former Mossad director general Meir Amit, Israel's longest-serving spymaster General Yoel Ben Porat, and former director of military intelligence, Uri Saguy." [7] [ full citation needed ]
The newspaper quoted Channel 4 executive David Lloyd:
Over the last decade, mounting criticisms on many sides have led some people to believe that Mossad is out of kilter with the times. I saw the piece as really about Mossad as a construction of the Israeli state. We talk to key senior insiders, go through some of the major moments in the agency's history and visit the memorial to those who died in Mossad's service. We look at how they lifted Eichmann, and their undercover operations in a number of countries, especially their use of Israeli Arabs in the hostile nations which surround them. [7] [ full citation needed ]
Ali Hassan Salameh was a Palestinian terrorist who was the chief of operations for Black September, the organization responsible for the 1972 Munich massacre and other terror attacks. He was also the founder of Force 17. He was assassinated by Mossad in January 1979 as part of Operation Wrath of God.
The Israel Security Agency, better known by the acronym Shabak or the Shin Bet, is Israel's internal security service. Its motto is "Magen veLo Yera'e". The Shin Bet's headquarters are located in northwest Tel Aviv, north of Park Hayarkon.
Peter Zvi Malkin was a Polish-born Israeli secret agent and member of the Mossad intelligence agency. He was part of the team that captured Adolf Eichmann in Argentina in 1960 and brought him to Israel to stand trial.
Isser Harel was spymaster of the intelligence and the security services of Israel and the Director of the Mossad (1952–1963). In his capacity as Mossad director he oversaw the capture and covert transportation to Israel of Holocaust organizer Adolf Eichmann.
Michael Bar-Zohar is an Israeli historian, novelist and politician. He was a member of the Knesset on behalf of the Alignment and Labor Party in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Operation "Wrath of God", also known as Operation "Bayonet", was a covert operation directed by Mossad to assassinate individuals involved in the 1972 Munich massacre in which 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team were killed. The targets were members of the Palestinian armed militant group Black September and operatives of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Authorized by Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir in the autumn of 1972, the operation is believed to have continued for over twenty years.
The General Intelligence Service, often referred to as the Mukhabarat is an Egyptian intelligence agency responsible for providing national security intelligence, both domestically and internationally. The GIS is part of the Egyptian intelligence community, together with the Office of Military Intelligence Services and Reconnaissance and National Security Agency. The Egyptian Intelligence service is considered to be the 5th most active intelligence service globally.
Rafael Eitan was an Israeli politician and intelligence officer. He also led Gil and served as Minister of Senior Citizens. He was in charge of the Mossad operation that led to the arrest of Adolf Eichmann. He served as an advisor on terrorism to Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and in 1981 he was appointed to head the Bureau of Scientific Relations, then an intelligence entity on par with Mossad, Aman and Shabak. Eitan assumed responsibility for and resigned over the Jonathan Pollard affair, and the Bureau was disbanded. He was subject to an arrest warrant issued by the United States FBI. From 1985 until 1993, he was head of the government's Chemicals company, which was expanded under his leadership. After 1993, he became a businessman, noted for several large scale agricultural and construction ventures in Cuba. He was the chairman of the Vetek (Seniority) Association – the Senior Citizens Movement.
Gordon Thomas was a British investigative journalist and author, notably on topics of secret intelligence. Thomas was the author of 53 books published worldwide including The Pope's Jews, Secret Wars, and Gideon's Spies, with sales exceeding 45 million copies. Thomas got the scoop on the nationalisation of the Suez Canal for the Daily Express in 1956. He was a cousin of the poet Dylan Thomas.
Mossad is the national intelligence agency of Israel. It is one of the main entities in the Israeli Intelligence Community, along with Aman and Shin Bet.
Operation Damocles was a covert campaign of the Israeli Mossad in August 1962 targeting German scientists and technicians, formerly employed in Nazi Germany's rocket program, who were developing rockets for Egypt at a military site known as Factory 333. According to Otto Joklik, an Austrian scientist involved with the project, the rockets being developed were programmed to use radioactive waste.
Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad is a 1999 book by Welsh author Gordon Thomas on the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service. Two years previously Thomas wrote and narrated a major documentary for Channel Four – The Spy Machine – co-produced by Open Media and Israfilm. As Thomas's "Notes on Sources" afterword to Gideon's Spies makes clear, the research for the film provided him with some, but not all, of the sources and material he used when writing his later book independently of Channel 4 and the film-makers.
The House on Garibaldi Street is a 1979 American television film based on the non-fiction book of the same name, written by Isser Harel. It was directed by Peter Collinson and starred Topol and Martin Balsam. The story is about the Mossad operation that captured Adolf Eichmann in Argentina in 1960 and returned him to Israel for trial.
Yosef "Yossi" Meir Cohen was the Director of Mossad, the national intelligence agency of Israel.
Black Cube is a private corporate intelligence company based in London, Tel Aviv, and Madrid. The company was founded in 2010 by former Israeli intelligence officers Dan Zorella and Avi Yanus. Its employees include former members of Israeli intelligence units. Often, it has supported Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) activities.
Gamliel Cohen was "one of the fathers of Israeli espionage". Much of his life was spent living under various false identities in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. A deep-cover Mossad agent, he infiltrated neo-Nazi groups as well as governments that were hostile to Israel. Cohen wrote a book about the undercover unit he helped to create inside the Palmach, which was posthumously published by the Israeli Ministry of Defense and Galili Center for Defense Studies. Nearly all of Cohen's work at Mossad remains classified today, and his very existence was only publicly acknowledged after his death.
Operation Finale is a 2018 American historical drama film directed by Chris Weitz from a screenplay by Matthew Orton. The film stars Oscar Isaac, Ben Kingsley, Lior Raz, Mélanie Laurent, Nick Kroll, and Haley Lu Richardson, and follows the efforts of Israeli Mossad officers to capture former SS officer Adolf Eichmann in 1960. Several source materials, including Eichmann in My Hands, a memoir by Israeli officer Peter Malkin, provided the basis for the story.
Isaac Shoshan was an Israeli intelligence officer, spy and "Mista'arev". Starting as an undercover operative in the "Arab Section" of the Palmach in Mandatory Palestine, he later became one of the founding members of Israel's Intelligence Community serving as an espionage agent, case officer and instructor in Aman and eventually in the Mossad.
Avner Avraham is a former Mossad official artist, journalist, deputy editor of the "Intelligence Heritage Center" magazine, curator of spy and art exhibitions, curator, and producer of spy films, founder and owner of the international lecturer agency 'Spy Legends', and 'Women Speakers Online'.