Preventive measures

[eyl]

A rare interview with Zvi Zamir, who was Mossad's head from 1968-1974. It focuses on the events surrounding the Munich attack.

Some highlights:

In a quiet, somewhat monotonous voice, rather as if he were delivering a prepared speech, the former head of the Mossad espionage agency, Zvi Zamir, debunks myths and beliefs that have taken root as facts in the Israeli public consciousness for some three decades. No, he says. The assassinations of Palestinian terrorists after the 1972 Munich Olympics were not an act of revenge. "There was no order given by Golda to exact revenge," he emphasizes. It was less a case of looking for those who had been involved in the attack, he explains, and more a desire to strike at the infrastructure of the terrorist organizations in Europe - "their offices, liaison people, means of transportation, their representatives."

The term "liquidation" is not in Zamir's dictionary. Throughout the interview he keeps using "the prevention of future threats." In other words, he claims that terrorists who were killed by Mossad agents were "not involved or connected with the planning or the execution of the murder of the Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games. We reached the conclusion that we had no choice but to start with preventive measures. This decision was made," Zamir continues, because "Israeli civilians in their travels abroad, and Israeli installations, were not protected and even when the European authorities arrested the terrorists, they immediately surrendered to their entreaties and demands, and released them. As far as the terrorist organizations and groups were concerned, there was no risk for them in attacking Israeli targets."

When Zamir, known as "Zvika" to his friends, took over the Mossad, he discovered that Israel was up to its neck in a war against terrorism. In January 1969 Palestinian terrorists hijacked an El Al plane to Algeria and for the first time forced the Israeli government to capitulate to their demands. At the end of 1969 terrorists attacked the El Al counter at the airport in Athens. "Until Munich, the line Israel followed was guided by the assumption that the European states would not allow this terrorism to be perpetrated in their countries and would not permit the wave of plane hijackings."

In other words, Israel's working assumption was that there was no need for action by you, by Israeli intelligence?

"That is correct - that there was no need for illegal Israeli activity in Europe. We - the Mossad, Military Intelligence, the Shin Bet - believed, on the basis of what we knew, that the Palestinian organizations, such as the organization of Wadia Hadad and Black September, which was actually run by the Palestine Liberation Organization, viewed terrorism in Europe as being relatively easy to perpetrate. Easier than infiltrating into Israel across the borders with neighboring states, and also more effective. Using terror, they wanted to besiege Israel: to strike at the airlines by hijacking planes. They wanted to place the Palestinian 'holocaust' on the world agenda, to make it known to the world.

an you give me an example of Israeli capability as compared with the Europeans' inaction?

"Yes, although this is an event that happened after Munich. We received information about an intention by terrorists to down an El Al plane lifting off from Fiumicino Airport in Rome using Strella missiles. We identified the terrorists' arrival in Italy and, with many difficulties, kept them under surveillance. They entered an apartment building that overlooked the runway. When I saw the location I immediately ordered the plane's takeoff - it was on the way to New York - to be delayed."

You were on the scene, in Rome?

"Yes. I was with a team of six or eight who managed the operation. The problem was that it was a building of 50 or 100 apartments and we did not know which apartment the terrorists were in. I decided that the Italian security service had to be informed immediately. I called the head of intelligence, a Sicilian general whom I knew and was friendly with, and I told him I was on my way to him about an urgent matter. He was surprised to see me in jeans, because in our meetings I always wore a suit and tie. I told him what we knew. He was stunned.

"I asked only one favor of him: that if Strella missiles were found in the apartment, to let me have one. Our people wanted very much to get to know the missile. The general said: But we will need the missile as evidence. I told him that if he were to need it in court, I promised to give it back. He agreed and informed the security service, who sent men to the apartment immediately. They found one Arab there and Strella missiles wrapped in packages. The others, another four or five people, were in a nearby cafe, and our people, who were following them, informed the Italians, who arrested them.

"The Italian general thanked me, even though he didn't really like us operating in Italy, and promised that if their guilt would be proved in court, they would rot in jail for many years. But what happened was that a few months later the Palestinians hijacked a plane and the Italians gave in and released them. Our problem was that Israelis were exposed to attack, while the terrorists knew that their comrades would get them released. The European states did not want to and could not deal with the problem."

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