00:00:00
On January 19, 2010, agents posing as tourists
targeted Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.
00:00:06
Two of the agents disguised as tennis
players followed him to his floor in a
00:00:10
five-star hotel in Dubai, in what police say
was an attempt to note down his room number.
00:00:15
Hours later, surveillance footage
captured a woman and man standing
00:00:19
guard in the hallway as the execution
team ambushed al-Mabhouh in his room.
00:00:24
The agents swiftly left Dubai and evaded
capture, leading to widespread allegations
00:00:29
that the operation was orchestrated
by Israel and executed by Mossad.
00:00:35
Mossad was founded in 1949,
00:00:38
the year after David Ben Gurion proclaimed
the establishment of the state of Israel.
00:00:43
After the horrors of the Holocaust,
a UN resolution in 1947 proposed the
00:00:48
partition of Palestine, allocating
56% of the land to the Jewish state,
00:00:52
which made up about one-third
of the total population.
00:00:56
Six Arab states declared war on Israel,
vowing to crush the Jewish state.
00:01:01
Israel won the war.
00:01:02
In the aftermath,
Jordan occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem
00:01:07
Egypt occupied the Gaza Strip
And Israel ended up with 78% of the land.
00:01:13
Prime Minister Ben-Gurion understood that the key
00:01:15
to the survival of Israel lay in
robust intelligence capabilities.
00:01:20
Israel has three intelligence agencies.
00:01:23
Aman is responsible for military intelligence,
00:01:26
gathering information about enemy
armies and other military threats.
00:01:30
Shin Bet handles internal security, focusing on
preventing terrorism and espionage within Israel.
00:01:36
Mossad conducts foreign intelligence operations,
00:01:39
specializing in espionage, covert missions,
and counter-terrorism outside Israel.
00:01:45
Recruiters look for candidates with
specific qualities: reliability,
00:01:49
exceptional intelligence, and the ability
to become somebody else entirely.
00:01:54
It is believed that only 1 in
1,000 candidates make the cut.
00:01:54
Mossad reportedly employs about 7,000
people globally, making it one of the
00:01:58
world’s largest espionage agencies.
David Ben-Gurion never uttered the
00:02:03
names of Israel’s intelligence agencies.
Never acknowledged that they even existed.
00:02:07
They were shrouded in secrecy.
That is, until the case of Adolf Eichman.
00:02:13
One of the architects of the Holocaust,
Eichman was captured by Mossad agents in
00:02:17
Buenos Aires in 1961, where he had been
living under the alias Ricardo Klement.
00:02:22
Mossad captured him and brought him to Israel
to stand trial, where he was sentenced to death.
00:02:28
The operation put Mossad on the map
and made headlines around the world,
00:02:32
sending a clear message that Israeli
agents could strike anywhere.
00:02:36
But targeting Nazi officials
was not Mossad’s main mission.
00:02:40
Its main focus was on safeguarding the
state of Israel against its enemies.
00:02:45
In the summer of 1962, Egypt’s
president Gamal Abdel Nassar
00:02:49
proudly declared that his rockets
were capable of reaching Israel.
00:02:53
The agent Mossad planted in Cairo, Wolfgang
Lotz, who posed as a German horse breeder,
00:02:58
had failed to report the major
progress in Egypt’s missile progran.
00:03:01
Nasser's missile program relied heavily
on expertise from former Nazi scientists,
00:03:06
like Heinz Krug who managed logistics.
00:03:09
In an effort to derail the program,
Mossad targeted key figures with
00:03:12
parcel bombs that killed several Egyptian
workers, but none of the major players.
00:03:17
When Krug returned to Munich,
00:03:18
Mossad agents kidnapped him and took
him to Israel to be interrogated.
00:03:22
He was never seen alive again.
00:03:25
But Egypt’s missile program
was still very much alive.
00:03:28
So, in May 1964, Mossad took
an unconventional approach to
00:03:32
sabotage the program by making a deal
with former SS officer Otto Skorzeny.
00:03:38
He was a prominent Nazi who had direct access
to leading figures in Egypt’s rocket program.
00:03:43
Mossad promised protection in
exchange for his cooperation.
00:03:47
By leveraging his contacts, Skorzeny persuaded
one German scientist after another to leave Egypt.
00:03:53
This strategy proved effective, and
Egypt’s missile program came to a halt.
00:03:56
However, Egypt soon found a new source of
support, as Soviet weapons began flowing
00:04:01
into neighboring Arab countries during the Cold
War, to counter Western influence in the region.
00:04:06
The delivery of the modern Soviet combat jet
the MiG-21 to Arab states alarmed Israel.
00:04:12
Mossad devised a plan to find an Arab
pilot willing to defect and fly one of
00:04:16
the jets to them.
MiG-21 jet
00:04:17
They persuaded Munir Redfa, an Assyrian Christian
in the Iraqi Air Force who faced discrimination,
00:04:23
to defect by offering him money and protection.
00:04:26
Redfa agreed on one condition. He wanted his
00:04:29
entire extended family – 21
people – be smuggled out of Iraq.
00:04:34
Israel agreed, and Operation Diamond
successfully brought a MiG-21 into Western hands.
00:04:40
Leveraging its superior intelligence, Israel
launched a pre-emptive strike against Egypt,
00:04:45
Jordan, and Syria on June 5, 1967, in
response to mobilization by its enemies.
00:04:51
Israeli forces defeated the
combined Arab armies in six days.
00:04:56
Israel took control of the West Bank from
Jordan, the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula
00:05:00
from Egypt, and the Golan Heights from Syria,
humiliating its Arab neighbors. Note to self:
00:05:05
Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula in
1982 as part of the peace treaty with Egypt.
00:05:05
By the end of the Six-Day War, Israel controlled
four times as much land as it did in 1948.
00:05:14
Thousands of refugees left their homes
in the wake of the six-day war to seek
00:05:19
shelter in the Arab-held lands east
of the river. For many of them,
00:05:23
Jordan had nothing to offer but the squalor
and the misery of the refugee camps.
00:05:28
Young Palestinians growing up in refugee
camps became increasingly radicalized,
00:05:33
a development Mossad failed to anticipate.
00:05:36
The anger led to the rise of militant
groups such as Fatah “fuh-taw”, which
00:05:40
eventually became the dominant faction within
the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
00:05:45
Yasser Arafat, who founded Fatah,
vowed to wipe Israel off the map.
00:05:50
Mossad tried time and time
again to assassinate Arafat,
00:05:53
but he managed to evade capture by
hiding in neighboring Arab countries.
00:05:57
Arafat became the chairman of the PLO in 1969
and focused on radicalizing Palestinians in
00:06:03
exile in Europe, establishing networks in
universities and working-class neighborhoods.
00:06:08
In the 60s and 70s, the PLO carried out
numerous terrorist attacks in Europe and
00:06:13
Israel to draw attention to the Palestinian cause,
00:06:16
including the shocking attack on Israeli
athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich.
00:06:23
On September 5, 1972, eight men with
the Black September organization,
00:06:28
an offshoot of Fatah, infiltrated the Olympic
Village and took 11 Israeli athletes hostage.
00:06:34
The terrorists demanded the release of
over 200 prisoners held in Israeli jails.
00:06:39
Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir
rejected the demands and instead
00:06:43
offered to help Germany rescue the hostages.
00:06:46
However, Germany declined, insisting
on handling the situation themselves.
00:06:51
Mossad’s hands were often tied
as European intelligence services
00:06:55
preferred to remain neutral in
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
00:06:58
The German authorities pretended to agree to the
00:07:01
terrorists' demands to be flown
to an Arab-friendly country.
00:07:04
The plan was to stage a rescue operation
at the Fürstenfeldbruck airbase.
00:07:09
However, it went horribly wrong as German
police were not trained snipers and were
00:07:13
using outdated equipment,
old rifles without scopes.
00:07:17
All 11 Israeli athletes were killed.
00:07:20
In response, Mossad vowed to track
down and eliminate those responsible.
00:07:26
Within a year, Mossad operatives tracked
down and killed Palestinians in Rome,
00:07:31
Paris, Beirut, Athens, and Cyprus.
00:07:34
But it also made mistakes, like in Norway when
Mossad agents mistakenly killed a Moroccan waiter
00:07:39
whom they misidentified as Ali Hassan Salameh,
the alleged mastermind of the Munich attack.
00:07:45
Mossad ended up taking out
Salameh in a car bomb years later.
00:07:49
Mossad’s strategy extended beyond retaliation
and included fostering regional alliances,
00:07:55
exemplified by the adage, “My
enemy’s enemy is my friend.”
00:07:59
These connections proved invaluable when
Israelis were in danger far from home.
00:08:04
On June 27, 1976, a splinter group
of the PLO hijacked an Air France
00:08:10
jet with 260 people on board and re-routed it
to Uganda. 248 passengers and 12 crew members
00:08:14
The hijackers released passengers who didn’t
appear to be Jewish but continued to hold 106
00:08:20
others, including crew members, demanding
the release of Palestinian prisoners.
00:08:24
Although Uganda’s dictator, Idi Amin,
was no longer Israel’s ally, Uganda had
00:08:29
in the past provided Israel with critical
intelligence on the airport’s facilities.
00:08:34
An Israeli company had built the airport,
giving Israel access to detailed blueprints.
00:08:39
And a Mossad agent posing as an amateur pilot had
recently taken aerial photographs of the airport.
00:08:45
Operation Entebbe, led by Jonathan
Netanyahu, the brother of future Israeli
00:08:49
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
was an outrageously bold operation.
00:08:54
The rescue team flew in a
plane camouflaged to look
00:08:57
like a commercial aircraft to avoid detection.
00:09:00
The aircraft refueled in
Kenya, another crucial ally,
00:09:03
whose support was vital for the mission’s success.
00:09:06
During the raid, Jonathan Netanyahu was killed,
00:09:09
along with 45 Ugandan soldiers and three
hostages who died in the crossfire.
00:09:14
One rescued hostage, Dora Bloch,
who was later hospitalized after
00:09:18
choking on a chicken bone, was
shot dead on Idi Amin’s orders.
00:09:22
Despite the losses, the operation was a
success, underscoring Mossad’s ability
00:09:27
to leverage its intelligence networks and
alliances to execute daring operations.
00:09:33
But Mossad’s reputation would soon take a hit.
00:09:36
In 1970, Egypt saw a new president
come into power, Anwar Sadat.
00:09:41
Sadat publicly threatened to reclaim the Sinai
Peninsula, but Israel didn’t take him seriously.
00:09:47
Mossad’s informant, Ashraf Marwan, who was
married to the daughter of Egypt’s former
00:09:52
president Nasser, had not alerted them
to the threat. Married to daughter Mona
00:09:55
Some believe Marwan became an informant because of
00:09:57
the disrespect he felt from Nasser, who
allegedly disapproved of the marriage.
00:10:02
In the fall of 1973, Israel’s
military intelligence observed
00:10:06
Egyptian and Syrian troop movements along
the borders but dismissed them as routine,
00:10:11
believing Marwan would have warned
them if an attack were imminent.
00:10:15
When Marwan did send an urgent message
warning that Egypt planned to attack
00:10:19
within hours on Yom Kippur, the holiest day
in the Jewish calendar, Mossad was skeptical.
00:10:25
Israel’s hesitation proved costly.
00:10:28
Although Israel won the Yom Kippur
War, it suffered massive losses.
00:10:32
Over 2,600 Israeli soldiers were killed.
00:10:35
Marwan’s identity as a Mossad
informant was exposed 30 years later.
00:10:40
In 2007, he mysteriously fell to his
death from his balcony in London.
00:10:46
In the years following the war, Egypt and
Israel began to mend their relationship.
00:10:50
By negotiating peace with Israel, Egypt
aimed to improve its relations with the U.S.,
00:10:55
a key ally of Israel, and break
away from Soviet influence.
00:10:59
During secret negotiations, Israel’s foreign
minister Moshe Dayan, made a covert trip to
00:11:04
Morocco, where he was seen wearing dark glasses
instead of his trademark black eyepatch.
00:11:09
Later, Anwar Sadat became the
first Arab head of state to visit
00:11:13
Israel and speak before the Knesset,
Israel’s House of Representatives.
00:11:17
U.S. President Jimmy Carter hosted
the tough talks between Israeli Prime
00:11:21
Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian
President al-Sadat, resulting in the
00:11:25
Camp David Accords and the signing of a
historic peace treaty on March 26, 1979.
00:11:32
Israel agreed to withdraw
from the Sinai Peninsula.
00:11:36
Egypt officially recognized the State of Israel,
becoming the first Arab country to do so.
00:11:41
The landmark agreement shocked the Arab world.
00:11:44
Sadat’s bold move led to Egypt’s
expulsion from the Arab League and,
00:11:48
tragically, his assassination three years later.
00:11:52
The treaty marked a pivotal
moment in Middle Eastern history,
00:11:56
showcasing Mossad’s ability to not
only wage war but broker peace.
00:12:01
However, the regional landscape shifted
00:12:03
dramatically with the advent
of the Iranian Revolution.
00:12:07
Iran had been one of Israel’s secret allies since
00:12:09
the 1950s under the rule of
Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
00:12:14
Iran sold oil to Israel, and in return,
00:12:16
Mossad provided internal security support
and military intelligence training.
00:12:21
Then, in 1978, huge protests erupted,
00:12:24
led by Islamic cleric Ayatollah Khomeini who
was in exile first in Iraq and then in Paris.
00:12:30
The Shah, facing mounting pressure,
appealed to Mossad to assassinate
00:12:34
Khomeini, but Israel refused out
of concern for regional stability.
00:12:39
Eventually, the revolution broke out,
and Iran’s secret police lost control.
00:12:43
The Shah fled the country, and Khomeini
returned to establish a theocracy,
00:12:48
executing military generals
and solidifying his rule.
00:12:52
Iran, once Israel’s critical partner in the
region, now became its greatest adversary.
00:12:57
Iran openly declared its
goal of annihilating Israel,
00:13:01
which delighted the PLO under Yasser Arafat,
00:13:04
who found common cause with the new Iranian regime
in their opposition to both the U.S. and Israel.
00:13:11
Mossad aimed to dismantle the PLO,
00:13:14
which had established a base in Lebanon
after being expelled from Jordan.
00:13:18
Palestinian refugee camps in southern Lebanon
were increasingly infiltrating Israeli territory.
00:13:23
Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Defense
00:13:26
Minister Ariel Sharon aimed to purge the
PLO from Lebanon with a military strike.
00:13:32
However, they needed to be able to
justify invading a foreign country.
00:13:36
The attempted assassination of Israel's
ambassador to the UK, Shlomo Argov, by a
00:13:41
radical Palestinian faction, provided them with
an excuse, despite the PLO not being involved.
00:13:46
Mossad allied with Lebanon’s Christian militias,
00:13:49
which saw the PLO as a mutual enemy, though
Mossad had doubts about their reliability.
00:13:55
On June 6, 1982, Israeli soldiers invaded Lebanon
00:13:59
in hopes of destroying the PLO and
installing a pro-Israeli regime.
00:14:03
Two months after the invasion, the
PLO retreated, and Bashir Gemayel,
00:14:08
leader of the Christian militias,
became the new president.
00:14:12
However, his assassination three months
later plunged Lebanon back into civil war,
00:14:17
which confirmed Mossad’s fears about
the Christian militias’ reliability.
00:14:21
The catastrophe in Lebanon forced Prime Minister
Begin and Defense Minister Sharon to resign,
00:14:26
with Mossad also facing criticism
for misjudging the situation.
00:14:32
Mossad’s mission extended beyond warfare;
00:14:34
it was committed to protecting Jewish
lives wherever they were in peril.
00:14:39
In the early 1980s, tens of thousands of
Ethiopian Jews were at risk of violence and hunger
00:14:45
Thousands had fled to refugee
camps in neighboring Sudan.
00:14:48
Mossad was tasked with bringing them to Israel.
00:14:51
But the operation had to be carried out in
secret as Sudan’s dictator, Jaafar an-Nimeiry,
00:14:56
needed to maintain a public stance of opposition
to Israel to avoid political backlash.
00:15:01
Mossad operatives disguised as European
and American staff set up a diving resort
00:15:06
on the Sudanese coast, where they managed
it by day and smuggled Jews out by night,
00:15:11
transporting them by boat
across the Red Sea to Israel.
00:15:15
When smuggling by boat became too risky,
00:15:17
the refugees were secretly
airlifted out of the country.
00:15:21
New challenges soon emerged for Israel.
00:15:24
In the late 1980s, anger in Gaza, which Israel had
occupied for over 20 years, erupted into violence.
00:15:31
This led to a mass uprising called the
Intifada, which caught Mossad off guard.
00:15:35
As the violence escalated and Israel intensified
its efforts to suppress the Palestinian uprising,
00:15:41
demands for a diplomatic solution
grew louder within Israel.
00:15:45
In 1993, Israelis and Palestinians
met on neutral ground in Oslo,
00:15:50
Norway, to discuss a possible compromise.
00:15:53
Israel agreed to withdraw its troops
from Gaza and parts of the West Bank,
00:15:57
transferring these territories
to Palestinian self-government.
00:16:01
Remarkably, Yasser Arafat, the
head of the PLO who had earlier
00:16:04
vowed to wipe Israel off the map, now
recognized Israel's right to exist.
00:16:09
The peace treaty was signed in
Washington, and both Israeli
00:16:13
Prime Minister and Arafat received the
Nobel Peace Prize the following year.
00:16:18
However, the peace process
faced significant challenges.
00:16:22
Arafat no longer spoke for all Palestinians,
00:16:25
and the PLO struggled to maintain
peace as a new radical force emerged.
00:16:31
Founded by Sheikh Ahmad
Yassin during the Intifada,
00:16:34
Hamas remained steadfast in
its goal of destroying Israel.
00:16:38
Israel had expected the PLO to rein in Hamas,
but the PLO was slow to act, allowing Hamas to
00:16:44
grow stronger and launch a devastating wave
of suicide bombings against Israeli cities.
00:16:50
In 1996, Israel’s new prime
minister, Benjamin Netanyahu,
00:16:54
came to power with a mandate
to pursue a policy of strength.
00:16:58
Netanyahu instructed Mossad to target key
Hamas leaders in order to stop the attacks.
00:17:04
In the summer of 1997, Mossad's
first target was Khaled Mashaal,
00:17:08
the then chief of Hamas'
politburo in Amman, Jordan.
00:17:12
The plan was to poison him in broad daylight
to make it appear as though he died of natural
00:17:16
causes, avoiding disrupting the good
relationship between Israel and Jordan.
00:17:21
As Mashal walked with his children and bodyguard,
00:17:24
two Mossad agents posing as Canadian
tourists sprayed Fentanyl in his ear.
00:17:29
However, Mashaal's bodyguard intervened, and
the Mossad agents were exposed and captured.
00:17:35
King Hussein of Jordan was appalled by the
incident and warned that if Mashaal died,
00:17:40
he would face a Palestinian uprising and have
no choice but to execute the Israeli operatives.
00:17:45
Israel agreed to provide the
antidote to save Mashaal's life.
00:17:49
Khaled Mashal survived and
became Hamas' new leader.
00:17:53
Suicide attacks in Israel persisted,
culminating in the second Intifada,
00:17:58
which saw a significant rise in violence.
00:18:01
As Israel faced ongoing attacks, a
new and powerful adversary emerged.
00:18:06
Iran was frustrated by its exclusion
from Middle East peace negotiations.
00:18:11
It increased its aid to Hamas
and Palestinian Islamic Jihad
00:18:14
and established a network among Israel’s
enemies. Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria
00:18:17
and supporting Shitte Hezbollah militia
in Lebanon with arms, money, and fighters
00:18:17
In 2002, Meir Dagan, the new head of Mossad,
identified Iran as Israel’s main adversary.
00:18:24
He reformed the agency with
a more aggressive approach.
00:18:28
Under Dagan's leadership, Mossad focused on
00:18:30
dismantling anti-Israeli terror networks
and countering Iran’s nuclear program.
00:18:35
Iran maintained its nuclear program
was strictly for civilian purposes,
00:18:40
but Israel perceived a significant threat.
00:18:43
Mossad analysts believed that Iran could
develop nuclear weapons within a few years.
00:18:48
Israel wasn’t going to let that happen;
00:18:50
it was the only country in the Middle East with
nuclear weapons and wanted to keep it that way.
00:18:55
But Mossad ruled out an airstrike on Iran’s
00:18:57
nuclear facilities as it could
have drastic repercussions.
00:19:01
Instead, it tried to cripple Iran’s
nuclear program with a computer worm.
00:19:06
The covert operation believed
to involve the CIA and Mossad,
00:19:10
spread the Stuxnet worm to computers
at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility.
00:19:15
Stuxnet targeted the centrifuges that produced
enriched uranium, causing them to burn out.
00:19:20
I did a video on Stuxnet, which
I’ve linked in my description
00:19:24
The operation disrupted Iran’s nuclear program,
00:19:27
but concerns remained, leading to this
famous 2012 UN speech by Netanyahu:
00:19:33
Where should a red line be drawn? A
red line should be drawn right here.
00:19:39
In 2015, Iran signed a long-term
agreement with the U.S. under the
00:19:43
Obama administration to curb its nuclear
activity in exchange for sanctions relief.
00:19:49
However, in 2018, Mossad obtained
documents that allegedly showed
00:19:53
Iran was still pursuing its nuclear program,
leading President Trump to cancel the agreement.
00:19:59
Since World War II, Israel has reportedly been
responsible for more assassinations than any
00:20:04
other Western country, with estimates suggesting
it has carried out at least 2,700 assassinations.
00:20:12
Yet, there are limits to
Israel’s intelligence gathering.
00:20:15
On October 7, 2023, during a
music festival in southern Israel,
00:20:20
Hamas launched a surprise attack from
the Gaza Strip, killing 364 people.
00:20:26
Israel and Hamas engaged in intense fighting,
resulting in thousands of casualties.
00:20:31
The surprise attack represented a
stunning failure of Israeli intelligence,
00:20:36
which has been crucial to Israel’s
strength and survival until now.
00:20:40
The reasons behind the lapse will be the subject
of intense scrutiny and analysis by Israel and
00:20:46
its allies for years to come.
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00:20:53
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00:20:56
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