New book by ex-Mossad officer examines Israel’s intelligence doctrine

Yossi Alpher, a former Israeli intelligence officer, who was directly involved in numerous top-secret operations during his spy career, has published a new book that analyzes the overarching strategy behind Israel’s spy operations. Alpher served in Israeli Military Intelligence before joining the Mossad, where he served until 1980. Upon retiring from the Mossad, he joined Tel Aviv University’s Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, which he eventually directed. Throughout his career in intelligence, Alpher worked or liaised with every Israeli spy agency, including the Shin Bet –the country’s internal security service.

In Periphery: Israel’s Search for Middle East Allies, published this week by Rowman & Littlefield, Alpher examines Israel’s so-called ‘periphery doctrine’. This strategy was devised by Israel’s founder and first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, and formed the basic operational doctrine of the Mossad since the organization’s inception, in 1949. The strategy was based on forging deep operational ties between Israeli and non-Arab intelligence services in the Middle East and Africa, and then presenting these alliances as assets to the United States, so as to win Washington’s support. In pursuit of the periphery doctrine, Israel focused on strengthening ties with religious or ethnic minorities in the Middle East, including the Kurds in Iraq and Syria, and signed intelligence cooperation agreements with countries such as Iran, Turkey, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda.

According to Alpher, the most ambitious part of the periphery doctrine was the secret intelligence pact signed between Israel, Turkey and Iran. Known as C’lil in Israel, and as Trident in the United States, the agreement was struck in Ankara in 1958. Almost immediately after signing the treaty, senior Israeli officials contacted Washington and presented the secret pact between three American allies as a barrier against Soviet influence in the Middle East. Alpher says the Americans’ response was so enthusiastic, that the Central Intelligence Agency even agreed to fund the construction of a two-story building in a remote region of Israel, which served as C’lil/Trident’s headquarters. The building still exists today, says Alpher.

In another aspect of the periphery doctrine, the Mossad trained the bodyguards of senior Moroccan government officials and funded the science and technology division of the Moroccan intelligence services, almost in its entirety. In the book, Alpher reveals that Yitzhak Rabin visited Morocco incognito when he was prime minister, wearing a blond wig, in order to avoid being noticed by the press, diplomats or foreign spies. Alpher also discusses in unprecedented detail Operation ROTEV, a secret program implemented by the Mossad in the 1960s to arm the Yemeni royalists involved in the North Yemen Civil War. He told Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth that he was personally tasked with inspecting Israeli weapons and ammunition destined for the Yemeni royalists, in order to ensure that they could not be traced back to Israel.

A number of Israeli authors, notably Shimon Shamir, professor emeritus of Middle East history at Tel Aviv University, have authored highly critical appraisals of the Mossad’s periphery doctrine, arguing that it prevented Israel from seeking peace with its Arab neighbors. Additionally, the periphery strategy prompted the Mossad to collaborate with several governments that Yedioth Ahronoth calls “dark regimes and terrible dictatorships, by actively supporting them and sometimes tipping the scales in their favor”. Alpher recognizes the ethical problems of the periphery doctrine; however, he remains supportive. The periphery doctrine allowed Israel to survive by giving it funds to develop weapons programs, which in turn allowed it to win two wars against Arab armies, he says.

http://intelnews.org/2015/06/23/01-1720/