From Hashomer to NILI, the history of Israeli intelligence, its successes and failures

According to Israeli media reports, the country’s internal security service Shin Bet has been entrusted with the work of foreign intelligence along with Mossad. It has established a special unit to track Hamas members. The name chosen for the task force is reportedly NILI. A Hebrew abbreviation for the Biblical phrase meaning ‘the eternal man of Israel shall not lie’. The unit also holds a symbolic value, sharing its name with the NILI spy network that aided the British in the fight against the Ottoman Empire in Palestine during the First World War.

Aharon Bregman, an Israeli political scientist at King’s College London who spent six years in the Israeli army, tells FRANCE24 that NILI operations are likely to be similar to Mossad operations during Operation Wrath of God, in which the agency hunted down terrorists involved in Munich. Was detected. Operations such as Wrath of God contribute to the almost legendary reputation that Israel’s intelligence agencies, and especially the Mossad, have developed since 1948. However, while those agencies have overseen many successful operations, they have also been held responsible for some of the country’s most disastrous intelligence failures.

before 1948

Israel’s intelligence capabilities can be traced back to 1909, long before the official formation of the Israeli state. Hashomer, or Watchmen, was a group founded by some of the early Israeli immigrants to Palestine. An informal unit, it was tasked with infiltrating local communities and gathering information about possible attacks. In its 10 years of existence, Hashomer had a maximum of 100 members, but its methodology – adopting local customs to the detriment of others – was the basis of the current intelligence community. Some members of Hashomer were recruited by the British during World War I, and were organized into a network called NILI. Operating between 1915 and 1917, NILI had about 30 members, but despite its small size, British training made it quite effective. In an interview with the YouTube podcast Spycast, Erez David Maisel explains why the formation of NILI was so important. After 1920, Hashomer and NILI were replaced by the Haganah, which was founded to protect the Jewish presence in British Palestine. According to Maisel, the Haganah established intelligence services at the national level, but in accordance with the Jewish community’s policy of self-restraint, their activities were relatively moderate until 1940. However, by the end of World War II, that restraint was dramatically reduced.

formation of the IDF

Soon after Israel became independent, the government recognized the need to establish a durable intelligence structure, particularly the military. In June 1948, David Ben-Gurion, the state’s first Prime Minister, decided to create three intelligence organizations under the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) – Aman (military intelligence), Shin Bet and eventually Mossad. Ben-Gurion already knew that Israel would face serious hostility, and he decided to significantly enhance the country’s security and intelligence capabilities. Aman’s job was to gather intelligence about the armies of Arab states and to protect Israel’s internal security. The Shin Bet was tasked with domestic intelligence and counterespionage, while the Mossad was the central authority for foreign intelligence gathering, including covert relations with other states and special operations. Israel’s intelligence community was successful during the First Arab–Israeli War, but only in 1956 did it receive international attention, according to Maisel. In 1956, during the Cold War, Soviet Union Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev gave a powerful speech in Moscow in which he condemned his predecessor Joseph Stalin for humanitarian crimes. Although the speech was considered top secret, the Mossad and Shabbat in Warsaw were able to get their hands on the document when a Jewish man in Moscow used his charm to access the transcript. They were able to take it to Tel Aviv and hand it over to Israeli intelligence, causing the CIA to realize that the Mossad had access behind the Iron Curtain. Subsequently, the Mossad and the CIA, and by extension Israel and the United States, would begin an intelligence partnership that remains strong to this day.