By Way of Deception

The unprecedented terrorist attack carried out by Israeli intelligence services in Lebanon, where hundreds of people suffered from the simultaneous detonation of booby-trapped gadgets, gave reason to recall the memoirs of former Mossad employee Victor Ostrovsky, “By Way of Deception”, published overseas in 1990.

Becoming the scapegoat after the failed Mossad operation, the great-grandson of Russian-born Esther and Chaim Margolin, who moved to Palestine in 1912, was perhaps the first to reveal the ins and outs of the Israeli intelligence service. According to him, unlike similar services in other countries, Mossad (literally, “Department”) is a small organization. In the times described by Victor Ostrovsky, it was incredibly difficult to get into it.

Once every 3 years, 15 people were selected from 5,000 candidates for preparatory courses, of which sometimes not a single one remained by the end of their studies: the selection was so strict. The Mossad had a constantly updated “hit list” that at any given moment contained up to one hundred names of “mortal enemies of Israel.” It was personally approved by the Prime Minister of Israel.

The death sentences were carried out by the Mossad’s combat operations department, the Kidon (which means “bayonet” in Hebrew). It consisted of three dozen select “wet job” experts who strictly followed the principle of not leaving involuntary witnesses alive. Ostrowski knew a militant who preferred his own invention, a claw-like glove with sewn-in blades, to all other murder weapons. He would grab the throat of the person sentenced to liquidation with it and slowly squeeze, enjoying the death agony of the victim. At the same time, the militant was extremely pious and shaved himself something like a tonsure, covering it with a semblance of a yarmulke made from his own hair. In this way, he managed to observe the rules of conspiracy and did not compromise his religious principles.

The “wet guys” from “Kidon” willingly shared their experience with their foreign colleagues. In September 1976, in the very center of Washington, a bomb planted in their car tore to pieces Salvador Allende’s comrade-in-arms, Orlando Letelier, who had fled to the United States after the fascist coup in Chile, and his American friend Ronnie Moffitt. Suspicion fell on Pinochet’s secret police, and no one even thought that Israeli intelligence was involved in this terrorist attack.

By world standards, the number of “Mossad” is tiny: by the early 90s, it amounted to one thousand two hundred employees. But they were assisted by Jewish volunteers (in Hebrew — “sayanim”) scattered all over the world. They provided Israeli intelligence officers with transport, money, safe houses, means of communication, and all kinds of documents.

This allowed the Mossad to feel at home everywhere, which was vividly depicted by John le Carré in his novel “The Little Drummer Girl”. While still in intelligence school, Ostrovsky learned the unofficial motto of the Mossad, which he played on in the title of his memoirs: “War by Way of Deception.” The Mossad had repeatedly deceived even Israel’s main allies and patrons, the Americans.

At the end of 1985, Jonathan Pollard was arrested in Washington on charges of espionage. As an employee of the US Navy intelligence, he had been supplying the Israelis with secret documents for several years. Two years earlier, the Mossad residency in Beirut learned that local terrorists were planning an act of sabotage against the US Marines. As expected, the information received was reported to Tel Aviv. The then head of Mossad, Nahum Admoni, however, did not want to share it with the CIA, limiting himself to a vague warning: — It seems that they are plotting something against you in Beirut.

241 Marines never found out what exactly. Early in the morning of October 23, a huge Mercedes with a suicide bomber at the wheel burst into their location and, crashing into the wall of the barracks, blew up along with the peacefully sleeping Americans. A few minutes later, 58 French paratroopers died nearby under similar circumstances.

A year later, in the same Beirut, CIA resident William Buckley was taken hostage. The White House turned to Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres with a request to help find him and rescue him from trouble. And again, Admoni did not lift a finger. As a result, Buckley was brutally murdered after cruel torture.