Heads will roll in the Israeli intelligence services

3 min read EUGENIO GARCIA GASCON 0 comments

EUGENIO GARCIA GASCON

Aharon Haliva, David Barnea and Ronen Bar are three names that may not mean anything to someone who does not live in Israel. The first is the general who heads the military intelligence services, Aman; the second is the director of Mossad, the foreign intelligence services; and the third is the director of the Shin Bet, the intelligence services for the interior of Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.

These days the three maintain a scrupulous silence that does not hide the fact that they are in the spotlight due to their gigantic failure in the face of the Hamas military operation that began on October 7.

Let's first take the case of Mossad, whose budget is estimated at $2.700 billion annually, although it could very well be much higher. The Israeli leaders boast of having an exceptional intelligence service and so it is, an intelligence service that knows up to the minute what is cooking in the most secret offices in Tehran, that is capable of entering an Iranian nuclear power plant and removing dozens of binders with detailed plans for the nuclear development program, or that he is capable of assassinating nuclear scientists in the heart of that country.

Well, that same Mossad, so pampered by its bosses, has not been able to smell what Hamas was preparing for months with the assistance and apparent approval of the authorities of the Islamic Republic, Israel's greatest enemy.

Like Mossad, the Shin Bet also reports directly to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Shin Bet's specialty is tracking virtually all Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip so that they do not go off the rails and commit misdeeds against Israel. He controls virtually all telephones and is infiltrated in all Palestinian “terrorist” organizations.

Very few things escape him in relation to what is happening in the occupied territories. The Palestinian workers who enter Israel daily from the West Bank and Gaza to do for little money what Israelis do not want to do, are totally infiltrated by the intelligence services. If the family member of one of these workers requires specialized medical assistance or anything else, the worker can obtain it by becoming a Shin Bet confidant.

Well, as incredible as it may seem, the Shin Bet has been offside during all the months or years in which Hamas has been preparing the operation, an operation, do not forget, in which thousands of Palestinians have had to participate. .

Unlike Mossad and the Shin Bet, Aman does not nominally report to the prime minister, but to the head of Defense, Yoav Galant. It is an elitist organization that has unknown units and other units that we know a little about, such as Unit 8200, which is in charge of controlling communications.

A large number of leading scientists work in Unit 8200 which spies on foreign governments and also all Palestinian communications. From this unit came the famous Pegasus program that the Israeli company NSO sells throughout the world. If Israel has authorized the sale of Pegasus, it is assumed that it has other, even more sophisticated means that are at the service of Unit 8200. Well, neither Unit 8200 nor Aman have had any news of what was happening a few kilometers from their headquarters. in Tel Aviv.

The names of the three directors may not be known abroad, but they are known in Israel. Since October 7, the three have remained silent, but they know that sooner rather than later they will have to pay with their heads for the mess caused by Hamas. In power circles it is said that this will not happen until after the current war is over, and that these very powerful intelligence services will have to learn an unexpected lesson and draw conclusions that are more in line with what has happened, since Something similar or more serious can happen again at any time.