Mossad scandal: update and background
Israel, Politics, 2/26/1998

Israel officially admitted its Mossad agents were caught "hot handed" in Switzerland while they were planting listening devices in the country that has very close military relations with Israel and is considered a major consumer of Israeli military products. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said only one Israeli is being held in Switzerland and pledged to do his best to secure his release.

Right after the new Mossad scandal was exposed, voices from the opposition and the press blamed Netanyahu for lack of enough experience to avert further repercussions on Swiss-Israeli ties. Military analysts said mistakes like the one that led to the arrest of five Mossad agents in Switzerland are normal as far as operations activity is concerned, but they blamed Netanyahu for not utilizing contacts with his Swiss counterpart to secure a quiet end to this Mossad fiasco, the second in five months.

Last September, Mossad agents tried to assassinate leading Hamas member Khaled Mishal in Amman but were caught by the Jordanian authorities. Their release was only made possible after Israel supplied the antidote for the poison used by its agents in the attempt on Mishal's life. Their release also cost Israel another dire price it had refused to pay for a number of years: the release of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, founder and spiritual leader of Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement.

Swiss sources were quoted in Tel Aviv as saying that five Mossad agents were arrested after a resident of a building in Bern called the police and complained of "unusual movement in the building." The five were arrested by the local police and only one was detained while the other four were released. Immediately after their release, the four disappeared and presumably left Switzerland. The federal police in the country complained against the local police station which released the four without obtaining prior approval from senior authorities within the police force.

In the beginning, Israelis spoke of Iranian diplomats as being the target of the operation in Switzerland. Joseph Alpher, a former senior officer in the Mossad, said Iran was a legitimate target for the Mossad to obtain information on its military arsenal and on other aspects of its military plans. But Swiss sources said the listening devices were targeting a number of foreign individuals in the country but refused to confirm whether Iranians were among them.

It was not clear whether Switzerland would follow other countries that have had friendly relations with Israel and gotten involved in a situation like this. In previous cases, like the Mossad mishap in Nicosia, Cyprus seven years ago, Mossad agents were arrested and summarily tried and deported from the country. Israel is said to be making intensive efforts with the Swiss authorities to secure the release of its agent.

Netanyahu, in his capacity as foreign minister replacing David Levy who resigned a few months ago, is even contemplating coming out with an open apology to the Swiss government in return for the deportation of the Mossad agent.

A Swiss newspaper reported Wednesday that four of the Mossad agents managed to get away, while the fifth who wasn¹t feeling well was caught. He was taken to a Berne hospital fearing that he had suffered a heart attack. It is not clear whether he is still hospitalized or whether he has been taken into detention. The Israeli ambassador and consul to Switzerland are involved in efforts to release the agent.

The Swiss fiasco was the straw that broke the camel's back, according to many Israeli observers. It led to the swift decision of Mossad chief Danny Yatom to quit. Yatom was named head of the Mossad in April 1996, but his tenure was full of stormy encounters with part of his staff. Many senior officers in the Mossad felt they were more qualified to lead the organization and were opposed to having a new boss brought in from the army.

Yatom had served 33 years in the army until he became a major general and occupied a number of senior positions, including military secretary of former prime ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. He also served as commander of the central district in charge of the Occupied West Bank. It was in those years that a lone Jewish settler wielding a gun broke into the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron and shot dead some 28 Palestinian worshipers and injured many others before he was killed by those who survived his attack. A state commission of inquiry interrogated Yatom about the norms of protection and guard employed in the mosque and found that there were a number of loopholes in the security arrangements around and inside the mosque, where Jewish settlers enjoy access to pray in what they believe the be the Caves of the Patriarchs.

Since last September's Mossad fiasco in Jordan, Yatom was grilled by the local Israeli press which, through leading writers, called for his resignation. With the new scandal in Switzerland, Yatom found himself being attacked not only by his opponents but also, according to his close friends, by the prime minister of Israel who failed to protect him in the face of nationwide criticism.

Many blame his resignation on the fact that senior members of the Mossad were behind leaking lots of information about this maximum security organization in order to undermine his authority. The leaks on the Swiss fiasco, it is believed, came from Yatom's opponents within the Mossad. They helped corner their boss, who failed to report to the Knesset sub-committee of defense and espionage about the "technical fault" his operatives made in Switzerland.

Israeli sources claim Switzerland serves as one of the centers of activity for German and French companies that deal with technology used in the production of non-conventional warfare, in light of the severe limitations imposed by strict regulations in France and Germany on the exportation of such technology. The sources said that German intelligence discovered that business contacts had been forged between the years 1989-1991 between German and Iraqi companies by means of mediators who acted in Switzerland and were associated with the Iraqi Embassy in Bern.

These sources believe the scandal in Switzerland alone would not have led to Yatom's resignation. The Mossad heads in the Lillehammer affair in Norway in 1973 and the wiretapping of the Iranian embassy in Cyprus in 1991 did not quit. In Norway, Mossad agents mistakenly killed Ahmed Boushiki, a Moroccan waiter, believing he was Ali Hassan Salameh, the head of PLO security. The sources noted that the "cumulative effect of recent events was too much for Yatom and he decided to be accountable even though he does not believe that he was personally responsible for either of the two mishaps in Amman and Switzerland.²

The special military ties between Switzerland and Israel include intelligence cooperation, military equipment purchases and mutual visits by high-ranking military officers. The Israeli army has a permanent military attache at its embassy in Bern. A few days ago, in the wake of the Iraq-US standoff in the Gulf, Switzerland shipped a supply of 300,000 Atropine syringes. The syringe shipment brought on a wave of criticism by the extreme right wing in Switzerland, which claimed that the authorities were jeopardizing Switzerland¹s neutrality.

Throughout the years, relations between Israel and Switzerland have been quite good. The dormant bank accounts and the gold stolen from Jews during the Holocaust and sent off to Switzerland added a degree of complexity to the relations between the two countries, but was never detrimental. The Israeli government did its utmost to keep a low profile with everything regarding these issues. However, anti-Israeli sentiments were expressed by the fringes of Swiss political society in the wake of the gold affair.

Previous Stories:
  A new fiasco is cause of resignation of Israeli chief of Intelligence   (2/25/1998)
  Israeli Mossad report on Amman Fiasco: background   (2/16/1998)
  Former Mossad officer sought by Norway   (11/29/1997)

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