Matti Friedman
Spies of No Country: Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel.
Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 2019, ISBN-13: 978-1616207229
Reviewed by Nimrod Raphaeli*
This remarkably well-written book offers a fascinating story of spies who by today’s standards would be viewed at best as amateurish. The book seeks to highlight the crucial role of intelligence or espionage as the small Jewish community in the hostile environment of mandatory Palestine struggled to achieve statehood while facing mounting threats from both within and without.
Friedman makes clear in the introduction that the book does not offer a comprehensive history of Israel or of its intelligence service, which, over the years, has acquired almost a mythical reputation. The book simply covers a critical juncture of twenty months from January 1948 through August of the following year, or from the state-in-the-making era to approximately three months after Israel came into being.
The intelligence drama revolves around four young Jewish men, two born in Syria, one born in Yemen and one born in Palestine of Middle Eastern background. What these men shared, and what served as the sole basis for their recruitment was Arab-like features and fluency in Arabic. Each of the four men was given an Arab alias and persona to engage in espionage activities but also to carry out occasional acts of sabotage initially against Arabs in Palestine but subsequently in Arab countries.
In the Jewish community or the yeshuv, as it was commonly known in British mandatory Palestine, and during the early days of Israel, Jews from Arab countries were referred to as “shechorim” or blacks. As a play on this somewhat derogatory label, the spy unit which to be the nucleus of a highly professional espionage outfit was called “shachar” or dawn. Shachar planted the seeds for a potent Israeli intelligence weapon in the form of “mista’arivim in Hebrew, or musta’ribin in Arabic . . . [the] Ones who become like Arabs.” (p.55) In the beginning, the budding spies worked on their new trade in Arab towns in Mandatory Palestine, where they were able to practice the Palestinian dialect and at the same time collect important pieces of information [Different Arab countries speak different dialects but are united by the classical Arabic of the Quran in conducting official business.]
The Intelligence Service (sherut modi’in which preceded the Mossad) and which had the overall responsibility for intelligence in the pre-state time, was also interested in what was being preached in mosques. This interest has hardly faded as the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI with which I was associated for many years) continues to publish the translated transcripts of mosque sermons in most Arab countries that often preach violence against Israel as well as a heavy dose of anti-Semitism. One of the most virulent anti-Jewish preachers prior to the establishment of the Jewish state was Sheikh Izz el-Din al-Qassam who spewed his vitriol at a mosque in Haifa. He succeeded in escaping to Lebanon with many of the Arab residents of Haifa before the Shachar unit was able to dispose of him. He is dead but not forgotten since the military units of Hamas in Gaza are named after him.
The Jewish spies were often left on their own in a hostile environment with little backstopping or means of extrication in the event an operation failed. These people in the recollection of one of the spies, “had no country—in early 1948, Israel was a wish, not a fact. If they disappeared, they’d be gone. No one might find them…The future was blank. And still they set out into those treacherous times, alone.” (p.73) This was the recollection of one of the spies, born Jamil Cohen in Damascus but becoming Gamliel in Israel and used the cover name of Yussef el-Hamed in Beirut.
Given the limited resources at the time, these men were sent on their dangerous missions with little training or back-up support. Methods of communications between the “spies” in a foreign land (primarily Lebanon but later also Syria) was practically non-existent: the first spy who reached Beirut in late 1947 was instructed to send the information he gathered by mail addressed to a Post Office Box in Haifa. He would reappear at his base in Palestine months later to the surprise of his colleagues who thought he was either captured or killed because his letters, mailed through the ordinary postal service, had never reached their destination. In a certain operation, the driver of the getaway car did not know how to drive.
The training of the spies was performed in a camp located in a kibbutz. The training was not without some anecdotes. One trainee, named Ezra, would ask his friends to beat him as a way of preparing himself to withstand torture if captured. At one instance, Ezra squeezed his own testicles while screaming “I won’t tell, I won’t tell!” (p.20) When a trainee asked what he should do if he witnessed Arabs beating a Jew on the street, whether he should come to the help of the victim or ignore it, he was told, “Join the attackers” (p.142).
But no matter how careful one is with an assumed identity, there can be some small thing that proves fatal. There was the case of one of the spies whose identity was almost uncovered when he failed to wash his face in the manner that a Muslim will do prior to prayers. There was also the case of one of the spies in Beirut who used toilet paper, which immediately raised the suspicion of the Muslim landlord that “he might be a Jewish spy.” (p.112) [Muslims apply water]. Friedman would observe, “an identity is made of thousands of tiny hints, and an outsider isn’t going to get them right.” (p.95) One fellow failed the test and was disposed of by his captors. In one instance, two of the spies, together with a group of Arabs, were arrested by a Jewish military unit and subjected to “real investigations conducted by two Arabic speaking Jews.” After Isaac, one of two spies gave his cover story, one of the interrogators turn to his other colleague and said to him in Hebrew: “This bastard is a liar” which of course was true. This led Friedman to observe “that the Jews may have been better interrogators than spies.” (p.103)
Similarly, the espionage instructor at the camp would tell his trainees that it was not enough to look dark, have a mustache and drink coffee to take the role of a spy. According to him, to succeed in this role
“means appearing as an Arab in every aspect: the way you look, talk, and behave, where you live, and where you enjoy yourself, including the right cover, papers, life story, and background. You must be a talented actor playing the part twenty-four hours a day, a role that comes at a cost of constant mental tension, and which is nerve-wracking to the point of insanity.” (p.58)
I should highlight a point which the author has overlooked. It is that Muslims like Jews are circumcised which could turn to be fatal if one of the Jewish spies was disguised as Christian.
When the State of Israel was established in 1948 during hostilities both domestic (Arabs of Palestine) and international (the combined armed forces of five Arab countries –Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon plus an assortment of volunteers) Jewish leaders “had little idea what the Arab side was thinking…and decisions were made in the dark. The Arab Section was a singular exception.”(p.54) Improvisation was elevated to a doctrine that continues to guide a lot of Israeli activities, particularly in the critical areas of defense and intelligence to this day.
The author does not ignore the plight of the Palestinians in the Port City of Haifa in late 1947 where the newly identified spies were to be initiated. Encouraged to leave by their leaders in anticipation of the arrival of the Arab armies “to defeat the Jews” the residents of the Port city, including the city’s military leader were soon leaving in droves by car and by boat. An Arab laborer at the port who kept record of the events was to observe as “sad and terrible” this massive escape which Friedman would describe as “an image that became the very symbol of the Palestinian tragedy later on, once the scale and permanence of the tragedy became clear.”(p.86) Eventually, two of the spies would be taking a ride on a bus with these refugees as they headed toward their target city of Beirut.
Most of the espionage action took place in Beirut, the city which, in those days, was regarded as Paris on the Mediterranean. Although the Lebanese army formally participated in the Arab invading armies to “liberate” Palestine, its weight and role were insignificant and Beirut served more as a center of gossip than a source of critical intelligence. Still, it was a dangerous place for spies, particularly Jewish spies as the word spies, in Arabic Jawasis “was a constant whisper in the air.”(p.111)
There were three Israeli spies in Beirut when the State of Israel was established. Historically, they qualify as “the first Israeli spies.” (p.116) The first Israeli intelligence station would be headquartered in a little kiosk, opened by one of the three spies, to serve school children in a school nearby.
Ironically, the first across-the-border operation undertaken by the budding Israeli intelligence consisted of using frogmen to enter Beirut harbor and sink Hitler’s former yacht that had been acquired by an Arab businessman who had named it Aviso Grille. A letter written by a German and intercepted by Israeli intelligence revealed that there were “twenty escaped German POWs in Beirut, and most of them were working on the Grille, the Fuhrer’s private yacht.” (p.139) The spy who identified the yacht was to write: “It was as if the tormentor, in his grave, hadn’t come to terms with the existence of the State of Israel.”(p.140)
Life in Beirut for these spies was not all risk and loneliness. Two of the Israelis, dreaming of the bohemian life in Paris, registered with an Armenian couple who was running a ballroom dancing studio. When there weren’t enough girls they would dance with each other. And in at least one case, as is common in tales of adventure and intrigue, there was a romantic finale. In this case, one of the fellows in Beirut, Isaac, met a Christian girl by the name of Georgette. Isaac was by no means a dashing James Bond and the romance remained mainly secret because Georgette’s family would not contemplate their daughter dating “a Muslim.” Nevertheless, the romance provided some friendship if not relief to the lonely spy who fell truly in love with Georgette until he was whisked out of the country leaving poor Georgette with a broken heart.
Matti Friedman has done a great job in tracing the stories, adventures, successes and failures of the first group of Israeli spies, with elegant writing and a touch of humor. The book makes a most enjoyable reading experience.
* Nimrod Raphaeli is Senior Analyst Emeritus at MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute.