Respected Danish journalist admits 'I was a Mossad agent'
It's not uncommon for secret agents to take up a career in journalism as a cover for clandestine work.
By Yossi Melman and Haaretz Correspondent Tags: Israel Mossad Israel news IDFThere have always been journalists who "crossed the lines" and switched to being spokespersons, advisers or investigators of bodies that were previously the object of their coverage and commentary. There have presumably always been journalists whose work serves as a cover for clandestine work, but only a few are willing to admit it. One such person is Herbert Pundik (Nahum Pundak), a veteran Israeli-Danish journalist with an international reputation who a week ago in an interview with the Danish daily Dagbladet Information said that for about 10 years, he worked for the Mossad while doing his journalism job. His admission sent a shock wave through the serene Scandinavian country and aroused considerable media interest.
"Yes, I was a Mossad Agent," said the headline of the comprehensive interview with Pundik by journalist Lasse Ellegaard. The newspaper is identified with the left, and its origins lie in the Danish resistance to the Nazis. And this is how the reporter introduces him:
"We know a great deal about Herbert Pundik. He volunteered to serve in the Israel Defense Forces. In the past he passionately defended Israel and today he criticizes the country to the same degree. He constitutes a model for emulation for journalists writing about the Middle East. He has tremendous knowledge and admirable analytic ability. He is considered a moral authority because of his critical sense. But only a few know that Pundik once worked for the Mossad when he was employed by the Information and the [Danish newspaper] Politiken."
Pundik admitted to his interviewer, in response to a question, that during his travels and his assignments in the 1960s in Africa, he provided information to the Mossad (and also reported to Davar, the now defunct daily of the Histadrut labor federation, and to Danish public radio). But he added that "this connection was severed in 1970, when I was appointed editor-in-chief of Politiken."
"I traveled all over Africa under the cover of [being] a journalist," said Pundik. "In general, where is the boundary between espionage and journalism? For example, I wrote a detailed analysis of the tribes in Somalia and their attitude toward political parties, I investigated the political situation in northern Nigeria. These were things that the newspaper was also interested in."
Is that intelligence work? the interviewer pressured him. "Yes, in large part it was intelligence work, and I did it on one condition, which I was glad was fulfilled, that my reports be transferred to Denmark as well. The late Peter Isloe, who was no. 2 in the Danish military intelligence, received copies of my reports from the Israelis."
Pundik said he did not send the reports to Isloe, but he knew Isloe received them because they were friends. "I was a double agent in a sense, if you will," he said. "The Information was a poor newspaper and when I told them 'pay for my plane ticket and I'll pay for my expenses,' it worked." Pundik doesn't say so specifically, but we can assume from that sentence the Mossad paid part of his travel expenses and the rest was probably paid by the media that employed him.
Pundik said he was not asked to spy against Denmark. "Denmark is not important enough, and the Mossad has a basic principle: They don't enlist Jews to spy against their own countries. The Mossad has a principle of not compromising Jews in relation to their countries of origin." That is an interesting statement in view of the claims in the wake of the assassination in Dubai of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, that the Mossad, if it was behind the operation, used the identities of Israelis with dual citizenship.
Herbert Pundik was born in 1927 in Denmark. He immigrated to Israel in 1948 and volunteered to serve in the army. Since 1954, he has been living in Israel, while also editing the Politiken (for 23 years) until 1993 and turning it into a profitable daily with the widest circulation in Denmark. In the 1960s, he was the editor of the weekend magazine of Davar. He is the father of peace activist Dr. Ron Pundak, one of the architects of the Oslo Accords, who today serves as the director general of the Peres Center for Peace.
Herbert Pundik returns to Israel from a trip to the Far East this week, but it is doubtful he will agree to explain why he agreed to work for the Mossad, how that squared with journalistic ethics and why he decided to admit it now. His son said that as far as he knows, his father is not interested in being interviewed on the subject.
Pundik's admission resulted in a tempest in Denmark. The present editor of Politiken, Toger Seidenfaden, said he understands Pundik' motives to help Israel. Other editors and journalists, including Information editor Palle Weis, believe it was an unethical act.
Pundik's case should provoke discussion in the journalistic community here, too. It's no secret the Mossad has used the services of foreign correspondents. For example, when Israel wanted to bring the remaining Yemenite Jews to Israel in the 1990s, journalists who were allowed to visit Yemen were asked to make contact with the Jewish community there. However, with a few exceptions in the 1960s, the Mossad has refrained almost on principle from using Israeli journalists.
In the 1960s, Mossad chief Isser Harel used a few journalists, including Yeshayahu Ben Porat and the late Uri Dan, for the purpose of finding the addresses of German scientists who had helped Egypt's missile program. When the addresses were obtained, the Mossad waged a scare campaign on their families and sometimes even sent explosive packages and tried to assassinate the scientists. However, such use of Israeli journalists angered then prime minister David Ben-Gurion (against Harel) and was discontinued.
Even if they aren't working for the Mossad, many journalists still have overly close relations with the defense establishment. Several Israeli journalists were formerly officers in Military Intelligence, the Mossad or the Shin Bet security service. There are former journalists who switched to the Mossad, and there have been isolated cases of journalists who offered their services to the Mossad while they did their journalistic work and were turned away.
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Has anyone per chance read this? An Al Qaeda fanatic was issued with nine British passports while plotting to murder thousands of people in a series of terrorist atrocities, it has emerged. Muslim convert Dhiren Barot was among 10,000 terrorists and fraudsters who managed to slip through Home Office security checks to secure a travel document every year.Discovered around 16,500 applications made every year are fraudulent - of which 10,000 go undetected.
# 36 binny # free press. For your information,there is no such thing as 'Free Press'in the world. It's a question of interests;they all have a cudgel to pick. The Iranian Press is 'free' ? or all The Arab press for that matter ? Or the Russian Press ? (not only during the dark & sordid winter of Communisim) Or the former Nazi Press. Or any press,be it in the West or East. They all have an agenda to carry out. But this binny caught hold of a straw & is trying to climb it.
I swear, Israelis are the most self-defeating people in the world when it comes to public relations. Why would this guy be admitting this to the world? WHY?!?! Half the bad press Israel receives is ENTIRELY DUE to Israelis and people working with Israel ADMITTING STUFF for no reason! Who the hell does this?!?!? I am so sick of it I'm close to giving up.
Dual citizenship should cease immediately. People must make a choice, especially those Israelis who come to the US and continue to bash their "adopted" country. In as much as Israel has become a true danger to and an enemy of the US, such "duals" must now make a choice; they can no longer be loyal to both. (Especially folks like dear Petra.)
How can we have world peace as long as there are intelligence agencies? Between criminal and governmental organizations antagonizing each other, it seems there is always a cold war just beneath the surface. Justice will arrive, but first we need some understanding and compromise.
Using reporters for spying - or a reporter agreeing to spy - endangers every other reporter covering dangerous places.
If reporters are at risk, it serves them right for all the years of trash writing against Israel. Pay back is a.....
The title of this story should be how Israeli actions have now put the lives of every foreign reporter in danger. The backlash for this is that reporters WILL be arrested and tortured, and the justification will be that Israel uses reporters as Mossad agents. Israel's careless and reckless actions have now damaged the ENTIRE free press throughout the world.
Israel did NOT ask or actively recruit Jonathan Pollard which is the point in the article. BTW the Muslim world went nuts over a simple cartoon, there are no links to Israel. Yet you don't critize the group that worldwide through mass rioting killed dozens, just because they didn't like it? Hey Amer. Cit. I believe in free speech, apparently you don't!
It is a venerable agency doing very important work to safeguard Israel , the Jews worldwide and is on a front line in fighting dark forces wherever those arise . All this is for the benefit of the righteous people anywhere in the world .
It seem to be very"in" being an agent of Mossad, just for having five minuts of fame,or maybe those people wishes to be the main charcter in the next Daniel Silva's book.
"Mossad takes it many steps further". Not as many steps as the CIA,or the Mukabarat, or any Arab secret service.
Several years ago I was having a heated discussion with friends on the subject of Israeli-Russian politics. As was the case we felt that Russia was always biased towards Israel with examples of voting in the UN security council. But if you analyze the outcome nothing ever bad was done directly to Israel through Russia. Even the nuclear deal with Iran seems to go along at a real sloooooowwwww snail's pace. Then one of my friends looked at me slyly with a wink...and whispered...Putin was groomed as a mossad operative many years before entering the communist party. As Ripley used to say "Believe it or not"
If he is now not interested to be interviewed then why did he ever admit that he worked as a Mossad operative. I think that he opened up a can of worms on himself and he will be hounded for a long time. Too bad he did not stay under the radar.
the article about providing british passports for known terrorists ? do so and then put your computer to sleep.
Ian Fleming (creator of James Bond character) worked as an agent of British intelligence whilst a journalist with Reuters.
who was a british journalist (both bbc and newspapers), as well as a british academic, escaped to the ussr just before his impending arrest for espionage on behalf of the then ussr's kgb. there are others i could mention. his legacy, and fellow travellors, are still to be felt in britains mediocracy and in academia. the anti-israel vitriol, though it has morphed into other things. a journalist is a secret service asset!!! so what else is new?
Never know who's a spy for whom.
if all those "people behind", had the slightest sense of humour or entertaining, they would have choosen mr tamims spectacle frames for disguising the agents.
Will Dubai's police chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim admit that he is the M of Is free-lancer's list?
Any Israeli journalist, or analyst? and for that matter, will Haaretz? - come on Yossi!
..what is somehow not reported around here, were also said (at least one of them) having been a popular tv presenter / journalist for long years, and obviously working for the irianian secret service.
and who knows how many others? Today in the UK they use the Times [according to Philip Giraldi, ex CIA analyist, the paper routinely acts on behalf of Israeli intelligence and may have done so recently with the neutron trigger scoop re Iran] and of course there have often been senior writers on the NYT who have either served in the IDF or have children who do so.eg. Ethan Bronner, currently the Jerusalem bureau chief. "Last week, when suspicion for the assassination in Dubai started to fall on the Mossad, a newspaper editor emailed to ask if I could ring up my Israeli security contacts for fresh leads. It was a reminder that Western correspondents in Israel are expected to have such contacts. The point was underlined later the same day when I spoke with a leftwing Israeli academic to get his take on Mabhouhs killing. I had turned to this Ashkenazi professor because he counts many veterans of the security services as friends. At the end of the interview, I asked him if he had any suggestions for people in the security services I might speak with. He replied: "Talk to Eitan Bronner. He has excellent contacts"." Jonathan Cook.
talkbackers" Sir, You are correct. I was hired by Mossad to write to you this message. The last revelation of thinking process by the members of umma as demonstrated by the gentleman from Dubai are clearly indicative of their level of intelligence and conviction in truthfulness of fairy tales. ps. I mistakenly thought all refugees are supposed to live in the special camps Arab brothers build for them so as to prevent them from mingling with locals - you know - shhh apartheid?
Tiresome. A nation of hooligans and land robbers. Israel is failing the test of civility
in preperation for the results into the criminal investigation into the cloning of passports in order to commit murder in Dubai. It is shortly to be declared that the 12 british passort holders whose passports were cloned are in fact all Mossad operatives, and were in fact the people who killed on netanyahu's orders. No doubt they will be handsomely rewarded for never leaving Israel again.
It was him who glorified the Dolphinarium bomber(21 Israeli teenage girls murdered) in his article in "Politiken" "Bomber who brought peace" . His other articles in "Politiken" had dripped with accusations of Israel and glorifications of pals. He was attacking evey suggestion of putting financial EU help to pals under scrutiny what it is really spent on. In public appearances on TV he was attacking pro-Israel participants ,allying himself with palestinian partipants and the chief Social-Democratic Israel-basher ,Mogens Lykketoft. He organized anti-Israeli demonstrations in front of the Israeli Embassy in Copenhagen and money-collects for the pals.
B-U-L-L!!! He was probably fed THAT line by his contact, after telling him or her that he wouldn't spy on Denmark. And although he may actually believe it, as an informed journalist he's got no excuse for not questioning its truth. LOL! Either that, or he did spy on Denmark too, via his "friend" in the Danish military intelligence, but wants it to appear that it would have been out of the question because of the Mossad's "principle" of not compromising Jews in relation to their countries of origin.
This relevation could shed new light on the motive behind that Muhammed cartoon controversy in Denmark. And it's rather silly to think that Mossad doesn't enlist Diaspora Jews to spy against their own countries. Ask Jonathan Pollard.
another serious reason for sole citizenship and sole documents, especially passport. No double citizenship, nor double passport. And oath of citizen loyalty of all citizens and applicants.
That assh*le just undid all the help tried to give. It would have been better if he was never recruited/accepted. What is he looking for some hero status while selling out his homeland? If you get become and agent, you keep your secret to the grave and after. This man is nothing but a arrogant prick for status and recognition.
"When the addresses were obtained, the Mossad waged a scare campaign on their families and sometimes even sent explosive packages and tried to assassinate the scientists." Is this what is happening to Iranian scientists and their families?
These people have no integrity neither self respect. Why can''t they make use of their so called education and keep their mouths shut tight.
The damage done to Israel by Israelis who don't know when to shut up is truly amazing.
country of origin? Really? Jewish New Zealanders were heavily involved in the attempt to obtain a false NZ passport in the name of a seriously disabled man. Bad luck they were caught and those no quick enough to flee to Israel were tried in a court of law.
The headline should read "Once Respected Danish Journalist. . . " Not because he became a propaganda pimp for Mossad. Rather because NO journalist who is a propaganda pimp for ANYONE can be 'respectable.' Which leads us to Yssi Melman as compared to Ze'ev Schiff. Schiff was open to the input of everyone including the Mossad and IDF. But he was never just a pimp, or a prostitute for those organizations. He sought the truth in what they fed him, and was willing to risk alienating them to tell the truth. Which is something I cannot accuse Yossi Melman of.
How can one respect a person who pontificates about events from a safe distance instead of playing an active role? The latter requires courage, sacrifice, commitment. The former - nothing.
i suspect that many countries use journalists to spy on other countries. it's a great cover. the canadian ambassador to iran who got 6 or so americans out of iran during the hostage crisis was recently disclosed to have also been acting for the cia at the same time. anyone questioning his "divided" loyalties?
Nothing new here.. No one is surprised. I have no doubts that the Mossad hires talkbackers here to implant rumors and spread deception. Any spy agency usually stoop to low levels of morality, the Mossad takes it many steps further...Would haaretz publish this?
Not good. This sort of stuff plays into the base canard of "divided loyalty" that diaspora Jews are constantly whacked with.