The Shin Bet has failed in Gaza
The circumstances that led to Shalit's abduction point at the security service's failure in the Gaza Strip.
By Amir OrenShin Bet security service head Yuval Diskin testified yesterday before the Winograd committee. Diskin need not fear the Winograd report when it is published. He was called to testify mainly as an expert observer who was present at senior security consultations. Fortunately for him, the committee has been assigned to deal only with the campaign in Lebanon and not with the one ongoing in the Gaza Strip since June 25 last year, when Corporal Gilad Shalit was abducted.
For 18 years the Shin Bet was involved in Lebanon, as well as the territories. The 2000 withdrawal from Lebanon released Diskin from responsibility for intelligence north of the border. His agents there were dismissed or recruited by other employers - the Mossad did better than Military Intelligence. As long as Hezbollah maintains terror ties with Hamas or Israeli Arabs, the division of responsibility within the intelligence community is not cut and dry. However, Lebanon is no longer the Shin Bet's problem. This is not the case with Gaza. The Shalit affair is one of the low points for the Shin Bet in more than six years of conflict with the Palestinians. Its only apparent success in this affair was to avoid becoming the public image of responsibility for the failure. Diskin, unlike his predecessor Avi Dichter, stays out of the media spotlight, and the media's acquaintanceship with him, after a third of his term, is more superficial. He stands out less than his equivalents in the army.
The Shin Bet refused to cooperate with the investigation headed by Major General (Res.) Giora Eiland, which examined Shalit's abduction and the killing of two of his fellow tank crewmates. Eiland noted this with frustration; the crucial result is that the Eiland report hurt only the Israel Defense Forces officers, and not severely.
Diskin is not subordinate to the chief of staff or to the defense minister. His relations with the General Staff and Military Intelligence are tense, as the army complains of the Shin Bet's tendency to hoard intelligence information. The complaint is perhaps justified, but it is also hypocritical: Military Intelligence did not share intelligence with Division 91 or other forces on the ground - intelligence that would have helped prevent the abduction of two soldiers at Zar'it, on the Lebanon border.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Diskin's direct superior, did not force him to become involved in Eiland's investigation. In the public mind, the division commander, Aviv Kochavi, and the brigade commander, Avi Peled, are tainted. Diskin and his head of the Southern Region, G., might as well be completely unconnected to the incident.
The warning the Shin Bet provided in advance of the digging of the tunnel at Kerem Shalom did not address an exact location. But worse still is the lack of information since the moment of the abduction. The Shin Bet's network of sources has not provided results swiftly. It is easier to enlist locals to single out terrorists so that they can be assassinated than it is to find some traitor to reveal where Shalit is being held and thereby prevent the release of Palestinian prisoners. It is possible that the Shin Bet later obtained better information about Shalit and his abductors, but that was no longer enough for a military operation to free him alive. In any case, the joint failure of the Shin Bet and the IDF in planning such an operation led to an embarrassing blow to the government's bargaining position. The IDF was right and Olmert was wrong at the beginning of June, when at the General Staff they recommended to negotiate on an "arrangement" for a truce that would include a prisoner exchange. However, the issue is not who was right, but rather the government's room to maneuver, which has narrowed because of the Shin Bet's failure both in obtaining information and running local agents. The situation in the West Bank is easier for the Shin Bet. There, routine arrests provide intelligence and entire cells are wiped out thanks to one activist's arrest. In Gaza, as in Lebanon, the Arab system succeeded in deterring Israel from a large invasion. Presumably in advance of diplomatic agreements, the Shin Bet will use such examples to argue against major withdrawals that might erect cities of refuge for terror.
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Please understand that your point of view is very interesting to me.I would love to talk with you about it.
Sad to hear about such atrocities. Can you name the woman and children killed at Beit-Hanoun to Yishai.
Yossi, I see the decline of the Shin Bet as symptomatic of a general decline in Israel's institutions. The end of the existential threat to Israel with the end of the Yom Kippur War allowed the rise of several generations of leaders who have been largely self-serving and willing use their positions for political gain without regards to the consequences for the nation. The last Israeli leader to put the nation before himself was Rabin, and he became a victim of the new politics. The intelligence failures, by Shin Bet and military intelligence in the last year have been shocking. It seems that Israel's intelligence services are more interested in cooking the product to suit the politicians, than serving the raw fact, and cold conclusions. That is a recipe for disaster.
Occupation or not when the Israelis shared the land they made it flourish. Now that the Israelis are out the Palestinians have made it into a cesspool ready to implode.
troubles at home and begrudges Israeli defence against the real terrorists,not bow and arrow armed aboriginals thousands of miles away.
More Germans died in WWII than Americans too. If the Philistines are suffering, it's because they have been trying to murder. Remember this? Tali Hatuel (June 28, 1970 - May 2, 2004) was an Israeli social worker who, along with her four daughters aged 2 to 11, was shot at close range and killed on May 2, 2004 by armed Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip. She was eight months pregnant with her fifth child. Hatuel was driving from central Israel to her home of 12 years in the Israeli settlement bloc of Gush Katif (near Rafah in the Gaza Strip), when she and her four girls Hila (11), Hadar (9), Roni (7), and Meirav (2), were shot at and forced off the road. Hatuel was wounded in the initial attack. Palestinian terrorists armed with fully-automatic AK-47 Kalashnikov rifles then approached the vehicle to within point blank range and shot repeatedly, murdering Hatuel and her four daughters, while the daughters were still in their car-seats... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tali_Hatuel
2006 - 660 Palestinians slaughtered by the IDF, 141 of them children. 23 Jews killed in return. Now who are the mass murderers? The Palestinians have been walled in like bugs in a jar and this is an outrage.
They might be setling grudges or eliminating the compatitors. Blood feuds are a way of life for them. Even so, they are terrorists--they terrorise their own people. But worry not too much, the vast majority of those that are captured or occasionally killed are definitely terrorists attacking Israel.
Both came from elsewhere and settled in OUR land- including Gaza, and both fought against us for a long time. Theologically, neither has any real roots to speak of, and they fulfill the same function vis-a-vis the nation of Israel. And they will end up the same.
Sadly for us Israelis, the Shin Bet never recovered from the Bus 300 affair though its main culprit Ehud Yatom became a Knesset Member. Shin Bet should be totally disbanded and rebuilt from scratch with new members not the old guard old boys network of cover-up artists.
Do you mean Palestinians.The Philistines(people of the sea in Egyptian history)were an Island people of European origin.They established a small foothold in the area now called Gaza.It was in the time of King David.
that they aren't staging false flag attacks? All other security agencies do.
"It is easier to enlist locals to single out terrorists so that they can be assassinated..." How do you know that they are not having a business competitior eliminated? Or setling a grudge? I wonder if Shin Bet even asks, or if any evidence is enough to kill a Palestinian.
If you want proper intelligence and deterence, the only way to do it is to be "b'shetach". Everyone forgets how it was in Judea and Samaria until April 2002: The Philistines ruled their areas and were murdering Jews daily. Not a day passed without terrorist attacks, and there were days with 2 suicide bombings. Then we went on the offensive and terrorist attacks PLUMMETED. We sat in the PLO-occupied areas and hunted down the terrorists. Within 1 year, Israeli casualties dropped by 80%, and continued to drop afterwards. The ONLY way to fight terror from both an intelligence, as well as an operational standpoint, is to be there- sitting on their heads; 24/7, 365 days a year. And while we're at it, we should rebuild Gush Katif, because a permanent presence also helps defeat terror- besides the fact that we would be righting a historical wrong.