Killings and Intelligence Key to State

Terrorism and political violence have been constants for Israel since the creation of the state in 1948. Its hard-nosed, cloak-and-dagger methods of fighting back are the stuff of legends. Mossad spies kill guerrilla commanders in exotic locales. Elite commandos storm hijacked airplanes or infiltrate enemy hide-outs.

And so it was throughout difficult decades of global Palestinian terrorism. As hard as it is to imagine now, however, many Israelis believed three years ago that perhaps they had finally rounded the corner in their battle with extremist violence.

Throughout 1996 and into 1997, a spate of suicide bombings by the radical Islamic movement Hamas targeted crowded buses and sidewalk cafes in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Hundreds of Israelis were killed or wounded. But in 1998, the bloodshed dropped off dramatically. Ten Israelis were killed, the lowest annual toll since Israelis and Palestinians signed landmark peace accords in 1993.

Terrorism did not disappear, but it did remain in relative check until the outbreak a year ago of the new Palestinian intifada, or uprising, which saw a return to suicide bombing campaigns.

Israeli officials say their ability to combat terrorism has relied on the targeted killings of key militant leaders, combined with well-honed intelligence and vigilance that borders on the extreme. Most crucial to past success has been a political context, with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat choosing negotiations over violence, promoting cooperation rather than conflict--something absent now.

The top Hamas bomb maker--Yehiya Ayash, known as the Engineer--was killed in 1996 when a booby-trapped cellular telephone exploded in his face. The killing was widely attributed to Israeli secret agents. A year later, his successor was found shot to death next to a car filled with explosives.

The demise of the two men deprived Hamas of its lethal expertise. Gradually, Israeli authorities counted fewer Hamas attacks with fewer casualties.

At the same time, a form of security cooperation existed between Israeli and Palestinian officials. The CIA was training Palestinian police, who agreed to Israeli requests for the arrests of numerous suspected terrorists, Hamas militants and others.

Islamic Jihad went through a similar period of hibernation. Its founder and leader, Fathi Shikaki, was shot to death in Malta in 1995, probably by the Mossad. His replacement, Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, based in Damascus, Syria, is an ideologue who lacked the operational expertise of Shikaki. It is believed that Islamic Jihad did not stage a major attack again until November 1998, when two Palestinians blew themselves up in a Jerusalem market. No Israelis were killed, and Arafat responded by rounding up and arresting Islamic Jihad activists in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

Both Islamic Jihad and Hamas are back in action. At the start of the current intifada, Arafat released all members of the two groups who had been detained. Islamic Jihad and Hamas oppose negotiations with Israel and want to see the destruction of the Jewish state.

Israel’s methods are often criticized by domestic and international human rights organizations. Military and police have great leeway in the detention and interrogation of suspects. Civil rights are often subjugated in the interest of security.

Eliminating militants is just one tactic. Intelligence--knowledge of what is being planned, by whom and how--has proven vital, officials say.

By putting up checkpoints between Israel and Palestinian territories, by occupying parts of Palestinian territory, and by maintaining security control over all borders, Israeli authorities are able to monitor the comings and goings of most Palestinians.

Israeli security officials say they have been able to infiltrate Palestinian communities and establish a broad network of snitches. Although they have not been able to infiltrate Hamas or Islamic Jihad, they can get close.

“It is quite difficult for Western agencies to place [undercover] agents inside Islamic organizations,� said Gideon Ezra, Israel’s deputy security minister and a 33-year veteran of the secret service. “But you can infiltrate the mosques. You can find out a lot in the mosques, point out who are the dangerous ones. And then you know how to deal with them.�

Ezra and many Israeli officials are critical of the importance that the United States gives to the rights of suspects in instances where the safety of the nation is at stake. For years, Israel allowed “coercive physical force� in the interrogation of suspects who might be able to reveal the details of an imminent attack. The practice was widely condemned as torture, and the Israeli Supreme Court outlawed it in late 1999.

Big mistake, Ezra says. And with the renewed violence this year, the Israeli parliament is considering a new law to allow interrogators to employ techniques including shaking, forcing prisoners into contorted positions and depriving them of sleep.

Ezra said this is essential to the fight against terrorism.

“I always prefer to catch these people and interrogate them, rather than kill them. You learn so much more,� Ezra said. “But the problem in the Western world is that your hands are tied. These people won’t just cooperate immediately. . . . You have to be able to get information from them.�

The head of Israel’s Mossad, Ephraim Halevy, stressed the importance of human intelligence and faulted Western spy agencies for favoring high-tech espionage.

The gathering of information through eavesdropping, satellites and so forth has become the “high priest of intelligence . . . blinding those deciphering the signs,� Halevy said in a rare public appearance in late September.

“The lone agent, who was the sole intelligence component in biblical times, is a central component in the intelligence mosaic of the 21st century,� Halevy said. “In the past years, he has been sidelined. These past days have shown us that he is vital just as he had been vital in the course of human history.�

Palestinians have a different take on Israel’s fight against terrorism. End the occupation of Palestinian territory, they say, and you end the motive behind much of the violence. But many Israelis are convinced that the deadliest factions would not stop there.