The Gatekeepers
As Head of the Shin Bet,
you learn that politicians
prefer binary options.
They don't like having
three or four options.
They want you to
tell them, "Zero or one. "
"Do it. Don't do it. "
As a commander, I find myself
in situations that are
different shades of gray.
Let's say you're
hunting a terrorist.
You can get him,
but there are one or
two people in the car.
You're not sure if they're
part of his gang or not.
What do you do?
Do you fire or not?
There's no time.
These situations last
seconds, minutes at most.
People expect a decision,
and by decision they
usually mean "to act. "
That's a decision.
"Don't do it" seems easier,
but it's often harder.
Sometimes it's
a super-clean operation.
No one was hurt
except the terrorists.
Even then, later, life stops,
at night, in the day,
when you're shaving.
We all have our moments.
On vacation...
You say, "Okay,
"I made a decision
"and X number of
people were killed.
"They were definitely about
to launch a big attack. "
No one near them was hurt.
It was as sterile as possible.
Yet you still say,
"There's something
unnatural about it. "
What's unnatural is
the power you have
to take three people,
terrorists,
and take their
lives in an instant.
The Six
Day War in the Middle East
has echoes along
a second front.
Israeli officials
announce that their victory
voids previous
armistice agreements
and international borders
with their neighbors.
That victory was
swift and total.
The combined Israeli air force and
infantry, artillery and tank corps
Peninsula to the Suez Canal,
east across the West Bank
to the Jordan River
and north into Syria.
Suddenly, over one
million Palestinians
came under Israeli
military rule
in the West Bank and Gaza.
For Israeli troops, however, the
most moving moments of the war
were the capture of the ancient
biblical sites in Judea and Samaria
and the old city of Jerusalem.
Standing at the
sacred western wall,
Israeli Defense Minister,
Moshe Dayan,
vowed never to give up
the old city of Jerusalem.
How old were you
during the Six Day War?
I was 11.
I remember thinking,
"What is war?"
It's hard to say if
I really understood,
but I remember the feeling
of fear, because
our situation was bad.
Most of all I remember a book.
I read it a lot,
If Israel Lost the War.
It described a very
unpleasant scenario
of us losing the war
and the Arabs
conquering Israel.
It had a profound
impact on me.
I thought about
it a lot as a boy.
In the Six Day
War, I was in Operations.
The Arabs surrendered
and we were suddenly
left without an enemy.
You're like a dog in a race,
looking for the rabbit.
The rabbit goes underground,
and the dog can't find it.
We were like that.
Then we started working
in the West Bank and Gaza
in anti-terrorism, without
knowing exactly what it was
because terrorism
hadn't developed.
We decided to conduct
a census in the Territories
to find out how many people
lived in the refugee camps.
It was important. We used
the information for years.
But you know how it is.
They called up the reserves
and trained them quickly.
What do I mean by quickly?
You knock on the door.
They ask, "Who's there?"
You say, "Soldiers. "
"What do you want?"
"We came to count you. "
That's it. How many words?
It's nothing. Ten words.
The reservist unit comes
and knocks on the door.
They ask, "Who's there?"
What do the soldiers say?
"Soldiers," like they learned.
"What do you want?"
But they made a mistake.
Instead of saying nehsikum
with an unaccented "H"
they used an accented
What's the difference?
"Jinna nehsikum" means
"We came to count you. "
"Jinna nekhsikum" with an accent
is "We came to castrate you. "
We took intensive courses
in spoken and literary Arabic,
reading articles
and manuscripts.
Anyone who took the Shin Bet's
Arabic program seriously
knows Arabic.
He can listen to Arabic
and read between the lines.
He can read notes
from agents...
SHALOM". The Shin Bet looked
for people to talk to
to understand what
motivated the Palestinians.
For the first time,
some Jews raised
the idea of
a Palestinian state.
I loved the idea,
so I went to the
Territories with people
who dealt with
the Palestinians.
We didn't know what
we wanted to achieve.
We received no direction
about our objectives.
When you don't get direction
from the politicians,
you are... just like with
the rabbit... searching.
I started as a coordinator
in the Nablus district.
It was a very pretty area,
full of olive trees.
I liked to get out
of my car and wander
in the field,
refugee camps, alleyways,
visit homes,
sit in cafs, talk...
I really loved the interaction
with the people.
From that exotic encounter
with olive trees,
landscapes, and peasants,
of the Palestinian problem.
I was working in
the refugee camps.
Suddenly you see
what refugees are.
Once you look more deeply,
you say, "Wait.
"I'm not an observer,
here to take photos and leave.
"I'm an active participant. "
At first, your security role
is all you care about.
It's easier to
be on that side.
A curfew was
placed on the casbah of Hebron,
killed and another wounded.
The two were on patrol
when shots were heard.
One was wounded. The other
chased after the shooters.
He was later
found murdered here.
Gradually there was an increase...
To put it cynically,
luckily for us,
terrorism increased.
Why do I say that?
Because now we had work
the Palestinian state.
Understand?
Of course.
As soon as we stopped dealing
with the Palestinian state
and started dealing
with terrorism,
terror became more
sophisticated. So did we.
Suddenly we had a lot of work
in Gaza and the West Bank,
and overseas, too,
so we forgot about
the Palestinian issue.
In Nablus then, wherever
you threw a rock,
there was either
a cat or a terrorist.
Some nights we arrested
hundreds of people.
PERY. We'd take
over a village
and gather all the
men in the square,
usually by the mosque
or in a schoolyard.
We used the
"identifier" technique.
Terrorists who confessed
would be put in a vehicle.
The windows had curtains
and they wore masks.
We'd sit them there,
and the villagers passed
beside the vehicle,
and they'd tell us,
"He's a terrorist
who trained in Syria,"
"He's a terrorist who
got back from Jordan. "
Not everyone cooperated,
but we usually
had a good catch.
Back then, most
intelligence was based on HUMINT,
HUMan INTelligence
we got in two ways.
Either from our agents or the
interrogation of prisoners.
On my first day at work,
the person I was replacing
picked me up at home.
He decided that
the best place to train
an inexperienced
security guy like me was
the interrogation
facility in Jerusalem.
I started learning
intelligence there.
I don't know if you've
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