The Gatekeepers Page #3

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Why did you give the

order to kill them?

I didn't want any more

live terrorists in court.

It would only increase terrorism.

It increased it anyways.

Was it right to kill the

terrorists on the 300 bus?

Based on the results, no.

Only because

of the results?

Only because

of the results.

So, if there was no

reporter, it would be okay?

Are you asking me,

or are you telling me?

I'm asking you.

If he hadn't come,

no one would have known.

What about the

morality of it?

With terrorism

there are no morals.

Find morals in

terrorists first.

And if he surrendered?

It's not a moral problem.

Then what is it?

It's a tactical problem,

not strategic.

So for you, the decision to

kill the two terrorists...

You keep painting it black and white.

There are decisions that...

Two captured terrorists

were killed.

Why are you

caught up on that?

I'm trying to understand

the morality of it.

There is no morality

in a case like that.

In the war against terror,

forget about morality.

When there's a one-ton bomb,

forget about morality.

The First Intifada was the

charge that blew up this room,

with all the explosives,

because it occurred

spontaneously.

A nation rose up and tried

to launch a revolution,

to kick us out.

I was second in command here

in the Southern District.

A wave of mass

protests erupted,

bigger than

anything we'd seen.

Hundreds and thousands of

people took to the street.

Only live fire

could stop them.

The number of people

on the Shin Bet's wanted list

may have been the largest of any

intelligence agency anywhere.

Dozens in every region,

hundreds, thousands...

PERY. Explain how the Shin Bet,

which controlled the territory,

didn't foresee an insurrection

of this magnitude.

What intelligence agency foresaw

the fall of the Berlin Wall?

To complain that the Shin Bet

should have foreseen it...

Formally, in principle,

yes, it should have.

That was the expectation.

That's why you

operate systems,

maintain enormous intelligence

factories... Correct.

But you have to

tell the truth.

Almost all the intelligence

agencies in the world

failed to foresee

major historical events.

You ask yourself,

"Where did I go wrong?"

Not in the sense

that I rule over them,

but should I have

let this happen,

or should I have left before

they said, "Get out. "

But those questions are more

philosophical than practical.

They're

the most interesting.

Yes, but listen.

You can't...

Most of them don't

have definitive answers.

I don't need

definitive answers.

There were plenty of instances

since 1967, when, in my opinion,

and I thought

it then, too,

we should have reached

an agreement and got out.

Why didn't you say so?

We all have our criticisms,

but it's not

within my mandate

to convince the Prime Minister to

go to the Palestinians or not.

It also depends on who's

dealing with the issue.

Prime Minister Yitzhak

Shamir never believed

that an agreement with

the Arabs was possible.

Yitzhak Rabin

really did believe it.

If we ever

want a serious chance

at solving the

Palestinian-Israeli problem,

the time is now, and the

partner is the PLO,

which rid itself of the principles

that I despised them for.

The signing

of the Oslo Accords

between Israel

and the Palestinians

marked the first time that the

PLO officially announced that

it had abandoned

terror and violence

and recognized Israel's right

to exist in peace and security.

In return, Israel committed

itself to withdrawing its forces

from Gaza and

the Jericho region

and to transferring ail civilian

authority in the West Bank and Gaza

to the Palestinian

administration.

For us, the Oslo Accords

erupted in a single day.

Peri was head of

the Shin Bet then.

He updated me about Oslo.

He said, "Avi, listen.

We have to act quickly,

"to speak to the PLO's

representatives in the field

"and deal with

all the suspects

"because we can't keep

going after PLO suspects

"after we sign an

agreement in Washington. "

PERM It was amazing. The

first meeting was in Geneva.

Sitting in the lobby

was Jibril Rajoub,

and I, not me personally

but the Shin Bet,

put him in prison

when he was 16.

He sat in prison

for 18-20 years.

You see that you

are meeting people

whose desire for

peace and quiet,

whose desire

for an agreement

is no less

ambitious than yours.

It was very hard for me.

I felt like I was

doing something that...

I couldn't be doing this.

I chased after those people.

How could I sit

with terrorists?

They killed people.

Could I sit down with them?

To them, by the way,

I was also a terrorist.

As a Palestinian, he looks at you and

says, "You're a terrorist, too. "

How can that be?

Then you realize that...

"One man's terrorist is another

man's freedom fighter. "

The number one terrorist

enemy of Israel

until the day that

Arafat entered Gaza

was Fatah, the PLO.

All at once, the PLO

left the circle of terror.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad

filled that vacuum.

We wondered how the

Palestinians will function.

How committed are they

to fighting terrorism

in those areas

that they control.

We also asked how we

could prevent terrorism

if we no longer control

the Territories.

The first bus bombing

I saw was the 5 bus in 1994.

It was the first suicide

bombing in Tel Aviv.

I'll never forget it.

It was the first time I felt

I couldn't isolate myself

from that sight, from the

stench of burning bodies.

I'll never forget it.

Later it passed. I saw

many other bus attacks.

It continued with the horrible

attack at the Beit Lid Junction

and the Stock Exchange

and the 18 bus in Jerusalem.

The feeling in the Shin Bet

whenever there's an attack

that we couldn't prevent

is a horrible sense of

failure, disappointment,

especially if the

attack is a large one.

There's a real sense

of disappointment.

How did we fail

to prevent it?

It was the lowest

point in the Shin Bet

that I remember in my 32-33

years in the organization.

As the suicide

attacks increased,

as long as Hamas played the

main role in these attacks,

the need to use moderate physical

pressure in interrogations increased.

Interrogating Hamas and Islamic

Jihad is much more difficult.

Anyone willing to

sacrifice his life,

whether it's for the virgins

in paradise or not,

has nothing to lose.

Things get more complicated

with a "ticking time bomb. "

it basically means that you

have information or a lead

about a possible

terrorist attack,

whether suicide or other.

In any event, people will die

and the way to find out,

"Yes, no, if so, where?"

lies with the person

you're interrogating.

You use all sorts

of techniques

that reduce his

ability to resist.

The interrogation techniques

we were allowed were

sleep deprivation,

sitting handcuffed in a painful,

degrading, exhausting position.

What do you get

out of covering their heads?

It's pitch black, and you lose

your sense of where you are.

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