Part 12 (2/2)
On August 27, 2001, an Israeli helicopter fired two rockets into the office of Abu Ali Mustafa, secretary-general of the PFLP. One of the rockets struck him as he sat at his desk.
The following day, more than fifty thousand outraged Palestinians, along with Mustafa's family, attended his funeral. Mustafa had opposed the peace process and the Oslo Accords. Nevertheless, he was a moderate like my father, and we had gone together to hear him lecture many times.
Israel credited him with nine car-bomb attacks, but it wasn't true. Like my dad, he was a political leader, not a military leader. Israel had absolutely no evidence against him. I knew that for a fact. But it didn't matter. They a.s.sa.s.sinated Mustafa anyway-perhaps in retaliation for the carnage at the Sbarro restaurant, or perhaps because of the Dolphinarium ma.s.sacre. More likely, they simply wanted to send a message to Ya.s.ser Arafat. In addition to his role in the PFLP, Mustafa was also a member of the PLO's Executive Committee.
Two weeks later, on September 11, nineteen Al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four jetliners in the United States. Two crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City. Another crashed into the Pentagon in Was.h.i.+ngton. And the fourth went down in a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. All told, 2,973 people died in addition to the terrorists themselves.
As the news media struggled to keep up with the unbelievable events continuing to unfold, I sat with the rest of the world watching again and again the reports of the Twin Towers collapsing, white ash covering Church Street like a February blizzard. I felt a rush of shame when I saw the footage of Palestinian children celebrating in the streets of Gaza.
The attack reduced the Palestinian cause to ashes, too, as the world shouted with one voice against terrorism-any terrorism, for any cause. In the weeks to follow, the s.h.i.+n Bet began searching for lessons to be found in the rubble of what would come to be known simply as 9/11.
Why had the U.S. intelligence services not been able to prevent the disaster? For one thing, they operated independently and compet.i.tively. For another, they relied mostly on technology and rarely collaborated with terrorists. Those tactics may have been fine in the Cold War, but it's pretty tough to combat fanatical ideals with technology.
Israeli intelligence, on the other hand, relied mostly on human resources; had countless spies in mosques, Islamic organizations, and leaders.h.i.+p roles; and had no problem recruiting even the most dangerous terrorists. They knew they had to have eyes and ears on the inside, along with minds that understood motives and emotions and that could connect the dots.
America understood neither Islamic culture nor its ideology. That, combined with open borders and lax security, made it a much softer target than Israel. Even so, although my role as a spy enabled Israel to take hundreds of terrorists off the streets, our work couldn't begin to put an end to terrorism-even in a tiny country like Israel.
About a month later, on October 17, four PFLP gunmen walked into the Jerusalem Hyatt Hotel and a.s.sa.s.sinated Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Ze'evi. They said it was revenge for the Mustafa a.s.sa.s.sination. Despite his seemingly apolitical portfolio, Ze'evi was an obvious target. He publicly advocated a policy of making life so miserable for the three million people in the West Bank and Gaza that they would voluntarily move to other Arab countries. Mixing his metaphors, Ze'evi reportedly once told an a.s.sociated Press reporter that some Palestinians were like ”lice” who should be stopped like a ”cancer spreading within us.”8 t.i.t for tat, the reciprocal killing continued. An eye for an eye-and there was no shortage of eyes.
For several years now, I had worked hard to gather every sc.r.a.p of information I could to help the s.h.i.+n Bet stop the bloodbath. We continued to keep an eye on Muhammad Jamal al-Natsheh, Saleh Talahme, and the other three guys I had stashed away after their release from the PA prison compound. They changed locations several times, and only Saleh kept in touch with me. But we tracked the others through their families and by monitoring calls on public telephones.
Saleh trusted me, always told me where he was living, and frequently invited me to visit. As I got to know him, I found that I really liked Saleh. He was an amazing man-a brilliant scholar, graduating at the top of his electrical engineering cla.s.s and one of the best students in the history of Birzeit University. To him, I was the son of Ha.s.san Yousef, a good friend and a good listener.
I spent a lot of time with Saleh; his wife, Majeda; and their five children (two boys and three girls). Their older son was named Mosab, like me. Majeda and the kids had come to Ramallah from Hebron to spend a little time with Saleh in his apartment hideout. I was still working on my degree at the time, and one evening, Saleh asked me how school was going.
”Any problems with anything?”
”Yeah, Economical Statistics.”
”Okay, tomorrow you bring the book and we'll sit down together and study. It will be our own little cla.s.s.”
When I told Loai and others in the s.h.i.+n Bet about it, they were pleased. They thought that these tutoring sessions would make a good cover for intelligence gathering.
But it wasn't entirely a cover. Saleh and I were becoming friends. He taught me, and I actually did very well on the exam a couple of weeks later. I loved him, and I loved his children. I often ate with the family, and over time, a strong bond began to form among all of us. It was a strange relations.h.i.+p because I knew that by now Saleh had become a very dangerous guy. But then again, so had I.
One night in March 2002, I was sitting at home when two men came to the door.
Suspicious, I asked, ”How can I help you?”
”We're looking for Sheikh Ha.s.san Yousef. It's important.”
”Tell me why it's important.”
They explained that they were two of the five suicide bombers who had just arrived from Jordan. Their contact had been arrested, and they needed a safe place to stay.
”Okay,” I said. ”You came to the right place.”
I asked what they needed.
”We have a car full of explosives and bombs, and we need someplace safe to leave it.”
Great, I thought, I thought, what am I going to do with a car stuffed with explosives? what am I going to do with a car stuffed with explosives? I had to think quickly. I decided to keep their car in the garage beside our house. It was obviously not one of my brighter ideas, but I was forced to think on my feet. I had to think quickly. I decided to keep their car in the garage beside our house. It was obviously not one of my brighter ideas, but I was forced to think on my feet.
”Okay, here's some money,” I said, emptying my wallet. ”Go find a place to stay, get back to me here tonight, and we'll figure out what to do.”
After they left, I called Loai, and to my relief, the s.h.i.+n Bet came and took the car away.
All five suicide bombers returned a short time later. ”Okay,” I told them, ”from now on, I am your connection to Hamas. I will provide your targets, locations, transportation, everything you need. Do not talk to anyone else, or you might be dead before you have a chance to kill any Israelis.”
This situation const.i.tuted an extraordinary windfall in terms of intelligence. Up to now, no one ever knew about suicide bombers before they detonated their explosives. Suddenly, five of them had shown up at my door with a carload of bombs. Thirty minutes after I told the s.h.i.+n Bet their location, Prime Minister Sharon authorized their a.s.sa.s.sinations.
”You can't do that,” I told Loai.
”What!”
”I know they are terrorists, and they are about to blow themselves up. But those five men are ignorant. They don't know what they're doing. You can't kill them. If you kill them, this is my last operation.”
”Are you threatening us?”
”No, but you know how I work. I made an exception once with Halawa, and you remember how that ended. I will not be part of killing people.”
”What option is there?”
”Arrest them,” I said, though even as I spoke the words, I knew it was a crazy idea. We had the car and the bombs, but these guys still had their belts. If a soldier got within a hundred yards of their one-room flat, they would detonate the belts and take everybody with them.
Even if we managed to get them out alive without anybody else getting killed, they would be sure to mention my name to their interrogators, and I would be burned for sure. Self-preservation told me the safest thing for all concerned was just to let a helicopter fire a couple of missiles into their apartment and be done with it.
But my conscience was being rewired. Though not yet a Christian, I was really trying to follow the ethical teachings of Jesus. Allah had no problem with murder; in fact, he insisted on it. But Jesus held me to a much higher standard. Now I found I couldn't kill even a terrorist.
At the same time, I had become far too valuable to the s.h.i.+n Bet for them to risk losing me. They weren't happy about it, but they finally agreed to call off the a.s.sa.s.sination.
”We have to know what is going on inside that room,” they told me. I headed over to the apartment under the pretext of taking the bombers a few pieces of simple furniture. What they didn't know was that we had placed bugs inside the furniture that allowed us to hear every word they said. Together, we listened in as they discussed who would go first, second, third, etc. Everyone wanted to be first, so they didn't have to watch their friends die. It was eerie. We were listening to dead men talking.
On March 16, security forces troops moved into position. The bombers were in the center of Ramallah, so the IDF couldn't bring in tanks. Because the troops had to go in on foot, the operation was very dangerous. I followed the events from my place, as Loai talked to me on the phone and kept me informed of everything that was going on.
”They are going to sleep.”
We all waited until sounds of snoring came across the monitors.
The greatest risk was waking them too soon. The troops had to get through the door and reach the beds before any bomber could move a muscle.
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