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ISRAEL’S ASSASSINATION PROGRAM AND ITS TIES TO US INTELLIGENCE  
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James Bamford
August 9, 2024
The Nation
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_ After Israel carried out assassinations in Lebanon and Iran, the
prospect of war looms over the Middle East. _

The aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt arrives in Pearl Harbor,
Hawaii, April 27, 2018., Petty Officer 3rd Class Jessica Blackwell /
Navy Public Affairs Support Element Detachment Hawaii / Smith
Collection / Gado / Getty Images

 

Last Saturday, in the early afternoon, the massive US nuclear-powered
supercarrier USS _Theodore Roosevelt_
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slowly from the Gulf of Oman north into the narrow channel of the
Strait of Hormuz. Appropriately nicknamed “the Big Stick,” it was
on its way to the Persian Gulf, where it will take aim, like a primed
and loaded cannon, directly at Iran. That was the same place it saw
action during the Gulf War against Iraq in 1991, supporting aircraft
that dropped nearly 5 million pounds of bombs on the country. Now
back, it’s once again cocked, loaded with fighter jets, and ready
for another bloody war, while escorted by heavily armed destroyers,
cruisers, and submarines. To provide additional support for
the _Roosevelt_, last Saturday Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also
ordered to the region the nuclear carrier USS _Abraham Lincoln_,
along with its battle fleet of fighters, destroyers, and cruisers
armed with both offensive and defensive ballistic missiles.

But this time it would be different. Instead of a war to rid the
region of a brutal Iraqi dictator, it would be a war risking American
lives and spending billions of American dollars to support a brutal
Israeli prime minister—one facing multiple felony charges in an
Israeli court, and numerous charges of war crimes in The Hague. The
catalyst for what many fear could soon become a new and deadly
regional war was Israel’s recent dual assassinations. The first, in
Beirut’s southern suburbs, targeted Fouad Shukr, a senior Hezbollah
commander and adviser on military affairs to Hasan Nasrallah,
secretary-general of Hezbollah. Also killed was an Iranian military
adviser along with three women and two children; at least 74 people
were injured.

About a day later, Israel carried out another assassination, this one
in Tehran and directed at Ismail Haniyeh, the man leading the
negotiations on behalf of Hamas to bring a ceasefire to the long war
in Gaza. As the group’s political leader, much of Haniyeh’s
extended family had been killed by Israeli soldiers, and now he was
among them. For Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the murder
of Haniyeh, in the works for months, was a big win. Since the start of
the war, the Israeli leader had found every opportunity and excuse to
delay and frustrate the ongoing peace talks so he could continue the
war. “The prime minister has recently foiled the chances of
achieving a deal, in part by toughening Israel’s positions in the
latest negotiations after Hamas had shown a certain amount of
flexibility,” noted _Haaretz_
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week.

Now with the opposing negotiator eliminated, there was nothing
standing in the way of his total annihilation of the Palestinian
population in Gaza. “How can mediation succeed when one party
assassinates the negotiator on the other side?” asked
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Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, who had been heavily
involved in the talks. Thus, unimpeded by negotiations, the carnage
continued. On Sunday Israel unleashed brutal strikes
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two schools in Gaza City, where thousands of displaced persons were
sheltering, killing at least another 30 Palestinians. An eyewitness to
the attack, Osama Labad, told _The Washington Post_ that women and
children were among the dead and injured.

On Saturday, Iran informed Arab diplomats
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“it didn’t care if the response triggered a war,” reported _The
Wall Street Journal_. Should his decision to murder Haniyeh spark a
bloody regional war, Netanyahu was confident that the US would, as
always, come to Israel’s defense. “Our support for Israel’s
security is ironclad and unwavering against all Iran-backed threats,
including Hezbollah,” a State Department spokesperson said
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almost robotically.

In fact, the Carnegie Endowment’s Michael Young believes
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the rapid one-two timing of the double assassinations “strongly
suggests that Benjamin Netanyahu may be trying to railroad the United
States into a military confrontation with Iran.” Just prior to the
assassinations, Iran’s new reformist president, Masoud Pezeshkian,
had been seeking to improve the country’s relations with the West,
something very worrisome to Netanyahu.

Only now, as a deadly new war looms on the horizon putting Americans
at serious risk, is President Joe Biden beginning to understand how
long and how badly he has allowed himself, and the country, to be
duped by Netanyahu. “Biden realized that Netanyahu was lying to him
about the hostages,” a senior White House official candidly
admitted
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Saturday. The official was referring to Biden’s speech on May 31
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which he laid out what he said was an Israeli-approved plan for a Gaza
ceasefire and a hostage release. But it was neither. Netanyahu had no
intention of agreeing to it, leaving Biden to dangle embarrassingly in
the wind for months, unable to show any progress at the negotiating
table. “He’s not saying it publicly yet, but in the meeting
between them, he specifically told him, ‘Stop bullshitting me,’”
the official added, referring to the White House meeting with
Netanyahu after the prime minister’s address to Congress. The White
House official then charged, “Netanyahu is trying to prolong the war
instead of focusing on how to get to a hostage deal. It’s making it
harder for us to continue supporting Israel over time.” It was an
extraordinary series of admissions from a White House normally silent
on disagreements with Israel.

Long before the two most recent attacks, Netanyahu had already turned
Israel into Assassination, Inc. In Iran alone, Israeli agents have
assassinated more than half a dozen scientists and engineers involved
with that country’s nuclear program. With no pushback on Israel from
the White House, it is apparently expected that Iran should simply
accept such violent attacks on its citizens with no retribution. In
2019, for example, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a top scientist, was killed by
a remote-controlled robot gun
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had been concealed at the side of a road outside Tehran.

In a new Middle East war, as in all the previous ones, it would likely
be Americans, not Israelis, who would fight and die—especially
because of the widespread suspicion that the US was at least aware of,
if not behind, the assassinations. Shortly after the murder of
Haniyeh, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said it emphasizes US
“responsibility
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for the assassination because of its support for Israel. And Iran
therefore has “the right to respond appropriately against this
aggressive action against its sovereignty”—an action that could be
directed at US interests both abroad and at home. In a short and
seemingly carefully worded statement, US Secretary of State Antony
Blinken said
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“This is something we were not aware of or involved in. It’s very
hard to speculate.”

The problem is, for decades the US and Israel have had highly secret
intelligence-sharing arrangements that have included “frameworks”
dealing with the topic of providing assistance for
assassinations—targeted killings. This was revealed in several Top
Secret/Codeword documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
One, dated March 27, 2006, was written by Cindy Farkus, the NSA’s
assistant deputy director for Analysis and Production. It deals with
her visit to Israel’s equivalent of NSA, the Israeli SIGINT National
Unit (ISNU), also sometimes referred to simply as Unit 8200. In the
memorandum, she makes it clear how important the intelligence-sharing
relationship has become to both spy organizations, calling it
“probably the most important relationship within NSA’s Third Party
Program.… It is viewed as the most productive and beneficial
Third-Party partnership conducted within the US Intelligence
Community.”

Another was written a few months later by an NSA liaison officer
temporarily assigned to the ISNU at the time of Israel’s war with
Hezbollah. It indicates that the Israelis may have access to the
highly classified computer network shared by America’s spy agencies.
“ISNU is well plugged in to the USIC [US Intelligence Community]
circuit, it was difficult at times to keep a step ahead of them,”
the officer says. But in addition to the massive amount of
intelligence shared with them, the Israelis kept demanding more,
including highly sophisticated geolocation information in order to
conduct assassinations, something prohibited by US law. Nevertheless,
bowing to Israel’s insistence that it be given an “exemption,”
in the end an apparent compromise was worked out:

ISNU’s reliance on NSA was equally demanding and centered on
requests for time-sensitive tasking, threat warning, including
tactical ELINT [Electronic Intelligence]. And receipt of geolocational
information on Hizballah elements. The latter request was particularly
problematic and I had several late-night, sometimes tense, discussions
with ISNU detailing NSA’s legal prohibition on providing information
that could be used in targeted killings. Even with his full
understanding of the US situation, BG [Dani] Harari [Commander of the
ISNU] sought assistance from NSA for an exemption to this legal
policy.… In the end, a framework was decided upon by ODNI [the US
Office of the Director of National Intelligence] that defined the
parameters and methods of what could and could not be shared with the
Israelis.… ISNU stressed their deep gratitude for the cooperation
and support they received from NSA.

Considering the over-the-top number of weapons and other support
provided to Israel by the Biden administration, it seems highly likely
that it would also be given whatever it asked for in terms of
intelligence—including targeting and geolocation details as well as
human source reporting, all of which could greatly assist in carrying
out assassinations. Such actions, however, have serious consequences,
including potentially involving the United States in another deadly
and prolonged Middle East war. And the longer the genocide continues,
the greater the chances of a large-scale regional war, with the US at
the center.

Netanyahu deliberately lied to the American president about a
hostages-and-ceasefire deal, and then brutally assassinated the other
side’s negotiator, possibly with the assistance of US intelligence,
so that he could continue his war crimes, assassinations, and
genocide. After Israel deliberately and violently has eliminated
diplomacy to end the slaughter, the only option left for the United
States is coercion. The Biden administration should immediately cut
off all weapons and financial aid to Israel, and begin applying harsh
sanctions—just as it is doing with Russia over its war in Ukraine.
As a lame-duck president, Biden has nothing to lose and a lot to gain,
not least of which would be leaving office without a bloody, unending
genocide and a potential new Middle East war as his lasting legacy.

_JAMES BAMFORD is a best-selling author, Emmy-nominated filmmaker, and
winner of the National Magazine Award for Reporting. His most recent
book is Spyfail: Foreign Spies, Moles, Saboteurs, and the Collapse of
America's Counterintelligence
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published by Twelve Books._

_Copyright c 2024 THE NATION. Reprinted with permission. May not be
reprinted without permission
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* Israel
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* assassination
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* Lebanon
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* Iran
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* Middle East war
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* U.S. Intelligence
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