Yesterday, the Jerusalem Post reported that two accused Lebanese spies for Israel and their families fled to Israel.
Two Lebanese citizens suspected of spying for Israel have fled the country and crossed the heavily fortified border into Israel, a senior Lebanese security official said Monday.
The official said the men, one of them a 49-year-old mathematics teacher, entered Israel Monday morning through a gate at the border fence near Kibbutz Bar Am. Each man was accompanied by two of his children, according to the official.
The account suggests that they may have coordinated their escapes with Israel, but doesn’t say so explicitly. Still I share Israel Matzav’s skepticism that they really were spies. There have been a number of Lebanese accused of being spies for Israel lately. No doubt a part of the reason has been Israel’s secret war against Iran. Ronen Bergman lists a number of episodes:
On July 12, 2006, thanks to precise intelligence, the Israeli Air Force destroyed almost the entire stock of Hezbollah’s long-range rockets stored in underground warehouses. Hezbollah was shocked.
In July 2007, another mysterious accident occurred in a missile factory jointly operated by Iran and Syria at a Syrian site called Al-Safir. The production line — which armed Scud missiles with warheads — was shut down and many were killed.
In September 2007, Israel destroyed a nuclear reactor built by Syria and aided by North Korea in Dir A-Zur — despite Syria’s significant efforts to keep it a secret. With indirect authorization from a very high ranking Israeli official, the CIA published incriminating pictures obtained by Israel of the site before it was bombed. These photos convinced the world that the Syrians were indeed attempting to manufacture a nuclear bomb.
In February 2008, Hezbollah’s military leader, Imad Mughniyah, was killed in Damascus. In August of that year, Gen. Mohammed Suliman, a liaison to Hamas and Hezbollah who participated in the Syrian nuclear project, was assassinated by a sniper.
In December 2008, Israel initiated operation Cast Lead, which dealt Hamas a massive blow. Most of its weapons were destroyed within days by Israeli air strikes. (Israel also knew where the Hamas leadership was hiding, but since it was in a hospital Mr. Olmert refused to authorize the strike.) In January 2009, Israeli Hermes 450 drones attacked three convoys in Sudan that were smuggling weapons from Iran to the Gaza Strip.
(I’ve been skeptical that Israel killed Mughniyah, but Bergman knows more than I do.) Bergman though writes:
These are all excellent achievements, but did they change reality? Mostly not.
I won’t give him any argument on this point, but these hits are making Iran and Hezbollah nervous.
UPDATE: Tom Gross points out that Bergman is very well connected and believes that the article may have included a message:
In addition to alerting people outside Israel, Bergman’s piece may well have the Israeli leadership in mind. In this respect it performs a similar function to a recent article in Ha’aretz by that paper’s intelligence correspondent Yossi Melman (who also has excellent contacts in Israeli intelligence). Both pieces serve as a warning from the Israeli intelligence community to Prime Minister Netanyahu, urging him not to give in to Obama’s pressure and back away from taking decisive action on the Iranian issue.
Crossposted on Yourish.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
