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April 27, 2007
My life as an Israeli operative
Victoria native worked for Mossad around the world.
LEVI BARNETT
"By way of deception, thou shalt do war." Thus reads
the motto of one of the world's most revered intelligence networks,
which forces its agents to operate undercover, using subterfuge
and their wits to pass themselves off as ordinary businesspeople
and journalists. They live out of hotels, use fake names and travel
incessantly.
It's called "the office" by its own employees, and readers
can now know more about this group thanks to Michael Ross. The locally
raised Ross (not his real name) is the author of The Volunteer,
a newly published book about his experiences as a Canadian who served
in Israel's overseas intelligence agency, the Mossad.
As a secret agent, Ross lived for years with false papers and assumed
identities.
"When I came back to Canada, it was really awkward because
no matter what I was doing, people would ask me, 'So what did you
used to do?' " he explained in a recent interview with the
Independent. "I got really tired of the obfuscation. And,
you know, I felt that I wasn't going to go into investment banking,
I wasn't going to sell Frosted Flakes on TV or anything, so I thought,
'In order to enter the real world, I've got to bring people into
my world,' and I thought the book was a really good vehicle to do
that."
The Volunteer, written with National Post columnist
Jonathan Kay, is a record of Ross's experience watching potential
targets and planning secret military strikes over a 13-year career
in Mossad. While it's a fascinating look at a very secretive organization,
Ross acknowledged that his book doesn't give everything away when
it comes to how Mossad operatives go about their business.
"I've been pretty circumspect," he said. "Quite honestly,
there's very little in there that you couldn't get off the Internet,
in terms of the operational sort of details."
Now living back in Canada, Ross thinks that Mossad is relevant to
this country.
"It does impact Canadians, even on an operational level,"
said Ross, in reference to his work combatting anti-Israel groups.
"Transnational terrorist groups are exactly what they are,
transnational. So they're in Montreal, they're in Iraq and they're
in Europe ... they're everywhere. I mean these guys, the jihadists
and Islamists ... it's like Whack-a-Mole, you hit them here and
they pop up somewhere else. And they're very tenacious."
The book is called The Volunteer because Ross found himself
at the centre of an exclusively Jewish organization. This was rare
for someone from another background. "I don't know of any other
case. I mean, I'm the only one I know," said Ross, who takes
his conversion to Orthodox Judaism and service to Israel seriously.
As a field agent, Ross gathered intelligence on missile shipments,
disrupted meetings of Israel's enemies and ushered Jews safely out
of Zimbabwe as it collapsed under Robert Mugabe in 2000. This last
part of Ross's work was in Mossad's Bitzur unit, which watches out
for the safety of Jews worldwide.
"Sometimes the Jewish communities bear the brunt for Israel's
actions. That's a huge burden to carry," said Ross, adding
that Israel feels an obligation to protect Diaspora Jews. While
operating out of Southeast Asia, Ross uncovered a plot by Hezbollah
to attack Singapore's main synagogue, and had to identify the perpetrators
before they struck.
He noted that enemies of Israel "don't see a differentiation
between Jews and Israelis.
"They just see it all as one global kind of conspiracy and,
yeah, Israel's in the trenches, but they're just representative
of the Jewish community; the world community, at large. [It's] like
the AMIA bombing in Argentina. I mean, we take out Sheikh Abbas
Moussaoui in south Lebanon and they take out a Jewish community
centre in Argentina ... that's the kind of mentality we're dealing
with."
After several years in the field, Ross took a job at Mossad headquarters.
"If you walked down the hallway, it's like being in the UN,"
he said. "You hear every language under the sun, because everyone
is operating overseas."
English was Ross's language, though, and he used it as a liaison
with the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which
shares intelligence with Israel.
"The only people that would really have cause to be upset with
me [about publishing the memoir] are the Americans," said Ross,
"because some of the things they do [that] I describe in the
book don't make them look very good."
Israel's intelligence community works with more countries than just
the United States, however. "There's a whole department that
works with countries that don't want to acknowledge that they have
a relationship with Israel," said Ross.
European nations play a big part in the espionage relationship as
well. "[French president] Chirac can stand up and make, you
know, crazy declarations about Israel, in France," Ross explained,
"but the French DSGE [the French intelligence service] will
work very closely with their Mossad counterpart. Politics never,
ever come into it."
Ross hopes his book will let Canadian readers see more about the
intricacies of how governments go about policy on the covert level.
"There's a bit of a dearth in this country of people who really
have a grasp of the dynamics involved in what's going on in the
Middle East," he suggested.
Ross has roughed up Iranian secret agents. He's helped foil terrorist
attacks. He is aware of threats that most civilians will never know
about. Mossad taught Ross many things, including being on the lookout.
It leaves him concerned about what's to come.
"I think Canadian Jews are always going to have to be vigilant,"
he said. "This sort of anti-Semitism that's directed at them,
it's because of what's going on in the Middle East. That's just
the reality."
Levi Barnett is a student at the University of British
Columbia.
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