ISRAEL

Rabin Assassination

Amon, Moshe. "Cultural Clues: The Nature of Intelligence After Rabin's Assassination." International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 9, no. 1 (Spring 1996): 1-15.

The author believes the clues pointing toward an assassination attempt by a Jew were clear. The question is why the security forces failed to see the obvious. One reason was that Israeli security forces failed to understand the full significance of the anti-Rabin rhetoric of the extreme right-wing. The argument here is basically one of mirror-imaging as an impediment to seeing the existing situation.

Bartholet, Jeffrey, and Tom Masland. "Spooking the Spooks: Inside a Besieged, Once Proud Security Agency." Newsweek, 18 Mar. 1996, 37.

Problems in wake of the Rabin assassination.

Goller, Howard. "New Shin Bet Head Named." Reuter 14 Jan. 1996.

On 14 January 1996, Reuters reported that Rear Admiral Ami Ayalon, 50, had been named to head the Shin Bet. Ayalon had been Israel's navy commander until his retirement two weeks ago. The announcement came from Prime Minister Shimon Peres' office and was the first time that Israel had publicly identified the Shin Bet security chief. In another first, Ayalon is the first Shin Bet chief to come from outside the agency. Ayalon "succeeds a man who was identified only as 'Kaf' until the Washington Post went public with his name" -- Karmi Gillon -- on 11 January 1996. Gillon quit over Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassination.

Greenberg, Joel. "Israeli Press Lifts Cover Off Spy Chief." New York Times, 19 Mar. 1996, A4.

Indinopulos, Thomas. "Shin Bet's Blind Side." International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 10, no. 1 (Spring 1997): 91-96.

Shin Bet and the Israeli political leaders initially misread the Intifada, seeing its origins in outside agitators rather than in the Palestinian camps and villages. Similar mistakes were made in Shin Bet's failure to protect Yitzhak Rabin; that is, Shin Bet and the politicians misread the nature of "the internal Jewish threat to state security and stability. In both cases, intelligence was not sufficient to get beyond skewed political assessments."

Prince-Gibson, Eetta. "Israeli Assassination Report Berates Security Agency, Top Officials." Washington Post, 29 Mar. 1996, A30.

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