"In the present era, the importance of Mossad and ISA is growing"
Yuval Steinitz, Minister of Intelligence, Strategic Affairs and
International Relations speaks to Israel Defense about the Israeli
intelligence services and about recent developments in the Middle East.
Exclusive
Amir Rapaport 31/8/2014
http://www.israeldefense.com/?CategoryID=483&ArticleID=3053

"In the present era, the importance of Mossad and ISA is growing" With the
collapse of the Iraqi Army last June in the background, senior Israeli
officials told their US colleagues that the American concept, according to
which the USA can assemble and train moderate local policing forces, has
collapsed.

"We told the Americans that not just the Iraqi Army they had built is
collapsing. Everywhere the Americans had tried that thing – they failed,"
says Yuval Steinitz, Minister of Intelligence, Strategic Affairs and
International Relations in an exclusive interview with Israel Defense in
late June, just before Operation Protective Edge had begun, and ISIS was yet
to be a household term in the West.

"For example, in the Gaza Strip, too, the Palestinian police forces were
beaten by Hamas in 2007, and now the same thing is happening in Iraq. The
substantial military forces the USA had established there are being defeated
by Islamist forces, who use the exact same methods Hamas had used –
including mass executions. It is equally clear that no future Palestinian
policing force operating in the Judea & Samaria region may be relied upon,
even if it were trained and equipped by the USA. If Israel does not control
that area, the Islamist forces will be able to dominate the territory there,
too."

Steinitz speaks from a perspective: in the last decade he has served in a
series of key positions in the Israeli government and in the Knesset, from
Chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, through
Minister of Finance, to his present position, in the context of which he was
placed in charge, on behalf of the Prime Minister, of three primary
intelligence agencies: Mossad, ISA and the Israel Atomic Energy Commission.
Steinitz regularly attends the meetings of the political-defense cabinet and
the limited-forum meetings of the Prime Minister with the heads of the
secret services.

One of Steinitz's primary roles is concentrating the efforts by all state
organs in an attempt to counter the Iranian nuclear program. In the context
of this effort, he maintains constant communication links with the
representatives of the western superpowers who conduct the negotiations with
Iran regarding the extension of the interim agreement. In the context of
this agreement, the economic sanctions imposed on Iran have already been
lifted in part and Iran, for its part, has suspended its nuclear efforts.
The first interim agreement will cease to be effective on July 20, 2014.

Let's talk about Israel's strategic state, beginning with Egypt. Do you
consider the recent victory of former military chief Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in
the general elections there as a development that is strategically important
to us?

"Indeed, it is in our best interest to have the political and economic
stability in Egypt restored. We want to eliminate the anarchy in the Sinai
and it is also important to remember that Egypt is the most important
country in the Arab world. It is important that it remains a central, stable
anchor. I wish el-Sisi and the Egyptian people that they take the high road
and succeed in their missions. At long last, the Egyptians are currently
operating against arms smuggling from the Sinai and into the Sinai. This has
never been done – even during the reign of Hosni Mubarak, and that is a
positive development."

Can you say, in the context of the recent developments in Egypt, in Iraq and
in Syria, that Israel is no longer under any significant military threat?

"When you look at the over-all military threat imposed on the State of
Israel, a significant change has taken place in the region. The severity of
state-sponsored military threats has decreased substantially. In the past,
the entire Arab world threatened Israel, but the significant military threat
came from three countries – Egypt, Syria and Iraq. That's where the most
substantial forces had been dispatched from in '48, in '67 and in '73, and
the force build-up processes they had there were aimed, to a considerable
extent, at the Israeli challenge. This threat has been lifted for the most
part.

"The Egyptian Army still exists and is still operative, but without the
severe crisis of the last three years which included an economic crisis as
well, the strengthening processes in Egypt would definitely have been more
extensive and faster. In such cases, the strengthening processes are
definitely decelerated while in the State of Israel we continued our
strengthening processes at full throttle.

"The Syrian Army and the Iraqi Army no longer exist in any significant form.
The Syrian Army is having a hard time coping with a rebel army, which is
inferior technologically and otherwise. It requires the assistance of
Hezbollah, it has lost more than half of its personnel, firepower and
artillery. There are gaps in all of the Syrian defensive layouts. In the
event of a flare-up, the Syrian Army will not be capable of coping with the
IDF in any significant manner. As far as the Syrian chemical weapon threat
is concerned, amazingly, that threat was eliminated, through an unusual
cooperative alliance between Russia and the USA. The elimination of the
chemical threat was a highly important development. The Syrian threat has
substantially diminished.

"The same goes for the threat from Iraq. The new Iraqi military had been
established, from the outset, without an air force and with only a small
amount of artillery and armored elements, and it is currently
disintegrating.

"The state-sponsored military threat is currently being replaced by a
significant threat of unrest and instability and such organizations as
Hezbollah, Hamas and Jihad – non-state organizations that entered the vacuum
and grew stronger. This has been a significant change of phase as far as
Israel is concerned.

"The conventional threat has substantially diminished, but the terrorism
threat on the one hand and on the other hand the instability from the
direction of Iran, namely – the unconventional threat, has significantly
increased. This is a threat we have not completely accepted yet and have not
fully prepared for yet".

Regarding the Iranian issue, are we succeeding in influencing the
negotiations between the superpowers and Iran? Do we really have the ability
to influence the agreement?

"We are not a world superpower. Among the states conducting the negotiations
with Iran, the P5+1, we have no formal standing. Nevertheless, we succeeded
in establishing for ourselves substantial influence and status regarding the
negotiations with Iran. We are present yet absent there.

"This had begun even prior to the interim agreement when, in personal
conversations with the French, we succeeded in convincing them to veto the
initial draft and include two demands – stop the construction of the heavy
water nuclear reactor in Arak, and neutralize all of the uranium enriched to
more than 20% grade.

"The neutralization process has almost been completed. With regard to these
two aspects we had a direct influence on the interim agreement. Since then
we have been engaged in a dialog, for which I am responsible, in cooperation
with all of the organs engaged in this task – the Israel Atomic Energy
Commission, the National Security Council and so forth, at the ministerial
level and below, vis-à-vis the intelligence services of the five
superpowers. Not a single week passes without meetings or intensive talks.

"If it were not for Israel, they may have already signed a bad agreement
with Iran. Two and a half months ago I managed, in cooperation with the
Prime Minister, to introduce a new argument into the international
discourse, according to which Iran as a threshold state, in terms of the
danger of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, will constitute an even
greater risk.

"Iran as a threshold state enjoying the legitimacy that stems from an
agreement will encourage Egypt, Algeria, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates
and Saudi Arabia to come forward and demand the same for themselves –
centrifuges under supervision. They will be able to say, if the world can
live with Iran in that state, we want to be like that, too, and then you
would have a situation where a bad agreement, in which Iran remains a
threshold state, will yield five or six additional threshold states
throughout the Arab-Muslim world, where the stability of those regimes
cannot be relied upon.

"We do have some influence. Without us, even the interim agreement would
have looked differently and the permanent agreement would have been less
favorable. It was a surprise that we managed to establish such a status,
owing to the high quality of our intelligence and the level of our
sophistication and understanding of the Iranians. At the same time, I am not
at all confident that we will reach the required achievement, namely – that
Iran remains years away from a nuclear weapon.

"If you ask for my estimate, the prospect of an agreement signed by July 20
exists, but the chances for it are not particularly high. There is a better
chance for a crisis in the talks, as the gaps are substantial, or for an
extension of two to three months."

The intelligence services for which you are responsible – Mossad, ISA and
the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, do they operate effectively?

"There is always room for improvement and updating, but all in all, the
three organs I am responsible for, alongside the Prime Minister, who was and
remains their supreme commander – function very well.

"These three organs are truly clandestine. No photographs from inside the
nuclear reactor or from the Mossad HQ or from a commander course graduation
ceremony are published in the media. There are no images from exercises of
these organs like the ones you get from IDF exercises. This are highly
sophisticated organs and their contribution to national security is
increasing, without degrading from the importance of the defense
establishment, owing to the changing of our arena.

"In the era of sub-state threats and the Iranian nuclear threat, the
importance of the Mossad and ISA has grown over the years. In the last year
I have met, in the context of our efforts vis-à-vis Iran, with the heads of
various secret services, like the Head of US National Intelligence, Lt. Gen.
James R. Clapper, the man in charge of all US intelligence agencies, the
heads of the British intelligence agencies and the heads of the intelligence
agencies of other European countries. They all share a tremendous
appreciation for the capabilities, professionalism, innovation and audacity
of Israeli intelligence – Mossad, an espionage agency regarded as the best
of its kind, ISA and the IDF Intelligence Directorate.

"It was a pleasure to see and hear. Almost all of them are interested in
cooperating with us. Our intelligence cooperation with the USA over the last
year has been excellent. We also cooperated with other western countries –
Canada, the UK, Italy, France, Germany and others, in strategic missions as
well as in counterterrorism missions. "But despite everything, despite all
of the admiration, we must not get over-excited. With intelligence there is
always a problem – you admire the achievements so much, you forget to
address what you cannot see. You forget to ask yourself whether all of these
fantastic achievements include the required achievement. Whether it is
sufficient or not. There is always an element that escapes you, even if you
have excellent intelligence. There is always room for improvement, even in
such successful systems as Mossad, ISA and the IDF Intelligence Directorate.