Why Did CIA Collaborate With Israeli Government?

In his 1980 book Ropes of Sand, former CIA Middle East Representative Wilbur Crane Eveland characterized the American Friends of the Middle East group as "a CIA front organization set up partially to counter Zionist propaganda in the U.S.." Yet despite funding certain anti-Zionist groups in the U.S., the CIA has, historically, been an ally of the Israeli government.

In his Ropes of Sand, Eveland recalled how former CIA Director Allen Dulles explained to him in the late 1950s why the CIA decided to collaborate with the Israeli government:

"Allen Dulles and I met to discuss my future…Dulles then embarked on a soliloquy concerning the CIA's responsibility to strengthen its anticommunist operations by any means available…Financing friendly intelligence services was a classic intelligence technique, Dulles continued. Regretably, he said, our joint operations with the Iraqi, Lebanese, Jordanian, and Saudi Arabian governments had revealed that their people were rank amateurs.

"We sat in silence as I watched the now familiar pipe-filling, tamping, and lighting ritual. `I guess that leaves Israel's intelligence service as the only one on which we can count, doesn't it, Eveland?' were his next words…There was nothing new about this collaboration, he told me: the CIA and Israel's Mossad had worked jointly to monitor developments within the Soviet Union and Russia's satellites…After the 1956 Suez War, Prime Minister Ben-Gurion had refused to withdraw his forces from the Sinai and Gaza until the United States agreed to provide Israel with the means to protect its population centers from attack…The CIA had therefore been secretly authorized to help Israel acquire the capability of retaliating against possible attack by advanced weapons in the hands of the Arabs. Since then, Dulles continued, the CIA and Mossad had jointly monitored Russian arms shipments to the Middle East and had also mounted combined operations against Soviet influence in the Egyptian and Syrian intelligence services. Now that Iraq had been taken over by anti-Western elements, access to Israel's network in the Arab countries would be even more useful to the CIA. For all these reasons, then, the director concluded, Norman Paul's replacement would coordinate intelligence operations in the Middle East with James Angleton's counterintelligence-counterespionage division (in which liaison with Israel's Mossad was maintained)."

A long-time U.S. left critic of the CIA's historical record in Indochina, Latin America and the Middle East, Noam Chomsky, made the following reference to the CIA's historical alliance with the Israeli government during the 1960s, in his book Towards A New Cold War:

"…Israeli power protected the `monarchical regimes' of Jordan and Saudi Arabia from `a militarily strong Egypt' in the 1960s, thus securing American interests in the major oil-producing regions…

"During the 1960s, the U.S.-Israel alliance benefitted American imperial interests not only in the Middle East but in Africa as well. Recent revelations of CIA payments to King Hussein of Jordan have emphasized the role that he and other Arab leaders play `in extending American influence in the oil-rich area…' Far less attention has been paid to reports, made public at the same time, that `secret, under-the-table CIA payments amounting to `tens of millions'--far more than any sums paid to Jordan's King Hussein--have been regularly funnelled to Israel's intelligence service for control and disbursement by the prime minister's office' since about 1960…

"…According to Evans and Novak, these `huge Israeli subsidies' were `designed to finance Israeli `penetration' of the politics, culture, economics and military organizations of black African states rapidly moving out of colonialism into independence.' They report further that `one of the best dividends from this CIA investment came in Zaire…' where `President Mobutu…might not have emerged the victor without Israel's help.'…Edward Behr reports that CIA payments to Israel in the mid-1960s amounted to millions of dollars and that `in the late 1960s, checks for several hundred thousand dollars each were frequently delivered by U.S. government officials to the Israeli foreign ministry in Jerusalem…to be channelled to the African recipients.'…"

In addition, according to the 1991 book by Andrew and Leslie Cockburn, Dangerous Liaison: The Inside Story of the U.S.-Israeli Covert Relationship:

"One long-serving official at the CIA's ancient rival, the code-breaking National Security Agency, states flatly that `Jim Angleton and the Israelis spent a year cooking up the '67 war. It was a CIA operation, designed to get Nasser.' Such a verdict, from a source inside an agency that had the inclination and the facilities to monitor both the CIA and the Israelis, must carry some weight."

More recently, the CIA has apparently been working with the Israeli government in attempting to disrupt Iran's nuclear development program. According to NY Times reporter James Risen's 2006 book State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration:

"The Counterproliferation Division within the CIA's Directorate of Operations, the agency's clandestine espionage arm, came up with MERLIN and other clandestine operations as creative, if unorthodox, ways to try to penetrate Tehran's nuclear development program. In some cases, the CIA has worked jointly with Israeli intelligence on such operations, according to people familiar with the covert program...

"One bizarre plan called for the sabotage of Iran's electrical grid in areas of the country near its secret nuclear installations…The plan called for an electromagnetic pulse device that could be smuggled into Iran…

"The CIA worked with Mossad, Israel's spy service, on the plan, and Mossad agents volunteered to smuggle the devices into Iran. The Israelis told the CIA that they had Iranian agents who would carry out the plan on their behalf."

In her 2004 book, Denial and Deception: An Insider's View of the CIA from Iran-Contra to 9/11, a former undercover CIA field operative in the Middle East named Melissa Boyle Mahle also made some reference to how the CIA collaborates with its Israeli government ally:

"…Operations officers proposed kidnapping Hizballah leaders…Many in operations thought the Israelis had the right approach…In early 1996…the Directorate of Operations was working against Palestinian extremists…President Clinton announced…in March 1996 that…the United States…would also provide additional intelligence and technical assistance to the Israelis…I moved from one assignment in the Persian Gulf to another in the Occupied Territories--Gaza and the West Bank. I had the opportunity to be part of some incredible operations…"

Given the history of CIA-Israeli government collaboration in the Middle East during the last half-century, it's not surprising that the U.S. imperialist government presently supports the Israeli war machine's brutal 2006 war in Gaza and Lebanon.