Shabak recruitment graphic quote from A.A. Milne: “You are braver than you believe. Stronger than you seem. And wiser than you think.”
Shabak wants YOU!!
Israel’s domestic spy agency, Shabak, offers lofty aspirational messages on its recruitment website which include quotations from Helen Keller, AA Milne and Albert Einstein. It’s just wonderful to know that despite the fact that most of these recruits will likely be shortly torturing Palestinians to secure false confessions, the agency takes the high ground, always setting its sights on the noble and grand in humankind.
Besides the wisdom of Pooh Bear, the site quotes Helen Keller: “Life is bold adventure or it is nothing!” and that patron of all secret police everywhere, Albert Einstein: “Creativity is to see what everyone else sees, and think what no one else ever thought.”
Of course, this campaign wasn’t devised by a Shabak agent. It was farmed out to a marketing firm which consulted their inspirational archives for suitably dull quotes to use. But the fact that the Shabak has thought fit to polish its image and update its recruitment posture in the marketplace is interesting.
Not to mention that the ironies which this marketing push has evoked cry out for comment. First, Helen Keller was deaf and blind. So the marketing experts perhaps should’ve chosen a more apt celebrity to quote. Albert Einstein would’ve detested everything the Shabak currently stands for. And A.A. Milne? Creator of the “bear with very little brain?” Well, what can you say about Israel’s secret police quoting Winnie the Pooh?
Finally, note the “bold” intelligence operation which Shabak touts on this web page. To attract new recruits, it boasts that it “took out” a radical left-wing Israeli Jewish “terror cell” in 1988 called “Shining Path.” The cell was a splinter from Matzpen, which itself was an offshoot of the Israeli Communist Party. These were truly dangerous bomb-throwing terrorists who couldn’t seem to have organized their way out of a paper bag.
The blurb doesn’t list any actual crime that the cell committed except “sheltering” Palestinian militants who were “wanted.” It doesn’t explain what the Israelis, who served several months in jail for their acts of “terrorism,” actually did; who they sheltered, or what the Palestinians were guilty of, if anything. Further, I’ve never heard of the words “Shining Path” in connection with any militant group either Jewish or Arab. So this must’ve been some fierce agent of anti-Zionist perfidy.
In truth, 90% of the work of Shabak has nothing to do with Israeli Jews. Rather, it focuses obsessively on Palestinians. The remaining 10% deals with Jewish settler terrorism: not stopping it, but managing it. As for the Jewish left, there hasn’t been an arrest or imprisonment of such an Israeli for terror-related offenses in decades. Even then, those arrested had never engaged in acts of violence. But in the current Israeli political climate, why not manufacture a leftist threat that doesn’t exist? If it’ll make your boss happy…
H/t to Igal Sarna and Ofer Neiman for this story.
A short comment on yesterday’s post about the Senate bill attempting to force Pres. Trump to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. Reports in today’s news add more context, noting that the bill sponsored by Adelson acolytes Sens. Dean Heller, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz would halve the State Department’s security budget if the embassy wasn’t moved to “Jerusalem, Israel’s eternal capital.” It would also rescind the president’s right to apply a waiver which suspends implementation of the law.
This security budget provides the personnel, equipment and training to secure our diplomats in dangerous postings around the world…like Israel…or Benghazi. The spectacle of Republicans holding months of hearings to drum up outrage at the fabricated scandal of Hillary Clinton allegedly permitting her Libya ambassador to burn to death because there was inadequate security, seems lost on these dull solons.
And why do they believe Trump needs to be forced into moving the embassy? Hasn’t he been sycophantic enough to the Lobby in promising to do so, and by naming a new ambassador who would move the embassy to the Temple Mount if he could?
Regarding the embassy bill – it seems to me this is a political opportunity to cash in on something they expect to happen anyway – but now they can also claim credit. This also might box-in Trump if he becomes unpredictable on this issue.
Regarding the use of a Keller quote – are you claiming people in general should refrain from using her quotations for the fear of having her physical attributes (which she admirable overcame) attributed to themselves?
@lepxii:
No, YOU are. Don’t put words in my mouth.
Shall we ask how many Shabak agents are deaf or blind or disabled or women? You know the answer as well as I.
[Comment deleted–off topic. Read the comment rules before trying to publish another comment here.]
Strange why they would highlight the “Shining Path” story on this website. What does this have to do with recruiting new henchmen? My guess is that the Shabak’s head (who is a settler) wants to weed out leftists from even applying (i.e. if you disagree that the Shining Path people were terrorists, don’t bother applying, etc).
As for the quotes – gross misuse, but predictable. These people are nothing if not huge cynics who use innocent things like Winnie the Pooh to further their nefarious agenda.
Statements like “most of these recruits will likely be shortly torturing Palestinians” and “90% of the work of Shabak has nothing to do with Israeli Jews” have nothing to do with reality. Beyond dealing with terrorism, Shabak is in charge of counter-espionage, personal protection of senior public officials, securing important infrastructure and government buildings, and safeguarding Israeli airlines and overseas embassies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_Bet#Duties_and_roles
Do you have any source to support your claim?
How is NSA doing with recruitment??? https://breydenhowell.wordpress.com/category/advertising/
https://breydenhowell.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/nsa-diversity-ad-concept-we-discriminate.jpg?w=590&h=763
@ Akiva:
All of these tasks involve targeting, arresting, torturing & imprisoning Arab suspects (whether guilty or not). The one case in which the Shabak was tasked to protect a senior public official from a Jewish terrorist, he was assassinated.
You & I both know that torture is a tool widely used by Shabak (despite a Supreme Court ruling largely outlawing it) and that the vast majority of the cases/individuals it “investigates” are Palestinians. So my claim still stands.
Remember that comments must be directly related to the post. Causing a needless hasbara diversion by raising the NSA is a comment rule violation.
“As for the Jewish left, there hasn’t been an arrest or imprisonment of such an Israeli for terror-related offenses in decades”
Actually, you did have the case of Tali Fahima
Also, many (if not most) Shabac workers are not even indirectly involved with arresting Palestinians (not to mention torture). The Protective Security Department (that Akiva Ben Simon mentioned) is huge (Particularly following the assignation of Rabin) and most of its employees- body guards, those who safeguard embassies, airlines, sensitive facilities etc will never arrest anyone in their whole career. Its not their job unless there is an attack, and attacks are statistically quite rare.
@ Amico: Are you claiming Tali Fahima engaged in terror? If so, what act of terror did she commit? Who did she kill or maim? Falling in love with a Palestinian while Jewish may be a crime to Lehava, but it isn’t yet in Israel. Her lover may’ve been accused of being a Palestinian militant, though we all know how trumped up these charges are, but Tali was no terrorist.
This only shows how lazy Israelis are in defining the term “terrorist.” For you, it’s basically anyone who does anything politically that breaks with consensus: love an Arab, support the Palestinian cause…you might just as well be a terrorist. Vanunu? A terrorist. Oh, & btw, George Washington was a terrorist. So were Begin & Shamir to the British. I guess it all depends on who’s defining terror & how much they wish to pander to their own interest to the exclusion of all others.
Next time, read carefully what I write & don’t read lazily.
“Are you claiming Tali Fahima engaged in terror?”
No, I claim that she was imprisoned for terror-related offence.
“Falling in love with a Palestinian while Jewish may be a crime to Lehava, but it isn’t yet in Israel”
Right, and indeed she wasn’t arrested for that. She charged, among other things, with translating an important militery document that fell to the hands of Palastinian militants
ית המשפט קבע כי בתרגום המסמך שיבשה פחימה מבצע שתכנן צה”ל כנגד מחבלים. נזקו של מעשה התרגום” מתואר בפסק הדין במשפטה:
“הנאשמת הודתה כי החומר הסודי הוצג בפניה על ידי הפעילים והיא תרגמה להם את תוכנו, תוך מתן הסברים על מטרות המבצע, צירי התנועה ושמות המבוקשים. בהמשך לכך, הורה זביידי לאנשיו להסתתר עד סיומו של המבצע. “ואכן, אותם מבוקשים ששמותיהם הוזכרו במסמך, וביצעו את הנחייתו של זביידי – לא נעצרו”
https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%98%D7%9C%D7%99_%D7%A4%D7%97%D7%99%D7%9E%D7%94
“Her lover may’ve been accused of being a Palestinian militant”
No, he was a known militant
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=216958
The “lazy” thing is to define “terrorist” along the lines of “a terrosit for one is a freedom fighter for the other”. Such definitions make the term “terrost” nothing but a meaningless slur .
A more scholary approach sees terrorism as a tactic. It is a tactic that can serve someone with a nobel or jutified cause as much as it can serve someone with a satanic cause.
As a tactic terrorisem means inducing fear and demoralization among the population of the “enemy”. To that end, targeting civilians, and particularaly doing it as randomly as possible, is the effective mean. By doing so you put pressure on your enemy’s leadership, spread the word about your cause and put the enemy’s leadership in a catch 22 position: If they respond softly to the acts of terror their own citizenz will be furious and may topple them down. If they respond hrashly they will cause harm and distress to the population in which the terrorist hides. This will cause that population to become hostile against the enemy and increase the popularity of the terrorists. This is a process we see everywhere and it is a very serious challenge. In other words, terrorism is a wide spread tactic because it is quite effective.
And how is any of this related to George Washington?
If anything, an example for an act of terror is the bombing (of German cities by the the USA in WWII. The cause was of course very justified but the tactic was of terror.
This is my last comment in this thread.
@ Amico:
Oh wow. Tali Fahima is a terrorist because she allegedly translated a document into Arabic. I can’t tell you how much my blood freezes over at hearing that translating a document is an act of terror. Further, YOU claim it was important. You claim it was a military document. Frankly, I doubt every word of it because I have quite enough experience with Israeli security investigations to know how they go: get the girl; get her any way you can.
That’s precisely what “terrorist” has become in Israel today: a meaningless slur. Support BDS? Terrorist. Anti-Zionist? Terrorist. Support Palestine? Terrorist. It IS a meaningless term and your leaders made it so.
Do you know what the signers of the Declaration of Independence thought as they signed? If we fail, I’m a dead man. Washington would’ve been the first to hang had the British won the Revolutionary War. Why? Leading a revolt against the Crown was an act of terror.
Thank you!
The term “Shining Path” was probably derived from the name of one of the communist groupings in Peru known as “Sendero Luminoso”. Various other communist groupings seem to have adopted this name, apparently also that group in Israel which has not managed to shine. The name is based on a maxim of Jose Carlos Manategui: “El Marxismo-Leninismo abrira el sendero luminoso hacia la revolution” (Marxism-Leninism will open the shining path to revolution). (Wikipedia)
Derech hanitzuz on wiki
https://he.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%93%D7%A8%D7%9A_%D7%94%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%A6%D7%95%D7%A5?wprov=sfla1
Wiki: Thanks, that’s helpful.
Mariátegui :-), the Peruvian Gramsci