Sylvia Rafael

The Life and Death of a Mossad Spy

Ram Oren,Moti Kfir

• Editorial: The University Press of Kentucky
• Año: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780813146973
• Categoría: History
• Categoría: Military Biographies

"There is a lack of quiet in Sylvia that craves for action.... She knows that she is special and that she possesses unusual and varied abilities."—From the Mossad's psychological evaluation of Sylvia Rafael

When Moti Kfir, head of the Academy for Special Operations of the Mossad, first interviewed Sylvia Rafael in a coffee shop, he knew she would make a great combatant for Israel's intelligence agency. She was outgoing, resourceful, brilliant, and had a talent for bonding with others. When Kfir warned her that the mysterious job they'd met to discuss could be dangerous, she simply sat back comfortably in her chair and smiled.

Sylvia Rafael is the page-turning account of a young, dedicated agent as told by the man who trained her. Drawing on extensive research and interviews, authors Ram Oren and Moti Kfir tell the story of Rafael's rise to prominence within the Mossad and her intelligence work trying to locate Ali Hassan Salameh—the leader of Palestine's Black September organization and the mastermind behind the murder of eleven Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games. Her team's misidentification of their mark would eventually lead to her arrest and imprisonment for murder and espionage.

Now available in English for the first time, Sylvia Rafael offers new insight into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, its history, and its human cost. It is a gripping, authentic spy story about a fearless defender of the Jewish people.

1

A Murder Plot

The nine heavily armed men sat around the table. They were dark skinned, dark haired, and stony faced. Copies of a color photo were scattered in front of them. Each of them picked up a copy and studied it carefully. It showed a tall, elegantly dressed woman emerging from a fashionable boutique in downtown Oslo, the capital of Norway. On her arm was a shopping bag bearing the boutique’s logo: Stimm and Stohrs.

The photo had obviously been taken with a magnifying lens from a long way away, but despite the distance, the woman’s face could be clearly seen. She was attractive and seemed relaxed, untroubled, definitely not suspecting that anyone was following or secretly photographing her.

The atmosphere in the room was thick and intense. Cigarette smoke filled the air, and despite the tightly closed windows, noises from the street and the muezzin’s call from the nearby mosque could be heard clearly. It was an early summer evening in 1977, in Western Beirut, Lebanon. People driving home from work were stalled in long lines of slow-moving traffic, and the street lamps were just lighting up.

At the head of the table sat Ali Hassan Salameh, a handsome, curly-haired man of thirty-seven. The others understood that the photographs in front of them were the reason this meeting had been called. They waited for their commander to explain.

“This is Sylvia Rafael,” began Salameh.

Although none of them had ever met her, they were familiar with her name. As a matter of fact, they often spoke of her with respect and awe, aware that she had been instrumental in eliminating many of their friends.

“This woman must die,” said their leader decisively.

None of those present batted an eyelid. Most of them were expert assassins, and getting rid of Sylvia would be all in a day’s work.

Ali Hassan Salameh was a prominent operations officer in Black September, one of the world’s cruelest and most dangerous terrorist organizations. He had led terrorist attacks resulting in the deaths of many Israelis and Jews. He was also the architect of the murderous attack on the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics and had personally commanded that operation, which had made international headlines.¹ During the 1970s, when his organization was at the pinnacle of its activities, Ali was carried along on a wave of adulation that other terrorist leaders could only dream of. He was a born leader: creative, resourceful, brave, and determined. His men fulfilled his every command to the letter. He was considered a symbol of the Palestinian struggle, and Yasser Arafat, the leader of Fatah, in whose name Black September operated, announced on every possible occasion that Ali exceeded all his expectations. Arafat called him “my son.”

Now, almost seven years after its inception, Black September’s activities were being severely curtailed by internal squabbles and personal vendettas. Ali Salameh was struggling to maintain his position, determined to restore unity to the ranks and recapture Black September’s days of glory. He missed his former celebrity status and the esteem that followed in its wake.

Ali Salameh was not only a leader in his own right. He also benefited from the reputation of his father, whose name had inspired respect among Palestinians beginning in the 1930s. Ali’s father, Hassan Salameh, who used to circulate among his men wearing a bandolier of bullets across his chest and two revolvers in his belt, was numbered among the most prominent Arab leaders in Mandatory Palestine. He was under the protection of the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who supported Hitler and the extermination of the Jews. With the encouragement and support of the Mufti, Hassan Salameh had led Palestine’s Arabs in a mortal struggle with the Jews prior to the War of Independence and during the early stages of that war. He was an experienced, intelligent, and crafty leader who chiefly led attacks against Jewish targets in central Palestine. He had set up headquarters in a fortified building in the heart of Ramle, from which he commanded bases of operations in Jaffa, Taybeh, and Tulkarm.

For the Jews of pre-state Palestine, Hassan Salameh’s name was synonymous with destruction and annihilation. They realized that as long as he was at large, they would have no end of trouble with their Arab neighbors. His elimination was considered essential and urgent, and was given first priority; he was constantly trailed by Jewish forces determined to achieve this end. When it became known that Salameh could generally be found at the headquarters in Ramle, Jewish soldiers attacked the building, but did not succeed in penetrating its walls and killing their prey. In a further attempt, reinforcements from the Givati Brigade² attacked the Palestinian stronghold, killing thirty-nine of Salameh’s men. He himself was not present at the time, but was eventually killed at the battle of Ras al-Ayn in 1948. His son and only heir, Ali Salameh, was nine years old at the time. When the boy came of age, he swore to avenge his father’s death and drive the Jews out of the country. He would accomplish this by means of terrorist activity.

The Beirut conference room in which the senior officers of Black September were meeting with their leader was secured by armed bodyguards. A lookout posted by the windows kept a watchful eye on any suspicious movement. Ali knew that the Israelis were on his trail, and he feared that they might attack at any moment.

Ali was tough and merciless, intelligent and shrewd. He was responsible for numerous plane hijackings and death traps directed against innocent Israeli citizens. He dispatched terrorists to carry out spectacular attacks inside Israel, and he wiped out political opponents without hesitation. He was certain that the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence organization, would do anything in its power to stop him, but he continually managed to escape the undercover agents sent to locate him, covering his tracks, assuming endless disguises, and moving from one hiding place to another just when the Israelis thought they had finally cornered him.

Ali had a deep hatred of the Mossad for killing prominent Black September operatives in Europe, many of whom had been his closest personal friends. On only two occasions had Black September managed to retaliate by eliminating Mossad officers. The echoes of these operations were faint, even nonexistent, in comparison with the wide press coverage given to every murderous Mossad attack.

Black September needed to rehabilitate its tarnished image immediately, and Ali Salameh realized that the best way to do this was to strike the Israelis where it would hurt most. Eliminating Sylvia Rafael seemed the ideal means of doing so.

Sylvia was one of the most seasoned Mossad operatives. She was a member of a select team of experienced clandestine combatants whose mission was to locate Ali Salameh. In turn, the leaders of Black September attempted repeatedly to locate and kill Sylvia, but to no avail. They craved her death, as over the years she had been a constant threat hanging over their heads. Here at last was the opportunity they had been waiting for, and they were determined to succeed.

Ali Salameh knew that Sylvia Rafael’s death would not only arouse shock and horror in the Mossad, but would also be a source of consolation for the surviving members of Black September, who had lost their commanders and colleagues one by one through a series of Mossad attacks.

“It shouldn’t be too complicated,” he said. “Our men have been following her for a few weeks and have discovered that she goes around Oslo unarmed and unguarded. She doesn’t suspect that anyone is threatening her life.”

He announced that he would soon put together a team to eliminate Sylvia. “Only the best men will be chosen,” he promised. “There will be no slip-ups.”

Ali reported his plan to Yasser Arafat. The PLO leader liked the idea and gave it his approval. Since Ali’s Black September funds were depleted, Arafat agreed to personally finance the operation, supplying plane tickets, hotels, and living expenses.

The plan of execution was soon ready. Libyan diplomats, who served Ali and his organization faithfully and had embassies in every European capital, smuggled revolvers into Oslo by means of their diplomatic pouch, stashing them away until needed.

Ali Salameh set the time of the operation for early summer. He assumed that as the weather became warmer, Sylvia would spend more time out of doors, making it easier to eliminate her.

The four assassins were chosen carefully. Only men who had previously participated in complex terrorist operations were selected. When they arrived in Oslo from various European cities, their fake passports were stamped by the Norwegian border police without arousing suspicion.

The team members booked into separate hotels and circled Oslo for two days in order to check out the lay of the land and find possible escape routes. Their orders were simple and precise: after Sylvia’s elimination they were to scatter and depart for different European destinations, some by car and others by plane.

After they had completed their reconnaissance of the city, the team made sure to remain inconspicuous. They avoided using the telephone, hid out in their rooms, made do with sandwiches, and retired early.

As the date of the attack drew near, they collected the guns from their hiding place in the Libyan Embassy. It was decided that they would attack Sylvia from a public park opposite her home. When she came out of the door, they would open fire and leave her lying dead on the pavement.

They were confident that their mission would be successful.

2

An Unexpected Visitor

Clouds of dust blowing up from the desert hid the sun and the large sheep enclosures of the South African town of Graaff-Reinet. Through the thick fog, a loaded truck slowly made its way along the torrid highway. In the drivers’ cabin sat two men. One gripped the steering wheel, and the other dozed, his head on his chest.

When the truck neared the northernmost houses of the town, the driver stopped by the side of the road. “Wake up,” he said, shaking his passenger. “We’ve arrived.” He pointed at the small houses and the white steeples of the Dutch Reform church that protruded above the dust. “That’s Graaff-Reinet,” he added.

The skinny, wild-haired passenger dressed in ragged clothes climbed down from the truck and waved his thanks. He was a heavy-limbed man in his mid-thirties, whose stomach was rumbling with hunger. For the past three days, since his ship had anchored in Port Elizabeth harbor in early August 1946, he had eaten only scraps of food that he had managed to collect from garbage cans, so that he could hold onto the small sum of money that was hidden in his shoes. He was unshaven and hadn’t washed since leaving the ship, but he seemed totally unaware of his appearance. He derived strength from the goal that impelled him forward: to reach Graaff-Reinet. Achieving this objective had given him hope, even in the face of certain death.

The man had stayed alive only by a miracle. Before World War II, he had been a high school history teacher. After the war began, Ukrainian thugs had broken into his home and seized him, his wife, and their two children, and then marched them, along with hundreds of other Jews, to a deep valley among thick trees. There the Jews were shot down mercilessly, in a place that was later known as Babi Yar. Very few, among them the young teacher, fell into the hole before they were riddled by bullets; among the corpses, they pretended to be dead. They were the only ones to survive the slaughter.

After nightfall, when the cries of the dying were silenced, the man crawled out from among the corpses and stole back to his house. He pulled up the floor tiles in one of the rooms, under which his wife had hidden her jewelry, and stowed the valuables in his pockets, together with a letter bearing an address in Graaff-Reinet, South Africa. Well hidden from view, he walked all night on wooded paths. During the day he hid in the forest, eating berries, drinking water from rivers and streams, and mourning the death of his wife and children. After dark he continued on his way until sunrise. After a few nights he arrived at the home of Christian friends, who hid him in their cellar. In exchange for some of the valuables in his possession, they provided him with food and, most important of all, didn’t reveal his existence to a soul. Twice the Germans conducted a careful search of houses in the area, but they failed to find the Jew who had escaped from death.

When the war ended, the man emerged from his hiding place and returned to his native city, a large part of which had been destroyed by bombing. He searched the ruins in the hope of finding relatives that had survived the inferno. Sleeping in cellars, he survived on fruit that he picked from abandoned orchards. A few weeks of unsuccessful searching and conversations with survivors convinced him that none of his relatives had survived. It was pointless for him to remain in Kiev.

He crossed Europe by hitchhiking and occasional train rides, knocked on the doors of relief organizations, and scanned hundreds of lists of survivors in an attempt to locate relatives and friends. All his efforts were useless. He had only one lead left, one faint hope—the envelope with the address in South Africa. He believed that he would find kind people there who would help him toward rehabilitation.

Mustering his last remaining strength and resources, the man from Kiev used an antique piece of gold jewelry, a family heirloom, to bribe a Russian clerk, who helped him obtain a passport and permission to board a Soviet freight ship that was leaving for South Africa. He was prepared to do any kind of work without payment in order to arrive at his destination, and he didn’t complain when they loaded him with chores from morning till night, scraping off barnacles and painting the ship’s metal hulk.

When the ship anchored in Port Elizabeth harbor, the man disembarked, carrying a worn-out bag containing a few clothes. In his pocket was the yellowing envelope that had become his most prized possession. On the back was written the sender’s address; he set out in that direction.

Graaff-Reinet, a town of 10,000 inhabitants, which had been named after the first governor of the area, was located on the banks of the Sunday River. Its residents made their living by raising sheep for the local wool industry, exporting oranges, and producing wine from locally grown grapes. The survivor arrived there on a day plagued by a heavy east wind. The wooden shutters of the houses were tightly shut, and only those who had no choice could be found outside on the wide streets.

A policeman, wiping sweat from his forehead, directed the new arrival to the address he sought. With faltering steps and slow movements, he made his way ...

Índice

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Authors’ Note
• Foreword by Major General Shlomo Gazit, IDF (Ret.)
• Acknowledgments
• 1. A Murder Plot
• 2. An Unexpected Visitor
• 3. Night in an Arab Village
• 4. Arrest and Investigation
• 5. Imprisoned in a Refugee Camp
• 6. A Man in Women’s Clothing
• 7. A Love Story
• A Personal Afterword by Moti Kfir
• Notes
• Index