CAIRO: At a time when many Egyptian agents working clandestinely for Israel are falling into the trap of the Egyptian intelligence services, many are asking why the Jewish state continues to recruit spies. This is in spite of the fact that Egypt has signed a peace treaty with Israel for almost three decades.
Also many are wondering why Israel isn’t announcing the arrest of Egyptian secret agents who are found spying for their country in the Israeli territories.
The topic came to light as the cover story of the widely circulated Egyptian weekly Akher Saa. The magazine approached key officials and attempted to answer these two questions in addition to gaining an insight into the views of those involved in espionage cases like lawyers of spies and authors of espionage books.
The weekly pointed out that, contrary to popular thought, during peacetime intelligence activities are in full swing between arch foes so that the information acquired during peaceful times can be used as an advantage during wartime.
Operations involving acts of espionage against Egypt by Mossad more than doubled in times of peace, stressed the weekly. They are not restricted to collecting military information. Their focus, however, has also expanded to include the economic, social and political fields, it added.
The arrests of both student Mohamed Essam Al-Atar and nuclear scientist Mohamed Saber on charges of spying for Israel reflect the renewed interest of Mossad. Over the past 15 years, the intelligence institute has been involved in 28 cases of espionage against Egypt.
Some 67 spies, 75 percent of whom are Egyptians, were arrested in connection with these operations, reported the weekly.
Aker Saa noted: “During the last decade Israel has also been involved in 86 percent of operations aimed at counterfeiting currency, drug trafficking and different types of bootlegging, all of which are transpiring under the umbrella of the peace treaty and the normalization of relations.
The weekly highlighted the fact that despite the heated espionage war between both countries, we have never heard of an Egyptian espionage racket that fell in Israel compared to scores that were busted in Egypt. Why?
The same question, posed time and again by the Israeli media, has never been satisfactorily answered.
Dr Adel Seliman, of the International Centre for Future and Strategic Studies, was quoted as saying that the secrecy surrounding the Egyptian spies in Israel could be attributed to the fact that none of them have actually been caught.
Also the Egyptian spies are strategically focused; unlike their Israeli counterparts, they are never out collecting all kinds of information, which minimizes the possibility of making mistakes.
Also in cases where agents are arrested, this would not be announced so that the Jewish state, which has many security obsessions, wouldn’t appear weak and vulnerable in the eyes of the public.
Israeli experts, however, have drawn attention to the fact that the clashes among Mossad and other intelligence machineries within Israel like Shabak (public security) and Aman (a form of military police) have always made it difficult to thwart counter espionage efforts not only in Egypt but also in other countries around the world.
The three conflicting security organizations have attempted to out-do each other’s efforts, which forced many officials to resign. They also don’t exchange information that continues to be provided to other European and American bureaus.
In general, the Israeli intelligence machineries are at loggerheads with each other as well as with their counterparts in the US, Russia and elsewhere, which results in the gathering of contradictory information.
