Why does Israel spy on its allies?

A report in Le Monde last weekend revealed new details of how Israel spies on the most enthusiastic state-supporters of its war crimes and apartheid against the Palestinian people. The newspaper reportedly revealed details of how Israel’s Mossad spy agency may have infiltrated French intelligence, possibly even at its highest level.

Why does Israel do such a thing? Does it really need to spy on its allies in Paris, given that France is already an enthusiastic supporter of its brutal and racist colonisation of occupied Palestine?

Although France, like Israel’s other European allies, makes toothless public objections to its wars and continued settlement building on stolen Palestinian land, these are understood, quite correctly, to be meaningless. While the governments of France and Britain claim in public to be against Israel’s settlements, they actually support them in practice, by continuing not only to allow goods produced in the illegal colonies to be sold in Europe, but also to seek more and upgraded economic ties with the apartheid state.

Furthermore, both countries go out of their way to undermine BDS, the Palestinian-initiated and led boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, and other forms of pro-Palestine solidarity. The British government last year initiated new regulations for universities, local councils and other public bodies which it touted in the press as a “BDS ban”. A closer look at the actual policy revealed that it was no such thing, and BDS is still very much legal.

Nevertheless, the guidance did make it harder for public bodies to make ethical investment decisions which might have an impact on trade with Israel. Hurdles were put in the way of, for example, councils deciding to withdraw investments from companies — such as Veolia and G4S — which have been complicit in Israel’s occupation, prisons and torture in the West Bank.

France has also joined the Israeli-led “war” against BDS. It has pursued BDS activists aggressively, banned Palestine solidarity demonstrations and maintains an extremely laissez faire attitude towards the French branch of the Jewish Defence League (the LDJ) and its acts of terror against Palestine solidarity campaigners, especially Jewish comrades, who the LDJ regards as “traitors”.

The France Palestine Solidarity Association (AFPS) revealed earlier this month that an apparent front group for the LDJ has issued death threats against the movement, warning it off from continuing its BDS activism. The group in question posted online personal information about AFPS activists, revealing home phone numbers and addresses in a clear attempt to intimidate them, a malicious practice known as doxxing.

The LDJ is probably the world’s most extreme, violent and organised branch of the JDL outside of occupied Palestine. In June last year, one of its leaders was allowed by the French authorities to skip the country and head to Israel in order to avoid a year in jail after a series of “extremely violent and coordinated attacks” against pro-Palestine activists in Paris in 2012.

The AFPS said that it considers the French authorities to be directly liable for this. “Their inaction is interpreted as encouragement by violent groups such as the LDJ, which the French authorities have permitted to thrive instead of disbanding them.” Describing the decision by the French authorities to criminalise the call for boycotts in the sole case of the State of Israel as “internationally unique”, the Palestine solidarity group labelled as “intolerable” the statements of France’s then prime minister, who equated criticism of the State of Israel with anti-Semitism. “His statements have given free rein to fanatics who believe that they are immune to our laws,” it added.

Considering all of this, it was interesting to read about the new report in Le Monde. The paper apparently revealed how the Mossad used a joint French-Israeli operation to recruit a Syrian engineer in order to spy on France itself. The Israelis attempted to “turn” two French spies into double agents. The two were reportedly demoted after failing to disclose meetings that they had in Israel with Mossad agents as well as “suspicious sums of money” deposited in their bank accounts.

This Israeli infiltration of French intelligence may even have gone to the very top. It is reported that a French judge “is seeking to build on the internal investigative report and broaden the investigation into whether the Mossad infiltrated French intelligence” under Bernard Squarcini. He was the head of the General Directorate for Internal Security until 2012 and is suspected of maintaining unauthorised and unreported ties with the Mossad’s Paris bureau chief.

Israel has a long track record of spying on its Western “allies”, who have a record of spying right back on Israel. The US and Britain seemingly do not really trust their “great friend” Israel when push comes to shove, which really begs us to ask why, if that is the case, our governments spend so much energy on protecting and supporting the Zionist state.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.