November 3,2008:
The Lebanese Army has arrested two Lebanese, and charged them with spying
for Israel since the 1980s. The two men, who are cousins, collected information
on Hezbollah and Syrian military and intelligence operations. Communications
gear, cameras and other sensors were found in the suspects homes. One of their
cars was rigged with a digital camera that could record traffic for extended
periods. The two men confessed.
The Lebanese
have caught one or two Israeli spies a year for the last decade or so. It
appears that the Israeli have an extensive, and not unexpected, espionage
network in Lebanon and Syria. The Israelis are known to pay well, and try to
get their agents out of trouble. Still, several Israeli spies have been
executed by Arab countries over the last sixty years, as well as a number of
innocents (who were prosecuted because the local counterintelligence officials
were under a lot of pressure to "do something about Israeli spies.")
Some of
these spies are Jewish, but most are local Arabs (Moslem, Christian or Druze)
who hate the local rulers more than Israel. Many confess when caught, knowing
that, otherwise, long periods of abuse and torture will ensue. The Israeli intelligence
effort against its Arab neighbors has been intense, and prolonged. The Israelis
also spy on their friends, which is not an unusual practice. But the Israelis
tend to be more successful at it, in part because they live in a very rough
neighborhood, and face extinction if they do not succeed in keeping their
hostile neighbors at bay.