December 13, 2024 might seem just another day out in the cold for you especially if you’re someone stuck in the biting cold of North India, the ignominious North Korea or the as per normal, stuck-in-economic disarray South Africa.
But then much of life is about positivism as well; one simply can’t dwell on the negatives- no?
And speaking of the positives, there’s one whose importance to December 13, in particular, can’t be possibly undermined where it comes to the nation state of Israel.
You read that right. December 13 and Israel have a connection that can’t and mustn’t be forgotten; not that it is spoken of in great detail or out in the open as such.
Why so?
For December 13 happens to be the date where The Mossad came into existence.
An event that took place many moons ago is upon us; 2024 bringing about the 74th birth anniversary of an espionage service that is as feared as it is revered.
But is The Mossad really revered today, especially in the context of the barbaric events that are still very much taking place in that part of the Middle East that’s experiencing heart stopping moments?
To that part of the world that still believes in turning the pages of the newspaper even as according to many there’s no real need with Artificial Intelligence apps doing the same, the Mossad is the antithesis to Israel’s enemies.
It doesn’t kill Israel’s enemies; it, quite simply, eliminates them from the face of the earth.
Many of us are aware of what happened to the arms dealer called Mahmoud al Mabouh back in 2010-11 in Dubai.
Most of us are also familiar with what happened and much to sudden with a certain prisoner X, who perished one fine day and met a sad end, unbeknownst to the world despite being held in a high security prison in Israel. That’s when the late Australian had Jewish heritage.
But then there are those around the world for whom the Mossad is nothing more than some weird killing machine.
To these maybe not-so-well informed lot for whom the right of survival of the Jewish people is perhaps as trivial a matter as ordering a baloney sandwich or ham burger, Israel hasn’t mattered.
It never will.
Well, not for those who while are right in condemning the Jewish state’s merciless reprisal perpetrated against Palestine, can never imagine the plight of those who’ve endured -and still endure- antisemitism.
The Mossad’s role, meanwhile, becomes all the more necessary in the respect of alerting Israel about where their detractors are, most of which, shall leave no stone unturned in pressing for an all out war the moment the Netanyahu-led country drops the aggression.
Which is why anyone who came up with the epic line that Israel is that lion, which sleeps with one eye open wasn’t bluffing. For really that day ain’t far where Israel would be wiped out – unless one’s very much mistaken- the moment it drops its guard.
And the one who guards Israel like a hawk day in, day out 365 days a year sans a pause, let alone a full-fledged break is The Mossad.
In these almost seven and a half decades, the Mossad, daring, courageous, super sharp and ruthless, has been tasked with audacious operations, many of which it has pulled akin to some god of war engulfed amid flames.
So how’s that?
For starters, the Mossad’s primary objective- over and above anything else- is to gather information that matters to Israel’s safety and security. The security of the nation-state of the Jewish homeland. This ultimately means, gathering intelligence and taking notes about areas outside the immediate Jewish state may cause an element of threat to the country that has a population that could fit in Berlin, Rome or Paris or maybe a collective of this trio (not even the troika put together).
The other objective of the Mossad is to maintain correspondence and ensure continuity of communication with its opposite numbers around the world. This, in effect, means- correspondence with the likes of Great Britain’s MI6, India’s Research & Analysis Wing, Australia’s ASIS (Australian Secret Intelligence system), Canada’s CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service), and, of course, the Central Intelligence Agency of the USA, which is Israel’s closest ally and friend.
There are just some of the top security services of the world that Mossad interacts with and often in manners that even the world’s best spy novelists can’t gauge.
Whether you speak of Ethan Hunt or the Mission Impossible series or 007, The Mossad’s agents, who have a worldwide presence that’s scary, combine a penchant for information gathering and mind numbing skills to perform daring operations dedicated towards Israel’s preservation.
That was the case back then in the golden age of spying; a period of time where there weren’t scalable elements such as Artificial intelligence or senile man-made creations such as Deepfakes.
It was an age where one saw leaders and fiercely independent thinkers- such as Golda Meir, David-Ben Gurion and Ariel Sharon.
That was a time where the likes of the late Meir Dagan, a legendary spymaster was a young man still growing in stature within the intelligence framework of the elite espionage agency.
A time where peace wasn’t just the evocative topic of a poem written by parents on the other sides of Israel’s border who may, by the way, have lost it themselves.
A time where Israel still wasn’t looking as forlorn in its global conquest of power, a make belief idea to rule that is nothing but some creepy agenda.
But what lies ahead of The Mossad, still the equivalent of The Thor if the Israeli and Middle East landscape is some vaguely appearing Marvel universe, is a humongous job.
On the one hand, it has to continually operate deep under enemy territory, be it Palestine, Jordan, Libya, Syria or the rhinoceros like powerful Iran or the elephant of them all; Iraq.
Israel’s feared security agency has to revive what is clearly, with much due respect to its very motto of existence, a fledgeling reputation.
Surely, there are many unsettling and even unanswered questions of the likes that how earth did a powerful security service fail in detecting the recent Hamas-backed attack on Israeli soil when the Jewish land is the one that goes out of its way to warn pretty much everyone about possible terror threats.
And latter, the modern age or how shall we say, the present-day sleuths and side breaks and what have you need to uphold the dignity and valour of icons like Eli Cohen and Shula Cohen and Sylvia Raphael who put their lives on the line, literally speaking, in the defence of the idea that is Israel.
Believe you me- Israel is still courageous. Has every right to exist but then so it is, it’s so called arch-enemy: the Muslim or the Arab.
The Mossad; who turn day into nights and see nights making way for the dawn in the defence of the nation’s integrity have a lot on their hands. Their plates are full. Ditto for their day-to-day agendas, all of which are to further the right of survival of a race that is detested and rather needlessly by so many.
But that said, happy happy 74th birthday, The Mossad. Live, protect, fight, battle hard but not with the blood of countless harmless lives on your responsible hands 🙏
Dev Tyagi, a straightforward human being who writes often, drives fast but doesn’t break rules in either
Website: https://devdeeptyagi.com
