Awad Ghanem, Al-Majalla

CAIRO — While advances in technology have been made in all fields, the intelligence profession has been the most obvious beneficiary of the technological revolution and the associated developments in surveillance, tracking and analysis of information.

Since the founding of Israel, the Arab world has witnessed an increase in intelligence and information gathering activity. There were many infiltrations, which gave some of these agencies their terrifying reputations: the Mossad in Israel and the various Egyptian intelligence agencies.

Israel maintained absolute secrecy regarding enlistment and dealings with agents. Nowadays though it no longer fears revealing the names of those who cooperate with it, the role they play, the objectives they seek to achieve or even the financial reimbursement they receive.

After the signing of the peace accord in 1982 between Israel and Egypt, the intensity of the Egyptian intelligence services’ activity decreased while Israel continued to develop its security and intelligence agencies, considering itself at war with other Arab countries.

Not satisfied with the peace accord it had signed with Egypt and fearful of everything taking place in that country, it continued to gather information to track and survey all matters related to Islamic groups.

Al-Majalla, a sister publication of Arab News, obtained official documents that clarify the role of the Israeli Embassy in enlisting Egyptians to supply it with information about various matters and especially Islamic groups. The embassy’s work flourished to the extent that the head of the Jewish community in Cairo, Amil Rosso, requested the ministry to increase its biannual payments.

The diplomatic representation of Egypt and Israel is a strange one, leading some representatives in the People’s Council to move to request that the government put an end to the shady role of the Israeli Embassy and also to explain the great and unusual size of the Israeli diplomatic mission — currently the size of the diplomatic corps of five Arab countries combined. There are 33 diplomats with their wives in the Israeli Embassy in Cairo in addition to 38 other employees; these numbers were published by the Egyptian Foreign Ministry. In comparison, Syrian Embassy has seven members, that of the Emirates 10, Qatar seven, Bahrain seven, Mauritania four and Libya 16.

What is unique to the Israeli Embassy is that it is the only one with the post of agricultural attache and he is Yacoub Rosh who protesters say has had a role in damaging Egyptian agriculture.

A great portion of the blame directed at the Israeli Embassy in Cairo is related to spying activities. The embassy also intervenes with the Egyptian government for the release of those arrested on charges of spying for the Mossad. The latest case was of an individual who had been arrested and was being tried — rumor had it that he would be convicted and would be executed — but then he was released.

Hussein Sabahi, a member of the People’s Council, says that he had been driven along with several others to present a request for information to the president of what former Ambassador Abdullah Al-Huseini had said.

The ambassador indicated that the Israeli Embassy had turned into a center for enlisting spies — evidence being the recruitment of Abdullah Abdel Minem Ali Hamed from Al-Mansoura, his training and push into the world of intelligence and spying for Israel. He clarified that police investigations and the testimony of Israelis confirm that the Israeli Embassy’s role is dubious, especially with regard to the increase in the terrorist activities between 1990 and 1997.

Muhammad Bayoumi, the former Egyptian ambassador to Israel and head of the Foreign Affairs and National Security Committee in the People’s Council, says that the embassy has exceeded its limits in its role as diplomatic mission and a bridge between the two countries. In the last 10 years it has become the source of a number of highly private reports on Egyptian political movements in different fields. It may have reached the point where some Israeli diplomats in Cairo have done dubious things in a number of provinces in southern Egypt.

Much of the doubts about the role of Israeli diplomats in Cairo originate from what Moshe Sassoon, the first Israeli ambassador in Cairo, said. He recalled a number of events in Egypt and relationships with several Egyptians who are not diplomats.

He says that he knew an Egyptian man, Fouad Iskandarani, who owns a furniture store in Tahrir Square in Cairo and their relationship developed to the extent that Sassoon would use an interior room in Iskandarani’s shop to meet individual Egyptians and try to convince them of Israel’s right to exist. Iskandarani would facilitate these meetings. The ambassador sometimes even canceled all appointments and commitments and would go directly to the square to meet with Iskandarani whenever he requested.

In his memoirs, the ambassador recalls how inside the store he met some bearded extremist youths whom he tried to convince of Israel’s right to exist; he also admits that some of these meeting were held at the embassy and in the ambassador’s home.

Astrovsky, another former Israeli diplomat in Cairo, wrote a book called “The Other side of the Deception.” He is of Canadian origin and says that his mission during his time in Egypt was to destabilize the government, overturn the regime and move Egypt backward as far as possible. He says that he used middlemen to enlist and arm extremists, often bedouins in Sinai.

A report by the Center for Middle East Studies in Cairo indicates that everything in Egypt has become a target and that the Israeli Embassy’s single most important job is to find out every little thing that happens in Egypt.

- 14 September 2003