A Brief History of Mossad Influence on American Policy

Speech by: Victor Ostrovsky

September 2, 1995

Introductory Note:
Victor Ostrovsky was born in Canada, immigrated to Israel, and became a member of the Mossad, Israel’s equivalent of the American CIA. In 1984 he left the Mossad and subsequently wrote two books on his experiences while a Mossad agent: By Way of Deception -A New York Times best seller, and it’s sequel: The Other Side of Deception.

Before I go any further let me explain where I come from in my opinions. I believe in the right of the state of Israel to be a state. I believe in the freedoms of the Israeli citizens to have those freedoms and their right to have those freedoms. I believe in the fact that there should be, as Balfour has declared, “a home for the Jewish people in the land of Palestine,” which has a second part to it, “without impeding the rights of the indigenous population there.” Now that is maybe where I differ from a lot of other people in the fact that I do believe that people have rights wherever they are.

The intelligence agency that I belonged to, the Mossad, believes in its right as an organization to exist and it will do everything in its power to maintain power. Now intelligence agencies have a tendency to want to show things a little worse than they are because that way they can advance in growth. If there is peace, who needs them? That works everywhere. It works in the Soviet Union, or now Russia, it works in the United States. It doesn’t work in Canada because we don’t have an intelligence agency. No, no we don’t. Canada does not have an intelligence agency. It has an internal intelligence agency, which is called CSIS, which is the equivalent of the FBI, which no one can call an intelligence agency. No, they are intelligent and they are an agency.

Now let’s get right to the point. What does the Mossad do to the United States? How does it look at the United States, and why it is not working in the best interest of the state of Israel? Now when I speak to you about that I speak as somebody who cares about the state of Israel, not as somebody who wants to see any harm come to that country. I think that the Mossad is causing harm both to Israel and to the Jewish community in North America.

The way it goes is this. The Mossad regards the U.S. as its own playing ground, as a tool to an end, saying you guys make nice arms that we can use. You guys have things that we want; therefore we want to take it. You can’t blame the Mossad for everything. You have to blame your own government. As far as your government is concerned, what you are is like one of those cash machines to the world. There is the US, and there is politicians who hand out these ATM cards to all these countries of the world and they say, “Hey, help yourself, no limit.” It’s a big sale. They are selling out whatever they want. So you can’t really blame countries for coming in and taking. You’re saying, “Here it is, take it.” These countries need it. What do you expect?

The Mossad needs to influence the United States because the United States is the only major power in the world today. When it wasn’t, it played it against the other major power at the time, which was the Soviet Union. At that time during the Cold War it was always said, “We are the only western country in the Middle East, therefore you have to support us because we are your front line in the Middle East.” Now during a period of time there was a truth to that. Then the government in Israel changed and became what is called a Likud, or the extreme right, government of Israel.

I should go a little bit further back. In the creation of the State of Israel, Zionism stands for, really, not a religious state. Zionism is a secular movement. It’s a movement to bring the Jewish people and give them a home in the land of Israel. It is not a messianic movement, because if we go to messianic movement and we go back to the bible, and we go back to those people who are extremely religious in Israel, they wi tell you that they are anti-Zionist, because they say we as Jews cannot go back to Israel unless we fulfill what is said in the Bible, which is wait until the Messiah brings you back. So if we go back as a religious group we have no rights to the land. There is a contradiction right there that a lot of people cannot live with, and they have a problem with that.

During the creation of the state there were two movements. One was the labor movement, the Haganah, which looked at Zionism from one angle. There was another movement which was the Etzel and the Lehi, which were two other kinds of organizations, further to the right. Now these other organizations had their theme. The way they said it was they based it on a person by the name of Jabotinsky, who said, “With blood and fear we will build us a nation of cruel, and honest, and fearless.” I had heard this somewhere else before, but that was their statement. That’s what they looked upon as the state of Israel, that it should be a very powerful militant state. They had no support among the Jewish community in North America. The Jewish community was mainly towards the Haganah, the more liberal, the more open, the more western style of government.

Then the Likud came to power. Until that point in Israel the idea was this, “The North American Jewish community is there to help us financially, but stay out of our business. We don’t want you to tell us what to do. We are a free country. We are not going to ask you. You want to have a say, come over here and settle. But don’t send us your orders from the US.” Then came the Likud and said, “Wait a minute, we need more money.” They went to the US and they started moving the community further to the right. Now the Mossad was very influential in that because the Mossad needs sources of information. The Mossad needs a base.

Now if you look at the KGB for example, or the CIA for that matter, you will find out that they have hundreds of thousands of people working for them as an infrastructure. An intelligence agency can’t operate without an infrastructure. Just to give you an example, let’s assume you have a station in London. In order to have a station in London, what do you need? You need doctors, you need drivers, you need cars, you need apartments. You need people who buy food, who sell food. You need people who get you tickets. You need a lot of people around the actual operatives. The guy who goes up and recruits somebody needs a lot of backing. He can’t do it on his own.

The Mossad is very small. We are talking about an organization which has about twelve hundred people, including secretaries and drivers. How do you spread that across the entire world that you have to gather information from?

A Mossad cannot have a station in Damascus because it has no embassy there. You cannot have an open station. What you do is this, you open a station in London with five guys. Five (I’m sorry, that’s the Mossad sign for five). These five guys are the actual case officers. Then what you do is you get people to come from Israel and they scout the country and they come up with a lot of names of the Jewish community in London. These guys then go out and approach a doctor, a Jewish doctor in London. And they say to him, “Listen, we need your help in order to save Jews elsewhere. We might be turning to you. Will you be helpful to us?” Seventy percent turn them down. Nobody will ever turn them in. That’s a very important factor. So you can go to another guy, another guy, and another guy and before you know it you have got three-hundred, four-hundred people in London who are supporting the station. You need a car, you pick up the phone you say, “Mr. So-and-So, I need a car. I don’t need it registered.” An hour later you can pick up the car. “I need a safe house.” Two hours later you have a safe house. “I need a doctor.” “I need tickets.” “I need transportation.” “I need three hundred thousand dollars in an hour,” at twelve-o’clock at night. So you get a banker who opens the bank and he takes it out because he knows that two days from now the money is going to be back. We are good for it.

So now you have a station that has three hundred people and then you want a new cover, new people. So you open a summer camp in Israel, and you fly people in and you get the kids there. You start to teach them that there is a lot of anti-Semitism out there and you have to protect yourself because everybody is an anti-Semite, and they are going to get you, and the kid gets scared, and he is very impressionable. Then he goes back and he becomes part of a frame, that is an organization, which protects the synagogue. You already have your hooks into him and you are an intelligence agency. You want information. So when he gets a job that’s good, you can get information. That is how everything suddenly is opened to you. That is how suddenly this community is committed to you, and they don’t even know it, because they don’t know that once an operation goes bad the Mossad guy picks up and leaves, and everybody else is staying in the mud. Pollard is a very good example of that. He came into the Israeli embassy and they kicked him out because of internal rivalries. Now he is sitting in jail. He thought he was a patriot.

There is no such thing as dual loyalty. This is a myth. People say the Jewish community has a dual loyalty. That’s wrong. Either you’re loyal to your country or you’re not. There is no duality in that. You cannot be loyal to two countries.

Never will Israel agree to have an Israeli support the US the way they expect the people in the Jewish community to support Israel. There are more people in Israeli jails for supporting or helping US intelligence than you have Israelis in American jails. There was a guy who sat 15 years in an Israeli prison and nobody knew about it. He was a major in the Air Force and he was arrested because he met with a secretary from the American embassy. He allegedly was intending to help the CIA. He didn’t help the CIA. Nobody said he did. He intended. Fifteen years later they said that he’s in jail. He was incommunicado. Nobody knew where he was. He disappeared.

Today the Israeli government is facing a brutal situation. Here is the irony. You have a Jewish community which is militant and an Israeli government that wants peace. You have Israel say, “We don’t want America to move the embassy to Jerusalem.” You have the Jewish community say, “We want it.” You have these guys on the hill here saying, “We want to.” And you say, “Why? Why is Dole and all these other guys, why do they want to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem?” The Israeli government said they don't want it. It's bad for peace. But the Israeli government doesn’t vote in the US. The Israeli government doesn’t give money to American politicians.

Now there is a double war. There is one war that should be taken by you and your government. Tell them, “Hey! There’s a hungry kid in New York. Feed him before you feed a hungry kid in Tel Aviv.” No actually that’s not true. “Feed a hungry kid in New York before you pay the university tuition for a kid in Jerusalem.” That’s where the difference is.

The Israeli government is trying to have peace and you have the American Congress saying, “You can’t trust these Palestinians. You can’t give them an inch.” Israel says, “We want to give them. We want to give it back. We want to get peace. We don’t want our guys dying, because people die when there is war. It’s the Israelis that are dying. It’s Israelis that are being bombed. It’s not the North American Jewish community that is bombed”. They say that, “It’s you guys that get bombed.” When you talk about that, there’s like a silence. You are like talking to a wall.

When I talk... I had my second book. I had a record with my second book. I think my first book sold something around the world close to eight million copies. My second book was not reviewed in any newspaper in North America. Now that’s a record. None! No, I’m sorry. I think the guy in the Phoenix Gazette. The people from B’nai B’rith walked in and asked for him to resign. Yes, because he is an anti-Semite. I know what they do because I used to ask them to do it.

When I was in the Mossad and we had a guy that gave us problems in the US, and he was speaking out, and he was talking like people talk, and said, “Israel is bombing Lebanon with cluster bombs.” We say, “Who’s that guy?” Pete Macockey we use to call him, ya, which is Pete the Cockroach. He makes a lot of noise and you can’t get rid of him. So what you do is get in touch with a guy in the station in New York or in the station in Washington and tell the guys at B’nai B’rith to label him. And of course the campaign starts and before you know it the guys is labeled, and he is an anti-Semite, because that is what we say he is. That is one stain that you cannot wash. It shames me as a Jew to tell you that. But that is the fact, and it is wrong.

The people who are perpetrating this really don’t understand what they are doing. They are losing their own liberties. I realize at last why they don’t care.

You have these same communities that will say the Mossad has to do it, and they don’t really care. On the other hand, anything, any peeps you have from your intelligence agency, the CIA, (which I think is one of the best in the world if not the best in the world, and has probably the best people in the world in it) any move they make, these same people will jump on them ten times from Sunday. You say, “How can they do that? Why are they so hard?” I realize now why. They don’t have to live with the Mossad. If they were in Israel they would cry out against the Mossad, which people in Israel are doing.

Just this week, to give you an example of people saying, “Here is a dual standard,” I’ll give you an example of a dual standard. I read today on the plane, on the way here, Time magazine. There was an article about this guy that was brought from Argentina, or something. He killed 400 and some Italians, murdered them, an SS man. He said, “I was ordered to do it, so I did it.” I think he should stand trial for that. I think so. In every army there is an order that says, “Any illegal order you don’t fulfill.” If you are a soldier and you are given an order to murder, you don’t murder because you are a soldier. You are willing to die but you are not willing to break that kind of a law.

This is fifty years old.

Two weeks ago in Israel an officer admitted that he massacred forty-three Egyptian prisoners of war, in the ‘56 War. Others admitted to the total of close to one thousand Egyptian civilians and soldiers that were killed in ‘67. Now everybody knows that in Israel. Nobody has actually come out and admitted it. These guys have admitted it. What has the government of Israel said? “Well it’s a very saddening thing to hear, but too long has passed for us to actually be able to put them on trial, the Israelis that killed those in the ‘67 War.” Now that’s a double standard.

I think that shows that your press is worthless. I think that your government is not far behind. I will tell you why. If this would have happened in Tanzania, if you had the north Tanzanians kill a thousand south Tanzanians you would have stopped aide. You would have had people in congress saying, “How can we send money to these people? They are murderers. First let’s put them on trial.”

A thousand people, most of them were actually Sudanese workers that were working on highways in the Sinai - they weren’t even soldiers - you know what the reason why they killed them? “We had nobody to guard them, and we couldn’t take them with us.” (Wasn’t it in the Battle of the Bulge - you American never forget what the Germans did in the Battle of the Bulge - when they took the prisoners, because they couldn’t take prisoners, and they killed them. You will remember them for that forever.) Even the Egyptian government is not daring to say anything because they are afraid that you Americans will stop aide to them for complaining. By not talking about it, what you have done is said, “O.K. You guys, you can do whatever you want.”

I will give you an interesting story. You have a thing called free trade. I’m not for free trade because I don’t think that I am going to find a job in Mexico, and I’m Canadian, but that is beside the point. There is a free trade you have with Israel. Did you know that? That’s the first free trade you have ever had - with Israel. (That’s another free trade. You give everything free to Israel and Israel gives you nothing back.) There is an agreement, a free trade agreement with Israel.

I remember as a member of the Mossad how we used to play with that. We used to go to companies in Europe and say we need from you this and this and this as far as arms is concerned, whether it be Folkers or whatever, engine manufacturer or electronics. We say, “We have a deal for you.” And they say, “What’s the deal?” “You want to sell stuff to the States with no barriers?” They say, “Sure!” “OK, you bring your stuff to Israel. We’ll package it and we’ll send it to the States. You see we’ve got free trade.” So suddenly you’ve got half of Europe trading through Israeli manufacturers more things that Israelis never heard of. If it was up to what an Israeli can do we would still be selling vegetables and sand. There is a lot of stuff that comes from Europe that is funneled through Israel to the United States, “free trade.” So now Europeans, say like a European television manufacturer - let’s say Blaupunct as an example - they say, “We don't need free trade, we can send televisions through Tel Aviv. They box it good in cardboard and they ship it to the US and walla - free trade, one way.” You see you can’t sell “free trade” back to Germany because you don’t have a deal, unless you are willing to do it backwards through Israel and I am sure that a few companies are doing that.

It sounds funny but it is very sad. It is very sad when you lose deals, for example the Saudi deal. There was a time when the Saudis wanted to buy tanks, extra fuel tanks for their jets. Of course our lobby said, “No way! That will allow the Saudi planes to make it all the way to Israel. You can’t do that. You are giving them the power over us.” Of course nobody knew that we had a deal through an Israeli manufacturer, through a company in Europe that we were selling the Saudis those tanks. We didn’t want you guys to do it. So we got the lobby to stop you guys and we made a bundle on it. This goes on and on.

The difference between that kind of intelligence agency and what you have, is the Mossad is not accountable to anybody except the Mossad. They don’t give a damn about the Israeli government because the Israeli government is temporary. They look at politicians as, “They are here today and gone tomorrow. What do they know? We know what’s good for the country. We brought it up to here. If we make peace tomorrow they will put us apart, close us down, take away our military, and then the enemies will come and attack us,” which a lot of them believe.

That does not give a chance to peace. You know what the problem is with not having peace? The Arabs have lost every war against Israel, but it’s like playing against a very good chess player, eventually you learn the game. There are not many more wars that Israel can win again and again, because Israel cannot lose a war. It has only one war to lose and that’s the end of it. It has happened before. Three times in our history we ended up being kicked out of the land because of zealots. The guys who kept bringing back war were zealots in our history. We have had that, and it’s happening now.

I know a lot of people get intimidated because they are afraid that they will be labeled “anti-Semite,” “anti-Israeli.” My plea is to people. I say, if you are a good American and you care about America, first of all make sure that things are right in your backyard. Make sure that the stuff thats going on in your backyard you can swallow. Never do anything, as far as I’m concerned.

There is a mistake. I hear a lot of people say, “There is a problem in the United States. There is a problem with those groups, and that group, and those people are bad, and those people are bad.” You make one big mistake. You don’t say, “We.” “We have a problem.” If you are pro-abortion or anti-abortion, don’t say, “They are for abortion. We are fighting them.” No, no, no, say, “We have a problem.” Once you start saying that --.

There is a story in the Jewish Passover story. There is a story about four sons. That’s four, not Mossad like. There’s the good son - which is the smart son, the stupid son - the one who doesn’t know how to ask, and the bad son. The stupid son is just stupid, so his questions are stupid. The one who doesn’t know how to ask, doesn’t ask. The smart son says, “When we left Egypt, God did this to us and we suffered and we went through the dessert, and we went through the dessert for forty years. We got this and we got that.” The bad son says, “When they got out of the dessert, they got this and they got that, and they got that.” So if you want to be a good American say, “We.” Because you are a democracy, your laws are yours, whether you like them or not. You’re the reason they are not changing. You are not convincing enough other people. Because your media says, “We don’t have an agenda,” and we believe them.

The same way if you like the United States, don’t be afraid to speak out when you like Israel. There is what to like. I miss Israel very much. I grew up there. I miss the smell. I miss my friends. I miss a lot of things about it. You have to say something if you want to save it. If your kid is on drugs, you are going to do something to stop him. You not going to say, “Well, he won’t like me if I tell him.” So you tell him, and you tell him. And if your media doesn’t do it, then say it again and ask them. Write letters and ask about it. Make sure when you write the questions you understand them, and make sure they understand them. And make sure they understand that you are not going to go away. Then you will be able to change things. Where was I? Does anybody have any questions?

Yes sir.

“What is the distinction between the Anti-Defamaton League and B’nai B’rith?”

I’ll answer it very simply. The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith. Most people that are members of B’nai B’rith are good people. Most people that work for B’nai B’rith believe and work for a good cause. But that is like saying a submachine gun is a good weapon. It is! It depends where you aim it. They have given up their leadership, have given up the will to decide whether what they do or don’t do is right or wrong. They have passed that on to somebody else to decide, and they are just targeted. So most of their membership, most of the people in those organizations are good people that are working for a good cause, and they do a lot of good things. There are elements that are targeted. How can we separate? Is the butt of the gun part of the problem or just the barrel? Of course without the butt you can still use the rifle, but it is part and parcel, it is one thing. I think that people who hear about it and don’t want to do anything about it and know that it’s true are to blame.

Yes. I saw a hand here, I am sorry. Ya, I am sorry.

“What is the difference between the Mossad and the ADL.”

The Anti-Defamation League is a.... The Mossad is an intelligence agency of the State of Israel, a foreign intelligence agency, the Israeli CIA. If you were to compare it, it would be like a, “What is the Moon Church for the Korean CIA?” It’s a vehicle. It’s a tool. The Mossad will not stop existing without the ADL. The ADL does not do the job for the Mossad. It does specific jobs. It will gather information when asked for it. It will do all kinds of things, but it’s not an integral part of the intelligence agency.

Yes sir.

“Are you a full Canadian or are you an Israeli?”

Ya, I’m a Canadian, but I am also an Israeli. I have dual citizenship. I was born in Canada, in Edmonton, Alberta. I grew up in Israel because my mother was born in Jerusalem. My father was born in Canada, and he came to Israel to fight in ‘48. I was born in ‘49. He really fought hard. The thing is I grew up in Israel. When I was in Israel, my children went to school. They were Israelis. One daughter was born in Canada.

Just to give you a background on myself, I served in the Israeli Army for three years. Then after that I left Israel for a while. I came back and rejoined the Navy. I finished in the rank of Lieutenant Commander in the Israeli navy. I was then recruited to the Mossad. I reached the rank of Colonel in the Mossad. That is when I left. Had I had the choice today, knowing what I have given up and realizing what I have achieved, I probably wouldn’t have done it. Because I really achieved not that much. The Mossad is still there. They are still doing the same thing. Nobody cares. The media doesn’t care. The Americans don’t care. The Germans don’t care. The French don’t care. Some Israelis care. I lost my country, which is Israel, also Canada, but you can’t take Israel out of me. So I have lost that. I lost all of my friends, well I still keep in contact with them. My family has lost their connection. So, no. If you are asking me where they have grown up, they have grown up in Israel. If I had a choice, I would have not heard of Mossad.

OK, one more question. Yes ma'am.

“Is Jewishness not exactly a religion? Is it a nation? Is it a culture, a tradition? Is it common history, or is it a race?”

I’ll answer that. “Is Judaism a race, a common history, a religion, a culture?” I’ll tell you. First of all Judaism is a religion. Then it becomes a nation. As far as race, there is a problem with that. I’ll tell you why. Because of all the non-Sephardic Jews are descendents of a nation called the Khazari or the Khazarian. So we are Jews. We believe that Moses took us out of Egypt. We are proud of being Jews. A lot of us don’t fulfill all of what we are suppose to, which most other religions don’t, and we should. That’s all that I can tell you. In Israel it’s a nation. In Israel it’s a nation. Now that moves away from intelligence. Not that it’s not intelligent to be religious, but in this particular thing I’m not really... Ya, but that’s not my subject. No.

The above was transcripted from a speech given by Victor Ostrovsky on September 2, 1995.