With Israel gearing up for its 75th's anniversary on Yom Ha'atzmaut (Independence Day) April 25, SPYSCAPE marks the occasion with a deep dive into Israel’s secrets and spies. We examine some of Mossad’s game-changing operations and go behind the scenes with Israel’s honey-trap spies, blockbuster TV series, and a celebrated French-German painter who dazzled high society while operating undercover as an Israeli spymaster.
The Dubai operation
When French-Israeli director Emmanuel Naccache released Kidon (Spear) he stressed that the movie wasn’t meant to be factual. It was a reimagining of a 2010 assassination in a Dubai hotel but what really happened in the UAE that day and the police investigation that followed is even more incredible than the fictional tale - and it has had a seismic impact on spy agencies.
Steven Spielberg's Munich stars a pre-007 Daniel Craig in a thriller based on the hostage-taking at Germany’s 1972 Olympic Games. A Palestinian group, Black September, is eager to claim the credit. Mossad is eager to take revenge. Operation Wrath of God is just one of Israel’s notorious spy operations and the movies they inspired will leave you on the edge of your seat.
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When For Your Eyes Only actor Chaim Topol died in March, his children revealed a close secret: their dad was a Mossad spy while based in London. Topol led a double life as a movie star and an operative conducting secret missions - including installing surveillance on an Arab nation’s embassy in a European capital. But that wasn’t his only link to espionage.
There’s a joke in Tel Aviv that anyone with a laptop in a cafe must be writing a TV series. Hackers, spies, and villains dominate our screens with shadowy thrillers from Fauda to Tehran and The Spy - and there are plenty of other series in production. Look no further. Here are the shows and movies everyone is talking about.
French artist 'Charduval' was the darling of Cairo’s jet set after his exhibition at the National Museum - a young, bohemian artist with a cigarette permanently dangling from his lips. He moved to Cairo in 1950 after declaring his love for the land of the Nile. It was an impressive entree into high society - even more so because the ‘artist’ was a Mossad spymaster running an Egyptian spy ring on the side.
Journalist Ronen Bergman specializes in the dark art of espionage operations. In the ‘80s, he stumbled on the scoop of a lifetime when an Israeli Air Force contact revealed a top-secret order to shoot down a plane carrying hundreds of passengers to kill one man: PLO chairman Yasser Arafat. An important question intrigued Bergman, however: if his source was right, how was Arafat still alive?
