other-side-of-deception-victor-ostrovsky

pasted across the country. Shamir called the president's action "Am-Bush."Israeli messengers in all the communities across the United Statesimmediately went into high gear, launching attacks against the president.They fed the media an endless stream of criticism, while trying atthe same time to make it clear to Vice President Dan Quayle that hewas still their sweetheart and that what the president was doing in noway affected their opinion of him.This love affair with a vice president was not a new thing; it hadbeen almost standard procedure ever since the creation of the state ofIsrael. Any time a president was not on the best of terms with Israel,the Jewish organizations were instructed to cozy up to the vice president.That was the case with Dwight Eisenhower, whom Israelregarded as the worst president in history (although, ironically, thevice president they regarded as a friend, namely Richard Nixon, himselfbecame an enemy once he was president). It was what lay behindthe strong support Israel and the Jewish community gave to LyndonJohnson, who almost doubled aid to Israel in his first year as president,after John Kennedy had come down hard on the Israeli nuclearprogram, believing it was a first and dangerous step in the proliferationof nuclear weapons in the region.That strategy was behind their hatred for Nixon and their admirationfor Gerald Ford. And then there was Jimmy Carter, whose wholeadministration was regarded as a big mistake as far as Israel was concerned,a mistake that had cost Israel the whole of the Sinai in returnfor a lukewarm peace with Egypt.And now there was this peace process, put forth by the countryclub idiot. The right-wingers' silent cry was to somehow stop the process,which they believed would lead to a compromise that wouldforce Israel to return more land. Refusing to believe that such a compromisewould ever be made, settlers in the Occupied Territories hadlaunched a new wave of construction, with the unrelenting help ofAriel Sharon, the minister of housing.A certain right-wing clique in the Mossad regarded the situation asa life-or-death crisis and decided to take matters into their own hands,to solve the problem once and for all. They believed that Shamirwould have ordered what they were about to do if he hadn't beengagged by politics. Like many others before them, in countless countriesand administrations, they were going to do what the leadershipreally wanted but couldn't ask for, while at the same time leaving theleadership out of the loop-they were going to become Israeli versionsof Colonel Oliver North, only on a much more lethal level.1\ATo this clique, it was clear what they must do. There was no doubtthat Bush would be out of his element on October 30 when he arrivedin Madrid to open the peace talks. This was going to be the most protectedevent of the year, with so many potential enemies meeting inone place. On top of that, there were all those who were against thetalks: the Palestinian extremists and the Iranians and the Libyans, notto mention the decimated Iraqis with their endless calls for revenge forthe Gulf War.The Spanish government had mobilized more than ten thousandpolice and civil guards. In addition, the American Secret Service, theSoviet KGB, and all the security services of all the countries involvedwould be on hand.The Madrid Royal Palace would be the safest place on the planetat the time, unless you had the security plans and could find a flaw inthem. That was exactly what the Mossad planned to do. It was clearfrom the start that the assassination would be blamed on the Palestinians-perhapsending once and for all their irritating resistance andmaking them the people most hated by all Americans.Three Palestinian extremists were taken by a Kidon unit from theirhiding place in Beirut and relocated incommunicado in a special detentionlocation in the Negev desert. The three were Beijdun Salameh,Mohammed Hussein, and Hussein Shahin.At the same time, various threats, some real and some not, weremade against the pesident. The Mossad clique added its share, inorder to more precisely define the threat as if it were coming from agroup affiliated with none other than Abu Nidal. They knew thatname carried with it a certain guarantee of getting attention and keepingit. So if something were to happen, the media would be quick toreact and say, "We knew about it, and don't forget where you saw itfirst."Several days before the event, it was leaked to the Spanish policethat the three terrorists were on their way to Madrid and that theywere probably planning some extravagant action. Since the Mossadhad all the security arrangements in hand, it would not be a problemfor this particular clique to bring the "killers" as close as they mightwant to the president and then stage a killing. In the ensuing confusion,the Mossad people would kill the "perpetrators," scoring yetanother victory for the Mossad. They'd be very sorry that they hadn'tbeen able to save the president, but ~rotecting him was not their job tobegin with. With all the security forces involved and the assassinsdead, it would be very difficult to discover where the security breachhad been, except that several of the countries involved in the confer-