by Bill Levinson

We will begin by saying that we are not connected with any domestic or foreign intelligence agency, nor do we even have a security clearance. The following advice to security and law enforcement agencies in the United States, Israel, and elsewhere is based entirely on the content of centuries-old texts on espionage and counterespionage. Anyone with a reasonable budget— “a few hundred pieces of gold,” to quote Sun Tzu— who has read The Art of War and/or Sir Thomas More’s Utopia could easily destroy the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) in a few years or, even better, use it to damage Hamas and other terrorist organizations.

One who confronts his enemy for many years in order to struggle for victory in a decisive battle yet who, because he begrudges rank, honours, and a few hundred pieces of gold, remains ignorant of his enemy’s situation, is completely devoid of humanity. Such a man is no general; no support to his sovereign; no master of victory.

—Sun Tzu, The Art of War (~500 BCE), “Employment of Secret Agents”

The International Solidarity Movement recruits American college students as activists to spread its message and interfere with Israeli security measures. College is expensive and students also like to have spending money. If I was running Homeland Security, Scotland Yard, or Israeli intelligence, I would offer selected high school graduates four-year scholarships (with the scholarships extending through law or graduate school for successful performance) to infiltrate the ISM as spies and agent provocateurs. [Note: I am not an attorney and cannot give legal advice but it’s conceivable that an American student receiving Israeli money, or an Israeli student receiving money from the United Kingdom or United States, might have to register with his own government as a foreign agent. It’s probably best if each intelligence or law enforcement agency recruit its own country’s citizens for the purposes described below.]

Building a cover story

The agent would have to begin, perhaps in his or her senior high school year, to build a successful cover story. If the agent wants to pose as a Marxist, he or she must read books by Karl Marx. If he wants to be an anarchist, he must read the biographies of anarchists like Che Guevara. This could perhaps be done during the summer between high school graduation and matriculation at college. Upon joining ISM/PSM or a campus section of Students for Justice for Palestine, the agent will be able to quote the proper revolutionary slogans and dogma at length and without hesitation.

The agent must then participate in anti-Israel and anti-American demonstrations. He must be willing to burn the American flag and chant revolutionary slogans in public. He must build an image as a True Believer and perhaps a fanatic who is willing to stand in front of a bulldozer or interfere with Israeli security checkpoints. Upon going to Israel as an ISM activist, he or she must participate in such activities even if they break the law. Israeli security forces will, of course, be advised of the agent’s identity so they will not refer him for criminal prosecution or deport him. Everything must be done to make the agent look good enough to be put in contact with the terrorists with whom the ISM is working. At this point, the agent can even set up terrorists for arrest.

Use of agents to entrap actual terrorists

As consorting with terrorists in Palestinian-controlled areas might entail some physical risk, however, agents might want to choose less-dangerous assignments in friendly territory. The purported ISM member could, for example, express a willingness to let terrorists use his or her apartment or office space for “safe house” protection and then betray the terrorist to law enforcement. An avid reader of Sun Tzu (or Tom Clancy) could, in fact, make some very interesting inferences from this:

“Susan Barclay, the ISM organizer deported by Israel after she hid Islamic Jihad terrorist Shadi Sukiya in the ISM office in Jenin, told the Seattle Post Intelligencer that, “she knowingly worked with representatives from Hamas and Islamic Jihad— terrorist groups that sponsor suicide bombings and exist, according to their charters, to demolish the Jewish state entirely.” (Seattle Post Intelligencer, Thursday March 20, 2003, “Activist’s death focuses spotlight on Mideast struggle,” By Sam Skolnik, Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter.)

It’s very interesting that Ms. Barclay was merely deported for an activity— hiding a terrorist— that would be punishable by ten years imprisonment in the United States, and that the Islamic Jihad terrorist was caught in her office. If, and this is pure speculation, Barclay was actually working for the good guys, something might have gone wrong with the operation. Perhaps she was supposed to leave the office before Israeli security forces arrived but there was a miscue or mistiming somewhere so she was there when they arrested the terrorist. When the Israelis caught her with Shadi Sukiya they couldn’t not arrest her with him. On the other hand, they couldn’t prosecute or punish someone who was working for them, so she was merely deported for what would have been a serious felony under ordinary circumstances.

Historical examples

Is this something out of a fantasy story or a Tom Clancy novel? Anyone who has read Sun Tzu’s The Art of War will understand just how ruthless espionage can be.

“The most cynical, the very worst passages in the notorious Eighteenth Chapter of [Machiavelli’s] The Prince pale before the naked and full-bodied depravity of the old Chinese lore on espionage (James Murdoch, A History of Japan, 1949).”

In other words, Sun Tzu makes Niccolò Machiavelli look like Mother Theresa of Calcutta. The Art of War describes one espionage coup in which a double agent told the enemy that, if the enemy mutilated prisoners and desecrated graves, it would demoralize a city’s defenders. When the enemy acted on this advice, it enraged the defenders so greatly that they sortied from their city and massacred the besiegers. Note that whoever did it caused the mutilation of his own side’s soldiers who were in the enemy’s hands and the desecration of his own people’s cemeteries.

In another example, a condemned criminal was offered a pardon if he would carry a message in a wax ball that he was to swallow. The spymaster, however, had no intention whatsoever of saving this prisoner’s life. He instead leaked information to the enemy that resulted in the courier’s capture. When the wax ball passed from his digestive system, the enemy opened it and found a message to a top-level general. It had the desired effect; the enemy put the supposed traitor to death along with the courier who delivered the message.

There is also very substantial evidence that the International Solidarity Movement and/or its Palestinian handlers set up peace activist Rachel Corrie to be killed so they could make propaganda. Two ISM members and a Hamas terrorist stated a motive openly, and apparently none of the ISM activists who were present when she was run over by the bulldozer lifted a finger to pull her out of the slowly-moving vehicle’s path. A higher priority was to take pictures, none of which however shows the actual incident. Corrie’s body was conveniently cremated, thus preventing forensic pathology to see whether drugs may have been put into her food to dull her instincts for self-preservation. Given the mileage that the terrorists have gotten from her death, this is a very credible scenario and one of which Sun Tzu would have doubtlessly approved subject to the Eleventh Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Get Caught. (Corollary: Thou Shalt Not Run Off at the Mouth and say how useful the person’s death was to your cause, because “motive” attracts homicide detectives and their equivalents the way a fresh steak attracts dogs.)

Sir Thomas More’s Utopia describes the use of equally ruthless methods. When the fictional Utopians had to fight, More wrote, they offered rewards for the murder of the enemy leaders, with any enemy leader on the proscription list to receive a reward and a pardon if he turned on his associates. Since no one in the enemy camp could trust anyone else, the opposing organization soon collapsed.

“Making it look good”– the lengths to which some agents go to build covers

In this context, the movie The Molly Maguires is quite believable. The mine bosses who are exploiting coal miners in 19th century Pennsylvania hire a detective (played by Richard Harris) to infiltrate a rebel miner’s organization and set the rebels up to be hanged. The Welsh police captain, who has occasion to take the detective into custody and ask what he has learned, says, “I can’t let you go back unmarked; we have to make this look good” and hits the detective in the face with his billy club. This helps persuade the miners that the detective is an oppressed coal miner like themselves and not an infiltrator. Later on, the detective helps the rebellious miners beat a mine policeman. When the police captain complains that his officer’s jaw was broken in two places, the detective reminds him, “We have to make this look good.” Finally, when the Molly Maguires are voting on whether to beat a mine boss or kill him, the detective votes, “Kill the son of a bitch.” This gives his employers the murder they need to hang the Molly Maguires.

Sun Tzu and commentators on his work point out, in fact, that a secret agent must be willing to endure humiliation and poor living conditions. Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse shows that pretending to be a homeless person is an excellent cover because no one notices the homeless. If the agent is willing to go without bathing and shaving while stinking of whiskey (poured on his clothing instead of down his throat for the purpose), he will simply not be noticed. Even law enforcement will probably ignore him if he obeys orders to move along and if he doesn’t cause trouble.

An agent who joins the ISM can, of course, “make it look good” in far less drastic ways. Being dragged away by Israeli police (as one Palestine Solidarity Movement member was) for some trifling act of civil disobedience would be one way. Minor vandalism like wheat-pasting an Israel tank or interfering with a security checkpoint could be another, while verbally advocating terroristic violence could be a third. These “make it look good” actions could easily win the trust of other ISM activists and perhaps even Hamas terrorists whom Israel wants to set up for arrest.

Application of espionage (or the mere threat thereof) to destroy a subversive organization

I actually employed a legal and nonviolent version of these methods during the 1980s, when an organization known as PEGS (People for the Elimination of the Greek System) was running around Cornell University and demanding abolishment of the fraternities. They vandalized mine with spray paint, along with a nearby stop sign (city property) and an on-campus sidewalk (university property). I published a letter to the editor that suggested that the fraternities get together and hire a private detective– with the fraternities’ and sororities’ combined resources the cost per organization would be low– to join PEGS. Note also that not all fraternity and sorority members live in the organization’s house and those living elsewhere also could infiltrate PEGS. The agent’s job would be to catch the group in an act of vandalism and report them to the police. For whatever reason, PEGS dried up and blew away like the dog doo in the movie Sudden Impact. You would be amazed at just how easy it is to destroy an entire organization, and without breaking any laws, if you know what you are doing.

Recommended use of domestic informers

Agents can, of course, serve in far less active roles without leaving the United States or European countries in which the ISM operates. They can simply send domestic law enforcement agencies information about planned illegal activities so the police can catch the perpetrators in the act. In this role, they must beware of “canary traps” in which a counterintelligence office gives different pieces of very specific information to individuals. If the information leaks out, it is then easy to identify the spy because only one person was entrusted with it. Agents can also serve as agent provocateurs whose function is to make ISM look bad, e.g. by advocating terrorism in contravention of the organization’s supposedly-nonviolent nature (as Adam Shapiro and Huwaida Arraf have done) or even talking about how to infiltrate churches and other institutions. Such statements on the ISM’s behalf can then be used against it.

Come to think of it, it is interesting to note just how many Jews– including Israelis– are in the International Solidarity Movement and similar organizations all over the world. Most are traitors to Civilized Humanity but perhaps we should take a fresh look at the others. Again this is pure speculation but perhaps a few are heroes and heroines who are willing to suffer opprobrium, at least for the duration of the conflict with terrorism, to perform valuable intelligence missions. In the tangled world of espionage, people and things are often not what they seem.

Again, college is expensive and law school, which rarely offers fellowships or other student support, is even more so. Seven years of masquerading as a Marxist, communist, or anarchist rabble-rouser is a dirt cheap way to pay for an undergraduate and graduate education. As seen from the perspective of the intelligence or law enforcement agency involved, it’s a dirt cheap way to get priceless information so it’s what we would call a win-win relationship. This is certainly an opportunity that law enforcement and security agencies around the world should offer to far more high school juniors and seniors because, as Sun Tzu said, espionage is the cheapest way to destroy an enemy without having to actually fight him.

Do-it-yourself bounty hunting

A college student or other potential “activist” need not be employed by any agency to have a chance at some extra money through infiltration of the ISM and related organizations. Many pro-Palestinian tax-exempt organizations are lobbying but not reporting their lobbying expenditures on their Form 990 tax returns. Others are collecting tax-exempt money and turning it over to the non-exempt ISM. ISM members might therefore be in positions to know where money is going and, more importantly, where it is coming from, and they can earn a reward by reporting irregularities to the Internal Revenue Service.

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Related: War Against Islamo-fascism

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