Israeli experts: If Europe won't wiretap, they won't know

Three senior officials who dedicated their lives to issues revolving around security, intelligence and terror talked to Al-Monitor about the wave of Islamic terror that is washing over Europe and the ways of coping with it. The first was Maj.-Gen. (Res.) Yaakov Amidror, formerly a senior at the intelligence branch of the Israel Defense Forces and military CEO of defense ministers. His last post so far was head of Israel’s National Security Council and national security adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (until November 2013). The second official: Rami Igra, former senior Mossad official with expertise in terror issues and former head of the missing-In-action division of Israel’s intelligence organization. The third, who preferred to remain anonymous, is also a high-placed former official in the Israeli intelligence services, who has served as head of Military Intelligence.

“The Europeans have four problems,” Amidror said. “Three of them are fundamental, one is technical. The first problem is one of definition. You have to call a spade a spade. The terror that they currently face is not ideological terror. It is not the [Italian] Red Brigades nor the [German] Baader-Meinhof, and not even criminal. This terror is fueled by strong religious ideology. True, it’s hard for the Europeans to say this, but the fact is that while not all Muslims are terrorists, all the terrorists in this era are Muslims. You cannot win without a precise determination of the enemy.”

“The second issue,” Amidror added, “is intelligence. You have to map the target population and the districts in which to operate, to get intelligence. After all, it’s clear that we won’t search for these terrorists among the Calvinist population in Switzerland. There is no other way than using aggressive intelligence. The tried-and-true formula is if you won’t wiretap, you won’t know. Yes, civilians, too. And yes, your own citizens. Because these are your citizens, they live in your midst, studied in your educational school system and that’s why you have no choice. You must wiretap them, follow them, because without it there is no intelligence and without intelligence you can’t win. France learned this lesson the hard way last week.”

“The third point,” Amidror said, “is the use of intelligence. In the criminal-penal world, if you wiretap and hear a gang of lawbreakers planning to rob a bank, you can’t do a thing except to continue to keep tabs on them. You can’t prosecute people for their intentions. But in the world of terror, when so many human lives are at stake, you have no choice but to take preventative action, to the point of administrative detentions.”