Even with the best of agents, when operations run on the edge go wrong, they will always look  bad. When an undercover operative is killed rather than the target, it is as about as bad as things can get, because the dead undercover operative can possibly be traced by both the penetrated organization and law enforcement. This is the likely outcome of a blown operation in which I’d been the target. My experience is reconstructed nearly verbatim from notes I’d made shortly after the event.

Oct 14, 2007

At Neu Koln, Berlin, when catching the U-7 subway south towards Rudow, I was standing at the underground kiosk buying breath fresheners when the train arrived. I quickly tried to complete the transaction but figured I would likely have to catch the next train. I noticed a group of young Arabs holding the door to the train open, preventing it’s departure, all (4) of them watching me, clearly it appeared as though they either expected me to catch that train or they would not be on it themselves.

The train consequently waited for me and I sprinted to the door they were holding for me and jumped between them, onboard. They let the door close as I turned 180 degrees rather than taking a seat, making them a group of five.

Standing facing them, holding a pole, all seemed surprised at my action. A shorter, darker one, then began to assail me in Arabic language as though I were expected to understand, this one initially took the lead and was most vehement and hostile, although a couple of the others were also saying quite angry things to me direct, also if expecting I would understand.

I simply looked at them all, eyes moving one to the other direct, and asked “Do you speak English?”

A tall member of the group, with light complexion on my right (all of them were facing me) and who did not become involved with the angry speech, indicated he did speak English with “Yes”

I asked “What country are you from?”

His indirect answer was to point to the most hostile one, the short grubby one who was wearing an Israeli Defense Force battle fatigue shirt as though it were a trophy, and stated “He is Palestinian.”

He made this a clear distinction. My guess was the one who’d made this statement and the 2 others (all taller, better dressed and lighter complexion than the ‘Palestinian’) were Hezbollah aligned Lebanese, there is a large Lebanese community in that area.

I said to the short hostile one, emphatically: “You’re Palestinian? I apologize to you for George Bush!”

That one statement changed everything. All of them went silent and the ‘Palestinian’ never said another word.

I then said: “There are many good people in my country who don’t like what is happening, it is a difficult situation.”

From this moment and comment, the now totally silent (and clear outsider)  ‘Palestinian’ became the target of the Lebanese, while they checked out my reactions to their terrorizing the ‘Palestinian’, the focus of their hostility had shifted away from me.

What happened now was really interesting. One of the Lebanese is suddenly is getting on his cell phone and making a call… while the groups leader, the tall one to my right, looks at me while pointing to the ‘Palestinian’ who is suddenly looking very ill, and says “Maybe he is Israeli” while assessing my reaction.

I deliberately made myself look surprised and suspicious, raised one eyebrow at the ‘Palestinian’ and said “Israeli Arab?” as though I both: did not fully understand and did not like the idea or somehow found it disconcerting.

The train had made a brief stop and a fifth Arab (Lebanese) joined us with a cell phone and greeting the other Lebanese but not the ‘Palestinian’ who had simply become demoralized with a now clearly frightened look. The new arrival had some conversation in Arabic with the tall on my right, after a hand/fist greeting that, by gesture and look, was attempting to sort some things that needed sorting.

The new arrival is now on his phone while also talking to the tall one to my right, but interrupts his conversation with the tall Lebanese and asks me “Where are you from? England?” almost as to test my veracity, his English skills would know, and I clearly answered “USA.”

I was asked “Where do you stay?”

I stated as a matter of fact “Berlin”

Then I was asked: “Do you speak German” and I answered “Only a little” .. whereas the tall one to my right gave an absolutely evil look at the ‘Palestinian’ and said  slowly, deliberately, “My German is VERY good.” [I’ve often wondered at the significance of that statement]

The new one and the tall one looked at each other, spoke again in Arabic and then the tall one suggested to me while rubbing the ‘Palestinians’ belly “Maybe he is a good boy for sex. What do you think?”

Now the ‘Palestinian’ had the absolute look of ‘I am going to die’ on his face as I answered emphatically, with the culturally correct “I am a good man!” and an offended look (I wore silver studs in my ears at that time and likely had been falsely profiled to MOSSAD as gay)

Suddenly the tall Lebanese, with my answer, made a violent stabbing motion with his right hand at the ‘Palestinian’ while shouting (nearly screaming) to the new arrival “The Israeli must be killed!!”

The Lebanese closed around the ‘Palestinian’ with looks of shock and rage on their faces, when the train stopped, they shoved him off the train together with stepping off themselves. I assure you all, the ‘Palestinian’ did not live long after this interrogation, at most a matter of hours.

Now, I noticed the Germans on the train, men looking straight ahead, no expression, several women had looks of absolute terror on their faces, it had been that intense.

The ‘Palestinian’ was clearly not one of the group in any sense of intimate acquaintance or typical association. He was dressed a bit shabbily, wearing the IDF olive drab fatigue jacket with a Hebrew lettered tag over the left pocket. The Lebanese were all clean, well dressed, of a better class, and obviously educated and intelligent. The ‘Palestinian’ had gone from initiator of the groups hostilities towards me, to the groups target in this course of events lasting about 10 minutes. I expected I could have died. Clearly, the posed as a ‘Palestinian’ MOSSAD agent had died instead.

This was a failed scheme (compromised operation) of using the ‘Palestinian’, almost certainly a Sephardic MOSSAD agent fluent in Arab language and culture, under false pretext to dupe Hezbollah aligned people into assisting with a hit in a difficult operational area (Arab neighborhood.) Between my survival skills (training) confronting the circumstance with dialogue, and Hezbollah’s obvious caution, the Israeli operative, in a sense, literally cut his own throat. He was not prepared for my direct engagement.

With the CIA or MOSSAD (your choice) having decided to leak the fact clandestine operations of the two agencies have established a certain degree of fusion, released as a psychological ploy (neither agency is particularly bright these days), it brought into perspective a phenomena I had puzzled over for some time; how it was I’d drawn the attempted lethal attention of both institutions in a matter of two weeks (in the Fall of 2007.) A case of leaked accountability to Newsweek magazine establishes the CIA & MOSSAD were initiating joint assassinations by February, 2008. In actuality, my case establishes they were already jointly pursuing targets four months previous to this, in October, 2007.

MOSSAD is bound to a code of conduct which requires avenging a loss. I would simply point out to the Israelis, at what price? What had happened in the aftermath of this failed operation had been MOSSAD coming after me with a vengeance. The question MOSSAD should have looked at is, did CIA and ‘associates’ calculatedly omit the fact of my exceptional training, as well the fact I had repeatedly surprised and neutralized or reversed previous operations mounted against myself prior to this event? By now MOSSAD should understand their several subsequent failures can be no accident. No one is that lucky.

People should learn to take responsibility for their mistakes as opposed to doubling-down with attempts based on a moral  & tactical failure. As a matter of fact I do not celebrate the MOSSAD man’s death; nor do I regret it. After all, it was not myself initiated the deadly encounter.

A closing note: I would point out to the radicalized-nationalist Israelis, and MOSSAD is populated with these, with a gross history of policy failures, the nature of psychology is, when you have made a mistake, you must correct yourself, to stay a correct course of action. Otherwise, mistakes become complications and complications lead to making by far more serious mistakes:

 

Updated 27 September 2021

On Israel

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