Video: The balancing act of fighting terrorism

By Martin Fletcher Correspondent
NBC News
updated 8/10/2005 10:20:37 PM ET 2005-08-11T02:20:37

ASHKELON, Israel — Avi Dichter, the head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic spy and security service, speaks to NBC News Martin Fletcher about Israel’s domestic security services in the light of the global war on terror and ahead of the disengagement of Israel’s 21 settlements in Gaza and four settlements in the West Bank begins next week.

NBC News’ Martin Fletcher: When you see London under attack in the last couple of weeks — in the last month, two times —  do you professionally look at that and say, “Well these guys how can they defend London it's too big to be protected?”  Or New York?  Because when I travel to these places,  it seems that compared to Israel, they're wide open for terrorists. How do you see that?

Avi Dichter:  I think that their problem is a little bit lighter then the Israeli problems. We have the terrorist centers right next to the window. You can see them throughout the window, whether it's Nablus or Tulkarem or Hebron or Gaza and until Aug. 2003 we didn’t even have the fence to block them. Believe me, to cross from New Jersey to New York,  it was much more complicated than to cross from Nablus right into Tel Aviv.

And that's the reason why we suffered so many casualties during the first years of the intifada [Palestinian uprising].  Gaza Strip by the way till today — five years of  intifada — not even one suicide bomber succeeded in crossing the fence and carry out a terror attack inside Israel, during five years. The two events were through the crossing points that we failed to detect.

So, I think that England as an island or the United States as an island, it's not more complicated than Israel to protect.

Fletcher: Except that they have many home grown — what they call the "home grown terrorists. From here, people come from the outside, but there 1.5 million Muslims in Britain, seven-eight million in America.

Dichter: I beg to differ. We have in Israeli 20 percent of our population are Arabs, pure Arabs, closer to the Palestinians than to the Jewish people in Israel. And  crossing every day in tens of thousands of Arabs from the West Bank legally an illegally. I'm not sure that it's less complicated than the problem you have in the states or in England.

Fletcher:  So how do you do it — how do you stop terrorism here?  

Dichter: As a matter of fact we haven't done the right steps right at the beginning of this session of violence. We have a long history with them including Shin Bet — we are fighting with them since 1967, but what happened at the 29 of September 2000  — it was a starting of a completely new system of violence.

First of all, the increase numbers of suicide bombers. Suicide bombers are the horrible terror attacks that you can ever imagine, we speak about 60 percent of our casualties are due to suicide bombers. Sixty percent!

While suicide bombers are less than 0.5 percent of the entire pie of terror attacks against Israel, which means once you identify the problem which is suicide bombers than you have to decide what kind of steps has to be taken in order to block them. So penetrating the centers of the terrorism in Nablus, Tulkarem, Hebron, Afghanistan, or any other country.

Fletcher: Penetrating in the sense of intelligence?

Dichter: Penetrating in the sense of both: intelligence and army troops. It's not enough to have very good intelligence, because if you have very good intelligence and you try to block them inside your cities or after crossing your borders it's too late.

Martin, believe me, it's too late, you have to be there deeply if you have some kind of assistance from the local security apparatuses, it's a different situation. We haven't had even the slight support or of even the slight assistance from the Palestinian security apparatuses.

So we had to it all by our own troops, by our own intelligence. When we handed over information to our colleagues at the P.A side, instead of taking this information and translate it into counter terrorism actions, they looked who are the sources that gave us or handed over the information to us. So we understood that it's going to be all blue-white, which means all Israeli made, and that was the reason why we decided to go deep into the area

Fletcher: The Palestinians are more interested in capturing the collaborators rather than the terrorists?

Dichter: In capturing the collaborators or to understand whether it is signet information or any other system that we use in order to gather information.

Fletcher: So the first thing is intelligence?

Dichter: Intelligence is a very essential thing. I mean that having very good intelligence without very good capabilities to protect it, and counter-terrorism actions is meaningless.

Fletcher: Suicide bombers are the worst weapons the Palestinians have, the most effective weapon they have. You are saying you stop them mostly by being there on the ground, intelligence of different kinds and the fence — the wall. Why is the fence so effective?  

Dichter: Because it stopped them from crossing from the camps of terrorism, the training camps, right into the middle of the citizens of Israel.

So in order to cross from Sameria area, for example, into Israel, they had to go through Jerusalem or to use some more assistance whether it's from the Palestinians, the Israeli Arabs or even some Jewish people, to take them from the centers of terrorism right into Israel. So the fence blocked it at once.

And if you'll take the figures from the Sameria area, Sameria area caused us 50 percent of our fatalities, out of more than 1,000 Israelis that got killed, more than 500 got killed due to terrorism that came from the Sameria area.

When we finished the buffer zone — the fence— along the Sameria area in August 2003, since then 10 percent of the casualties that Sameria area caused us, caused us after August 2003, I mean from those 500 fatalities 90 percent were due to terrorism that was launched prior to the fence and only, if I may say only on victims, only 10 percent caused us by terrorism that came after August 2003.

Fletcher: So should the fence be completed all around the border and throughout round Jerusalem.

Dichter: Absolutely — absolutely you are right Martin, I hope that by the next year it will be completed along the West Bank and around Jerusalem and for sure it is going to assist us in blocking the flow of terrorism.

Fletcher:  A full physical barrier all along the Israeli border and around Jerusalem?

Dichter: A long border, a long line with crossing points that detection will be done there profoundly, in order to see who is trying to cross with some warfare means and it's going to assist a lot in fighting back terrorism.

By the way crossing points, it's from the West Bank to Israel, it's not different or it shouldn't be different,  than from Europe into the States.

Fletcher: How important is it for Israel's defense that you finish the whole fence and wall system?

Dichter: It's very important. We are too late in it. We've started it too late. We are constructing it too late. And — slow and we will probably finish it too late. Nobody knows how many victims we could have rescued if this fence was finished a year or two years ago.

Fletcher: How important is it to Israel in the over all strategic sense?

Dichter: Very important. You know there is no, in fighting terrorism, there is no one switch that you switch it off — and that's it. 

I mean you have a panel with switches that you have to switch off each one of them and after switching off two of them, the third one is switched on and that's how things work.

Anyway I think that it's the same in England, it's the same in the United States. We are sharing information about it. We are sharing our experience that we paid with a lot of blood, a lot of Israeli blood in order to got this experience, and I don't think that the America should pay with its blood in order to gain such an experience. Although you suffered a lot in the 9/11 event.

Fletcher: But the United States and other countries often send police security forces to Israel to study the way you stopped terrorist. What can you teach them?

Dichter: Well first of all we teach them all that we are doing here. We don't have something secrets that we don't share with our colleagues, and the United States and England and some other countries in Europe are real colleagues and in counter terrorism there are not many secrets.

Fletcher: But if you had to give a list, sort of a laundry list of some of the key points that you need to show them how to fight terrorism, what is that list?

Dichter: First of all, a country should fight terrorism as a country, not as a bunch of counter-terrorism people. And the country has a lot of abilities, a lot of capabilities, in order to fight back.

We always joke about the M-16 and the F-16 from my point of view there is no difference. I mean if you have an arch - terrorist that the only way to target him down is by an F-16 and not by an M-16  — it's OK.

Second you have to create a deterrence. Deterrence is probably the name of the game. Without deterrence you are in trouble 1310. And if M-16 sends the message the F-16's delivers it better.

Anyway speaking in counter terrorism of course we speak about terrorist and not about innocent people. Which is completely different when you talk about terrorists.

Terrorist their aim is to kill as many innocent people, or as many Israelis in our case, as possible. They don't differentiate between soldiers, adults, babies, etc. While each counter terrorism apparatus is acting only against terrorists.

I don't remember even one special operation that was launched against terrorists and we knew that innocent people are going to be there — and we continued the counter terrorism operation. Although, we have suffered in some cases, we have suffered very tough results that were caused by some mistakes — we are not perfect — nobody is perfect in this kind of job. It a surgery job.

Fletcher:  We'll get to that in a moment,  but what are the other points that you would say are very critical?

Dichter: Checkpoint. Crossing points. Terrorists it's the one of the weaknesses of terrorists — the crossing points.

Over there they have to cross through counter terrorism people, through the local administrations that check you ID's your passport and over there if you are cheating or bringing phony documents or etc. It's probably if you have very good capabilities,  it's probably going to be detected, and identified as a fake document.

Therefore crossing points — it's a very essential point in order to understand who is crossing whether it's a terrorist or not.

Second, sharing of information. I think that sharing information in counter terrorism it's one of the most important issues among allies. Among the security organizations of countries, whether it is Europe, the United States or some other countries.

Fletcher: But also within the country?

Dichter: Within the country it's normal being done.

Fletcher: Well in America for example, the CIA didn't tell the FBI and the local station...

Dichter: Well I don't know what's going on in the States. We had some slight problems here in handing over information, we have for many years very good cooperation between the security agencies and not handing over information to the other agency, it's a discipline problem it's not something that is going to be easily solved.

Fletcher:  Anything more on that list?

Dichter: I think that intelligence is the whole story. It's a cluster. It's not only one, I mean it's only human resources —  human intelligence, or sigint  or visint, it's a gathering of all those tools, of all those systems and consternating into one place under one command, and that's probably the key success  factor in fighting terrorism.

Fletcher:  How successful have you and Israel combined all those elements into fighting terrorism?

Dichter:  Well, we have started it not at the best successes. Due to some mistakes that we have made, we improved afterwards, we improved the cooperation afterwards, we improved the cooperation with the IDF, especially with the air force, and I think that we reached very good results, but if I may say the most important point was the "defensive field" operation launched in April 2002 after the horrible Park Hotel attack in Netanya.

When we entered the West Bank with our troops, the army, the Shin bet, and starting to arrest people, terrorists, to questioning them, to take the information and to translate into counter terrorism actions, that was the name of the game, it gave us a lot of information that we you'll never be able to get from human sources. From sigin or from any other sources 1752  the best way to get information is interrogation. if you have the opportunity work on it

Fletcher: Capture the terrorist alive if possible?

Dichter: Capture the terrorist alive, that's the most important issue. We don't gain anything from targeting down a terrorist. We don't know how to question a dead man.

If you the have any capabilities we'll be interested to know it. But, a very important terrorist to be captured and to question him and to get the information from him, that's the best way to continue ongoing counter terrorism steps, finding out his  assistance, finding out his plans, finding out his laboratories his factories and so on and so on. And believe me a dead terrorist is less deterrence than a captured one in jail. We have thousands of them in jail.

Fletcher: When you target someone for assassination?

Dichter: Targeted killings you mean?

Fletcher: I mean targeted assassinations. but targeted killings is another way of saying it. At that point you have given up the chance — obviously of interrogating that person, because presumably you can't get him physically in your hands. At any point when you've chosen to kill somebody  from the air or from the ground — has that always been because you couldn't get him in your hands alive — or is it also part of a deterrence factor — to kill them.

Dichter: Let's make it clear Martin because it is a very essential point: Targeted killings were launched after we faced a very tough situation, I mean we were outside of the P.A, the P.A did nothing in terms of counter terrorism and we tried to block the flow of terrorism inside our cities.

We failed. We paid.  In 2001, 235 fatalities; in 2002, 451 fatalities —- which mean a failure.

So then we decided that acting in targeted killings is only available in those areas that you are not in, in order to penetrate in it's to take huge risk on our troops and then we started to work against the generators of terror, those ticking bombs, if we could bring them with the bomb to the plane and then to the interrogation section it was excellent, but no such a bomb has been invented yet, so the only way to block them or to stop them from continuing to carry out terror attacks or launching terrorists, is by targeted killings, so targeted killings, it's only against ticking bombs, whether it's Sheik Yassin or some other people that were behind hundreds if not thousands of terror attacks launched against Israel.

Fletcher: As a policy did the killing work?

Dichter: It's a killing work, which means you have to, I would to say — to have him for breakfast before he is having you to lunch. That's the system.

And you can take as a very different situation in West bank. Once we penetrated to the West Bank in the "defensive shield" operation, we stopped our targeted killings there. No need. We prefer to bring them to the interrogation section than to target down.

So targeted killings continued only in the Gaza strip, because we are not there, we are not entering the Gaza strip and as long as we are outside the Gaza strip and terror attacks are continuing to work from the Gaza strip, this system is going to continue as far as possible.

Fletcher: You mentioned earlier that you never carried out an attack when there were civilians, but of course, sometimes there are mistakes, and you are probably referring Salah Shadeh's the 16 innocent Palestinians that were killed in same time, how did you feel when that happened?

Dichter: Believe me, Salah Shadeh, I know him personally -- since 1977. I was a controller in Beit Hanoun, Shalah Shadeh was a social worker in the Israeli administration, administration of relief.

Fletcher: I remember you said he was a nice guy.

Dichter: Well, in 1978 he was a nice guy. He was a very religious person, but he was a nice guy.  He was a social worker. But afterwards he became an archi - terrorist, and he was arrested once or twice and then he continued to carry terror attacks in hundreds -- huge terror attacks.

We decided to target him down because we couldn't reach him and arrest him in Gaza. He was targeted down on the third or the fourth time that we decided to target him down. And all the three first times, the operation was canceled due to innocent people around him.  Believe me nobody knows how many people, Israelis, got killed because we targeted him too late. So if you say Shalah Shadeh, if he deserve 16 innocent people as fatalities — no. Absolutely not.

But that was an operational failure and we learned from it. By the way, on September 6th, 2003 all the dream team of Hamas was in one house in Gaza. It was after Shalah Shadeh’s event. And we didn't attack with the right bomb, we attacked with a small bomb and all of them left the house with no casualties.

It was a mistake, an operation mistake due to our decision not to risk innocent people.  So you can see that from both ends you have to be very careful.

Fletcher: Let me ask you two similar questions; how did you feel when you heard that the 16 Palestinians had been killed at the same time?

Dichter: Well, it's very difficult for me because whenever — it doesn't matter if it is 16 in one event or one in another event. We know that we are not perfect in our operational ways of counter terrorism. I know that every country, including the United States suffered from some operational failures, (Salah Shadeh) from our point of view, the success in targeting down Salah Shadeh, it's not an excuse to have 16 innocent people dead, kids, adults, innocent people in general.  So it's an awful feeling, but you have to continue.  So I hope that we had learned what has to be learned and, I hope that we are doing it better after Salah Shadeh.

Fletcher: But then the opposite happen — you dropped the bomb that was too small and the Hamas dream team, as you put it, got away.

Dichter: Well, it's another bad feeling.  I mean that's a failure of, I personally was fully convinced that a huge bomb is going to kill the whole dream team, the whole generators of terror from Hamas, from Sheik Achmed Yassin and down, but I failed to convince the political level and that's the reason why we dropped only a small bomb.

But frustration is something that we feel and we face it very often. If you are not able to face frustration, don't join the Shin Bet.

Fletcher:In a democracy there are things you have to do in the fight against terror — and there are secret undemocratic — and there are many points where civil liberties find themselves in opposition to your needs as a man leading a fight against terror. How do you balance that?

Dichter: Martin, let's make sure that we understand each other, there is no gray zone in our business. Forget it.

We haven't had the gray zone since the 1990's, when we got the supreme court decision. There is no gray zone. We have a law. We obey the law -- carry out a counter terrorism step, which is not obeying the law.   It's a discipline failure and we pay for it. We or the one who is responsible for it. It's not anymore a counter terrorism in a gray zone. It's… we don't have it in Israel, forget about it.

Fletcher: That must limit the way you fight terror.

Dichter: You are right. You're right. In some cases when you have to fight very tough and you are not allowed to

So you know that you are not reaching the target and probably it takes you longer and that's another reason to be sometimes to be frustrated. But I told you that.

Fletcher: But sometimes you know what you need to do, but you can't do it. And you say that's frustrating, but how do you balance that thing as a private citizen too — and now you will be — protecting the human rights of your citizens, is sometimes as important as saving their lives.

Dichter: You know, the Red Cross, during my five years as a director of the Shim Bet, the Red Cross was a monthly visitor to our agency. They have very good relation with us, they are visiting our interrogation centers, meeting the interrogators, knowing everything and that's and external way to look what's going on.

But internal supervising is by the attorney general office and of course by ourselves.  But we know that democracy sometimes is very expensive and by very expensive I mean that you know for sure that not everything that you believe can lead you to positive results you are allowed to carry it out.  So you bite your lips and you continue.

In counter-terrorism you have very few secrets 0221 and almost all of the so-called secrets can be shared -- especially detection and crossing points.

Global terrorism creates some problems that can be solved, that can be faced only by globalization of counter-terrorism.  Each country, by itself, will never succeed in fighting terrorism.

When it comes from other countries it's very difficult.  Never mind if you're a superpower like the United States or a country like Israel.  So I think cooperation in this system, in crossing points, it's probably one of the main issues.

The domestic services are probably more familiar with what's going on inside the countries but less familiar with what's going on in terms of other terrorist from other countries.

In Spain, the attackers came from north Africa, in the United States, they came from Arab countries, in London, they came, part of them, were controlled by people outside Great Britain.

Even in Israel when, we fight a terror attack launched by two British passports from the Gaza Strip -- Mike's Place.  So it's more difficult for us to track such terrorists. 

Here the global assistance comes to power.  Once you have the cooperation, once you share information, you may succeed much better than fighting each country by itself.

Fletcher: When you see some of the kind of things Israel does as a matter of course -- guards outside restaurants, people checking bags in malls -- which doesn't exist in Britain or the United States, doesn't it make them more vulnerable?

Dichter: We paid a lot of blood until we started it. I hope the United States or England won't face so many terror attacks, so they'll start with ah, such a system of protecting malls, etc. But in Israel it creates some sort of deterrence, and in some cases, it forces the terrorist to detonate the bomb outside the place and not inside it, which is dramatically different.  But it's, I wouldn't say that that's the cause for success.

We are fighting terrorist, whether they are Arabs, Muslims or even Jewish terrorist .

We fought with them inside Israel after seven Palestinians got murdered by Jewish terrorists.  We caught some of them, some of them were brought to justice, some of them were released because we failed to prove the evidence in court.  Some of them were put under administrative arrest.  But there's no difference --terrorism in general.

Fletcher: But is there a real threat of a Jewish suicide bomber today?

Dichter: Well, we haven't faced yet a Jewish suicide bomber, but if you ask me if is it possible to face a Jewish suicide bomber, I can not rule it out.

Fletcher: You can not rule it out?

Dichter: We can not rule it out.

Martin, there is a very basic rule in terrorism that we should all know --  once you succeeded in carrying out a terror attack and nobody puts a hand on you, you carry out another one.  And the second one is probably going to stronger and more harmful the first one.

Therefore you have carry out counterterrorism attacks as soon as possible and as tough as possible.  But crossing from opening fire, throwing hand grenade, stabbing with a knife, is something difficult... Palestinians didn't carry out a suicide bombing until 1993.  It's a history of 12 years.  But once they were in, they carried it out dramatically.

And by the way, I told Abu Mazen, in one of our meetings, that suicide bombing is going to be one of the main threats for the Palestinian regime.

If they are not going to fight it back, for themselves, for their own interests, it's going to blow up their face sooner or later.  I hope we won't see it among Jewish people -- Jewish terrorists, Jewish extremists, but as I said, I'm not sure that it's really not going to happen.

A free terrorist is very dangerous, is very dangerous, he's encouraged by his first terror attack and everybody is waiting to see the second one.  And the second one should be stronger than the first one, otherwise it's not worthwhile

Therefore, I think if you fail as a security apparatus, if you fail to prevent a terror attack, at least try to put an end to him afterwards.

Fletcher: To kill him?

Dichter: To out an end to him, as I said, if you put an end on him it's much better to kill him because to target him down, it doesn't assist you in information, and in our business, information is essential.  That's the oxygen for our job.

Fletcher: What do you see happening in Gaza after Israel leaves... what will happen?

Dichter: Disengagement is going to pull out the rug from under the feet, the rug of targets.  They won't be able to sniper towards vehicle, to sniper towards settlers, to launch mortar shells that reach a distance of one to two kilometers -- to put side bombs against convoys.  And it's going to be very difficult for them to carry out normal terror attacks — if we can say normal terror attacks.

So the number of terror attacks is going to decline dramatically.

From my point of view, it's going to be a huge decline in number of terror attacks coming from the Gaza Strip.  They’re going to continue to carry out artillery attacks when they decide to do it.

Fletcher: You don't foresee a big increase in terror attacks in the West Bank?

Dichter: Under one condition, that our policy there is not going to change dramatically. I mean if we are pulling out our troops, for example, and the P.A. is not going to move in with security apparatuses, so for sure terror organizations are going to move in because the vacuum is not going to last two days.

Fletcher: What do you think will happen there?  Will Abu Mazen be able to take control?

Dichter: Abu Mazen is fully responsible for what's going on there. I'm sure he has all the abilities, all the capabilities, all the knowledge, all the people in order to get into the cities in the West Bank.

Fletcher: But will he use it?

Dichter: Well, it's his decision, if he wants, it's not because he can't. It's because he prefers to do it in a very smooth way in creating some understandings and some agreements and not in doing it as a state or a pseudo state in the West Bank.  And if he's not going to create deterrence towards and against terror organizations, he's going to be in trouble.

Fletcher: Disengagement from Gaza — is that the right thing to do or a mistake?

Dichter: If there is, under the basic assumption that there are no Israeli citizens in the Gaza Strip, no need to be there in terms of security and troops.

Fletcher: And is this a victory for the Palestinians?

Dichter: Well I'm sure they're going to show it as a victory, But I think it's going to be a victory for both nations

Fletcher:  What about the security officials in Britain in the United States?

Dichter: It's very difficult to climb up from zero to ten in one shot 1613 it takes time, it took us a long time -- probably too long. I hope it won't take them too long to be more efficient.  They know the jobs, they are professionals. I think the FBI, MI-5, are very good services. I appreciate them, I think they are really professionals.

Fletcher: But they are really, at this stage, reacting to what's happening. They are behind the terrorists at this point?

Dichter: Usually you are behind terrorism, because terrorism always creates some new things that you probably haven't even thought of yet.  Nobody thought that 9-11 can happen, and it happened.  So you are always behind terrorism.  It's very difficult to be before terrorism in knowing what kind of horrible terrorism that they are planning.

It's very difficult to start acting against terrorists before they are launching a terrorist attack.  It's much more easy to do it afterwards.

Fletcher: What's the hardest part in fighting terrorism?

Dichter: To fight terrorism, to fight the terrorists according to the law. It's almost an impossible combination, but that's what we're being paid for.

Martin Fletcher is the NBC News Bureau Chief and lead correspondent in Tel Aviv.

Discuss:

Discussion comments

,

Most active discussions

  1. votes comments
  2. votes comments
  3. votes comments
  4. votes comments