“Okay, what are we willing to do here?” asked Cohen. The question resulted in fifteen minutes of discussion before Cohen conducted a verbal poll of where everyone in the room stood, including Fishel, Schechter and Margolis.
After the opinions had been stated, Cohen continued. “I think the concepts just laid out by Mister Margolis make a lot of sense and are obviously supported by Yavi.” He looked at Schechter and Margolis. “Please revise your planning accordingly and proceed on that basis.”
“We will,” replied General Schechter.
“Anything else?” asked Cohen.
Danny Stein had a thought. “Do we have the same issue at Arak?” He was asking about the heavy water reactor designed to produce plutonium and under construction in the middle of the country.
“No,” responded Aitan. “They continue to slowly build the reactor facility. This is one area where delay is our friend. The further they get before we bomb the facility, the better — so long as they have not fueled the reactor. As of today, I think that is at least a year or more off.”
“Okay, so that’s a positive,” said Cohen. “Now, is that all? Anything more?”
Schechter looked at Margolis, who shook his head. “No, sir.” Cohen waived his hand, indicating to Schechter for him to wrap up. “In that case, thank you, gentlemen. That is it for the presentation and issues around Block G.”
“Thank you General, Amit, Natan.” The prime minister proceeded with the next issue on his agenda. “I want a voice vote for the record. I vote to approve Operation Block G as presented. The timing of the operation will be made by the Olympus command team in consultation with Minister Avner and myself.”
One by one, the members of the Kitchen Cabinet verbally approved the operation as presented.
Part II
“Okay, we go.”
32 — The Archer Draws his Bow
The President of the United States won re-election on November 6, 2012. The second term president concentrated on domestic issues until late winter of 2013. A trip to Israel, his first since becoming president, resulted in a renewed relationship with Prime Minister Cohen. Most of the frustration of the prior four years evaporated on the foundation of a new level of agreement over Iran. The two men came to an understanding and Cohen knew that when the time came, American support would be unequivocal.
But the president still wanted time. Time to try diplomacy again. Time for the latest round of sanctions to bite. In return, a hard deadline was agreed upon.
Amit Margolis was ushered into the office of Mossad Director Amichai Levy late in the afternoon of Friday, August 2. “Amit, I did not expect a visit from you today,” said the director as he motioned Margolis toward a seat in front of his desk. “This must be important.”
“It is. I have just come from Jerusalem.” Margolis did not sit down. “I met with Cohen this morning. We are going next month.”
“Going?”
“Block G.”
Ami Levy did not smile or get excited. He simply looked at Amit. “I see.”
“You don’t seem too happy.”
Levy turned and looked out his window at the skyline of Tel Aviv. “I believe in your plan, Amit,” Levy said, even though he still did not know all of the aspects of Esther’s Sling. “I also know the Iranian response. I dread what is coming.”
Margolis started to go into the same debate that had raged in Israel for years, but he checked himself. The time for debate was over. Decisions now superseded. “Operation Arrow is authorized.”
“Timing?”
“September fifteenth, give or take forty-eight hours.”
Director Levy spun back around and looked at Amit. He smiled. “Now that’s my type of operation.” He stood and shook the hand of the co-commander of Block G. “Okay, we go.”
Amichai Levy had been wrong earlier when he provided the prime minister with Mossad’s official opinion on the uprising in Syria. Of course, the prime minister knew full well that there was no separation between the official opinion of Mossad and the personal opinion of its director. Ami Levy was far too strong-willed to state any viewpoint that wasn’t his at its core. But Bashar al-Assad had failed to crush the Syrian rebellion in its infancy and the result had been a slowly brewing insurgency that erupted into full-fledged civil war in the summer of 2012.
At the root of the rebellion was the age old strife between Shia and Sunni Islam. The Assad family, members of the Alawite Sect of Shia Islam, had ruled Syria since 1971. While originally the Ba’athist Party of the Assad family was defined by pan-Arab nationalism and cultural awakening, the passing decades and emergence of religious fundamentalism had seen the family become increasingly aligned with the Shiites of Iran. This evolution had fed the traditional schism between the majority Sunnis in Syria and the minority Shiites, who dominated the power nodes of government. Now, the civil war had created clear demarcation lines. Fighting to keep their power under the banner of Bashar al-Assad were the Alawites and their internal Shia allies, supported externally by Iran and its allies Hezbollah, Russia and China. Fighting to overthrow the historic regime were the Sunnis and their allies in most of the Arab world, supported by the Western powers.
But among the Sunni fighters, most of them just simple farmers and shopkeepers yearning for nothing more than basic human freedom, was a mix of Sunni fundamentalists who fought for a different cause: the creation of a greater Islamic caliphate under Sharia law. And the most feared of this group of Sunni fighters were those affiliated with al Qaeda. Since the early days of the Syrian revolution in the spring of 2011, al Qaeda had been infiltrating the country, recruiting religious Sunnis and plotting to exert influence on the future Syria.
The growing al Qaeda cadre included a rising star within the organization named Abu Muhjid. Muhjid was a 33-year-old Palestinian Arab who had volunteered for the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades at the age of 21 over the objections of his father, who dreamed of his only son becoming a professional. But Abu was full of a hatred that his father could not control or contain, and the Martyrs Brigades were on the front line in the death struggle against Israel. They were always on the lookout for young jihadists willing to die for Allah. However, Muhjid’s intelligence and outgoing personality made him stand out from the sullen group of recruits that would show up at the homes of recruiters scattered around the West Bank. He was soon earmarked as a gunman for the Brigades and found himself at a training base in the Bekaa valley in Lebanon. He would be given the chance to prove his courage and, if so proven, to subsequently rise through the ranks.
He justified the faith his recruiters had in him, leading a successful attack into the heart of the occupied capital of Palestine in January 2004. But luck did not accompany him the entire trip. He was stopped by Shin Bet agents as he tried to slip back into the West Bank. What followed for Muhjid was weeks of on-again, off-again interrogation inside Ktzi’ot Prison, some of it following days of sleep deprivation. He was then tried in a civilian court by Israelis, a court that he would not honor by speaking. So he stayed silent through the proceedings, even as he received nine life sentences from the judge. His hatred for Israel at that moment was complete. He was transferred to Ofer Prison in the West Bank to spend out the remainder of his natural life.