Intelligence: Mossad Seeks To Replace The Originals
October 26, 2014: Israel’s main intelligence agency, Mossad (Hebrew for Institute) has increased its recruiting efforts, including impressively produced videos recently released on their redesigned recruiting web site. The Mossad needs all the highly talented recruits it can get because the secretive Mossad is known to have won many little known victories that have saved the lives of thousands of Israelis. All this was done with a few carefully selected and intensively trained operatives.
Mossad has always been keen on new technology and has been recruiting via a web site since the late 1990s but some of the early efforts had problems. In late 2002 Mossad posted a dazzling recruiting ad on the web. The use of web based eye candy was impressive, especially the way graphics dissolved to an application form. Fortunately for Mossad, the first hackers to take a shot at the Mossad ad were friendlies, who quickly reported that the security on the recruiting site was virtually non-existent, making it possible for a hacker to grab data applicants left. The site was taken down quickly so that the code could be changed to encrypt application data. These attacks continue, especially from Arab countries.
In 2004 the Mossad added a web site for information gathering. This encouraged Israelis, or anyone else, can provide information that would help Israeli security. Mossad has always depended on many more part timers and informants and this was an effort to build on that. The 2004 web based effort received more than 350,000 visitors in its first 48 hours. The Mossad site also took in over 2,500 job applications. This use of the web continues.
Officially known as ha-Mossad le-Modiin ule-Tafkidim Meyuhadim (The Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks), and established in 1951, Mossad is a small organization, with fewer than 2,000 full time staff. In its first few decades, Mossad had a major advantage over intelligence agencies in any other nation. That was because in the first few years after Israel was founded in 1948 over a million Jews from all over the world moved to Israel. This proved to be a gold mine of candidates for an organization that analyzed and spied on foreign countries. All these immigrants spoke the language of their former home countries like natives, and understood the culture. Thousands of these immigrants joined Mossad over the years, and some of them went back to the countries they were born and raised in to gather information and set up networks of spies. Mossad was thus exceptionally effective at what it did despite Israel’s small size. Mossad became the envy of much larger intelligence agencies in places like the United States and the Soviet Union. But that pioneer generation is gone now, and Israel has to work harder to maintain personnel standards Mossad has long been accustomed to.
A large influx of migrants from Russia and Eastern Europe in the 1980s gave Israel more Mossad candidates expert in those countries, but the biggest danger is still from Arab countries plus Iran and Pakistan. Many Israelis still learn to speak Arabic, but they usually only know the Palestinian dialects. Every Arab country has a quite distinct dialect, and cultural customs as well. So Mossad is recruiting more energetically than it ever has had to do in the past.
Once a qualified recruit is accepted it takes years of effort and millions of dollars to turn that new hire into a useful operative. It takes about two years to fully train a Mossad “katsa” (field intelligence officer), with the recruit being required to learn covert entry (burglary), foot and vehicle surveillance/counter-surveillance, how to approach potential agents for recruitment, Arab culture and info on the militaries and security services of the Arab world, report writing, and covert communications. Operatives also have to be taught how to defend themselves with pistols, requiring an intensive crash course is how to fight with a handgun in all kinds of settings, like in a car or sitting down in a restaurant. Firearms training is more important for Israeli operatives than in other countries since Israel is in a continuous state of war and thus their operators are at more risk for being ambushed while meeting a contact.
None of this is cheap, in terms of time and money. Furthermore, espionage itself is an extremely expensive game. Lots of local sources are bribed for the information they provide, and the better the intelligence provided, the higher the price, with some highly placed foreign sources making thousands of dollars per item they deliver. Lots of introductions and recruitments take place in restaurant or bar-type settings, with the case officer picking up the tab (another psychological tactic for befriending potential agents). Finally, equipment such as bugging devices, counterbugging devices, specialized vehicles, forged passports and documents, standard-issue handguns, and a multitude of other items are not cheap either, as they often have to be specially developed by technicians in an in-house "spygear" department.
Israel's shadowy Mossad looks to recruit online
Israel's shadowy Mossad looks to recruit onlineTEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — It used to be that if you wanted to join one of the world's most secretive espionage organizations you had to sneak into a foreign embassy, answer a cryptic newspaper ad or show up in a nondescript building in Tel Aviv to meet a shadowy recruiter. Now all it takes to apply for a job at Israel's Mossad spy agency is a click of the mouse.
The typically hush-hush Mossad revamped its website last week to include a snazzy recruiting video and an online application option for those seeking employment. With versions in Hebrew, English, French, Russian, Arabic and Persian, the sleek site looks to revolutionize the way Israel's legendary agency seeks out potential agents after generations of backdoor, cloak-and-dagger antics.
"We must continue to recruit the best people into our ranks so that the Mossad might continue to lead, defend and allow for the continued existence of the state of Israel," Mossad Chief Tamir Pardo said in a statement announcing the launch. "The Mossad's qualitative human capital is the secret of our success."
The Mossad, Hebrew for "The Institute," is short for the "Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations." It is the global arm of Israel's vaunted intelligence community and believed to be behind some of the most daring counterterrorism covert operations of the past century.
Only a few have come to light, such as the killing of the leaders of Black September — the Palestinian group behind the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games — and Israeli assassinations across Africa, Europe and the Middle East. Alongside its successes, the Mossad has also been exposed in some failures, most notably a 1997 botched attempt to kill future Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal in Jordan when a pair of agents were caught in the act.
There's more to the Mossad than its James Bond aura, however, and you are more likely to land a job in its technology, cyber or administration departments than you are to become an international man — or woman — of mystery. But the site alludes to its secretive nature with a video showing satellites and drones hovering as well as men and women dressed in suits hacking into computers and carrying out surveillance operations.
A narrator says "your imagination is my reality" and the banner at the top of the page reads "join us to see the invisible and do the impossible."
The Mossad has no spokesperson and cannot be contacted directly, with all media inquiries going through the prime minister's office. Aside from its initial announcement, the agency has been tightlipped about their new media strategy as well. But at least one former operative thinks the outreach is a good idea.
"It's the 21st Century. This gives them the chance to reach the kind of people they have never reached before," said Gad Shimron, who served in the Mossad for a decade and later wrote "Mossad Exodus," a book about its secret operation to bring Ethiopian Jews to Israel. "They've got nothing to lose. If you throw out a line you may hook a fish."
Shimron said the Internet may draw in some weirdos and perhaps a few hostile elements but the Mossad was fully capable or weeding out the best as it cast a larger net.
Shimron said the Mossad used to be more of an "old boys network" with friends recruiting their friends and family. Ads offering "interesting jobs" would occasionally show up in the classified sections and those with multiple passports and a proper security clearance from their military service could get a call, inviting them to an interview. But the options for walk-ins were limited. With the increase of video cameras worldwide, physically walking into an Israeli embassy has become more risky for those afraid of being exposed.
The Mossad insists its online option is safe and discreet.
"Rest assured that all approaches will be treated with the utmost discretion and confidentiality so that your personal safety is ensured," the instructions read. "When filling in the form, we suggest you consider whether the computer you are using and your location is secure enough. It would be safer to fill in the form using means that are not directly connected to you. We also recommend erasing the browsing history upon completion of the form."
While the Mossad's outreach is new, some of its international counterparts, such as the American CIA and the British MI6, have websites filled with historical information and a detailed section on career opportunities.
In going online, the Mossad appears to be taking a page out of the playbook of its domestic equivalent, the Shin Bet security service, which launched its online recruiting campaign in 2006. It still maintains a comprehensive website that includes terrorism statistics, an in-depth history of the organization that details its past operations and a vast portal of career opportunities.
The Mossad, naturally, is shrouded in more secrecy. The site includes some background on its origins and perhaps its most famous operation — the capture of Nazi mastermind Adolf Eichmann in the 1960s. But its activity description is vague and dozens of other well-known operations linked to it are nowhere to be found.
In his online welcome address Pardo explains why.
"Information about the Mossad's activity does not reach the public, and often what is publicized many years after the event is but the tip of the iceberg of almost imaginary activity and operations," he writes. "This website gives you a brief glimpse of the Mossad, and will reveal only a little of its past and activity."
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Mossad online recruitment: www.mossad.gov.il/eng/Pages/default.aspx
Apply namu!!!
Nindot daw ug signing bonus dri. Kung hiring ang ISIS, Hiring pud ang Mossad. And they are always keeping an eye on the developments in Mindanao, especially Bangsamoro. This is one reason why they will be very interested in Filipino applicants.