National Identity Theft

For over two years Rahim (fake name), the MI-6 agent, operated in one of Al-Qaeda’s cells on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Although he only operated as a junior specialist for liquid explosives, yet the packed like sardines conditions in which they lived, packed in the Zahra Zahra caves allowed him to get acquainted with some of the organization’s leaders, and to deliver his operators valuable information using mail-louse.

The ability to encode and miniaturize information allowed the glorious British Security Service to retire the famous mail pigeons five years ago, replacing them with trained mail louses that carried the tiny chip under one of their armpits, and that could jump out of the beard the moment they heard the secret password “Anything to declare, luv?” pronounced in a Cockney accent.

Even after his operators in London instructed him to murder Al-Hindawi, Bin Laden’s Fashion Deputy, using an overdose of fish burgers (“Fishcakes”, in the organizations slang), nobody suspected him. One day, however, when it was really hot in the bunker, Rahim was caught using his British passport as a hand-held fan. The disguise was shredded to pieces and Agent Jones was tortured and executed. In Britain they deviated from the common habit of not providing any information about the life and death of the agents. Agent Jones’ acts of glory were told in details. His family, in a restrained ceremony, received the highest degree of excellence given by the queen, and the organization’s chief easily avoided the vexing question why did the agent carry his original passport. You didn’t expect, the chief said, that our agent would still some Israeli’s identity and wave a stolen blue passport, have you?

And indeed, not one of the veterans in the world's famous espionage organizations, assemble in Baden-Baden, could recall any of history's famous spies ever going down to the lowest level of using a identity theft. Mata Hari never named herself Malka Harry, even when her life was in danger. Sir Thomas Edward Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia") never tried to hide behind some Tommy Law-Race's Union Member's ID. And 007, even between the most dangerous satin sheets, never hid behind the relative security his John Jones stolen identity could provide. He never avoid saying simply "The name is Bond. James Bond".

With that in mind it is easy to understand the fury, the rage in which the British leadership charged the moment they were convinced, based on foreign resources, that Israeli Mossad agents used fabricated British passports when they left on their mission in XXXXXX. The fact that the agents boldly lied as they checked into the YYYYYY Hotel, specifying “INSTTIUTE*” as their occupation, only made the scorn and the rage worsen.

“Even in the world of shadows in which we live, there are red lines that must not be crossed”, a retired Securitate agent was quoted. “Order must be kept”, said one of the German BND leaders, who preferred to introduce himself as “Wolfgang, just Wolfgang”.

Even when we accidentally bomb the wrong wedding in Afghanistan, even when we misfortunately destroy a Sunni mosque instead of a Shiite mosque in Basra, we were never ashamed of our passport, said the British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, who never hid his Jewish identity.

What came next was inevitable. The Mossad representative in London received an amazingly polite letter, instructing him to leave the United Kingdom the moment he finishes the essential shopping.

Israel had its own lessons learned, and from now on agents will go on their missions carrying their original Israeli passport, as well as their IDF ID, and a Star of David medallion on their neck…

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Written by the Israeli Knesset Member Aryeh Eldad.
Translated by me.