Mossad’s Accomplices: How Israel Relied on Foreign Intelligence Agencies to Organise its Killing Campaigns

Abstract Using previously untapped sources, this article demonstrates the indirect involvement of European intelligence services in Mossad’s Operation Wrath of God. It was one of Mossad’s most spectacular assassination campaigns, organised in response to the massacre at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. In Europe, Operation Wrath of God consisted of eight missions to kill Palestinians who were directly or loosely associated with Palestinian terrorism. The article reveals that European intelligence played a vital role in the organisation and execution of the operation. The research is based on archival records from a secret intelligence-sharing group called the Club de Berne. The article advances two arguments. First, European intelligence was crucial for Mossad to organise and carry out its covert actions. Second, because intelligence co-operation was deemed beneficial for all parties, the European agencies let Mossad operate and use their intelligence to assassinate Palestinians. The extensive advantages that the European agencies gained from intelligence-sharing led them to turn a blind eye towards, or even tacitly support, Israeli covert actions on their territories. The article reveals hitherto unknown aspects of the international relations of intelligence services and their wider political cross-regional implications, revealing new facets of European and Middle Eastern history.