Paris calls. Jerusalem responds. The head of Israeli intelligence is in Paris to lend a hand

France is currently one of the nations most critical of Israel, whilst at the same time promoting measures hostile to the Jewish state and its defence apparatus, such as, for example, the exclusion of Israeli industries from arms and aviation trade fairs. It has now emerged that in recent days, at the height of the unrest in France, the director of the Shin Bet (the Israeli internal security service), David Zini, was in Paris, where he met with senior figures from the French security apparatus, ranging from the DGSI (the internal security service, equivalent to the Shin Bet) to the DGSE (the French equivalent of the Mossad). Zini met with French intelligence “to discuss counter-terrorism and radical Islam”. 

Zini’s visit, which had been planned for some time, comes against the backdrop of violent unrest across France. This was reported by the Israeli broadcaster Kan. “Cooperation between the security agencies continues despite the diplomatic crisis,” an Israeli security official told the newspaper Maariv. Following the 2015 attacks in Paris, Israel had provided France with satellite surveillance to support the air campaign against ISIS, as well as information on European citizens who had joined the Caliphate and were planning to carry out attacks in their home countries. In 2016, it emerged that Israeli technology for tracking terrorists could have foiled the Islamic State attacks in Paris and Brussels. An Israeli security firm had offered software to the French DGSI capable of tracking terrorists and identifying the ISIS cell responsible for the attacks. However, the offer was rejected. In 2018, Israel helped the French to foil an attack planned in Tehran against Iranian dissidents in Paris (Rudy Giuliani was also due to attend).

An investigation by Le Monde, entitled “L’ombra del Mossad su Parigi”, quotes senior French intelligence officials: “France’s hands are tied because it depends on Israel in many sensitive matters”. It states: “Israel warned General de Gaulle of a planned attempt on his life in March 1961. Since 2015, several attacks have been foiled, partly thanks to information provided by the Mossad: for example, the dismantling in November 2016, in Marseille and Strasbourg, of an Islamic State jihadist cell suspected of planning an attack”. In November last year, cooperation between the Mossad and European intelligence and police services led to the seizure of weapons caches and the arrest of Hamas terrorists in Austria and Germany. The German domestic intelligence service (BfV) arrested them in possession of weapons and ready to strike.

In March, Mossad agents had travelled to London to work behind the scenes alongside the British security services to defend the country after Iran had orchestrated a series of attacks on Jewish targets, Iranian dissidents and British figures. In June, Volker Beck, a leading figure in the German Greens, a former member of the Bundestag and now president of the German-Israeli Friendship Society, revealed a plot by Iran’s Quds Force to kill him and that Israel had alerted German intelligence: “Without the Mossad I would be dead; our intelligence services were blind.”

In September, the former head of the Mossad, Yossi Cohen, revealed that Israeli intelligence had helped foil numerous attacks in Britain during his tenure as head of the agency, between 2016 and 2021. Last month, the former British Minister for Security, Tom Tugendhat, also revealed: “Israel is one of our most important intelligence partners and has been for many, many years. I can tell you, as a minister, that many attacks have been foiled thanks to our collaboration with Israel, which has helped us to protect British citizens”. These included Hezbollah’s attempts to carry out bomb attacks in London in 2015, when MI5 and the Metropolitan Police raided four London properties, uncovering thousands of disposable ice packs containing three tonnes of ammonium nitrate, an ingredient used in the manufacture of explosives. Cohen also reported that a former director of the British MI5 had “personally thanked” him for helping to foil numerous threats on British soil. When democracies are in trouble, they ask Israel for a helping hand.