Bloomberg: Israeli Intelligence Returns to Focusing on Spies Instead of Technology

SadaNews - Bloomberg reported that the Israeli military intelligence agency (Aman), after being humiliated by the attack from the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) which damaged its reputation 22 months ago, is undergoing radical changes, including reviving a recruitment program in Arabic and training all forces in this language.

The site explained - in a report by Ethan Bronner - that this plan aims to reduce reliance on technology, and to build a cadre of spies and analysts with extensive knowledge of local dialects, including Yemeni, Iraqi, and Gazan, as well as a deep understanding of extremist Islamic sects and discourses.

Every entity within the Israeli security institution has engaged in a painful self-review process since October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas members crossed into Israel from the Gaza Strip. A military intelligence officer explained the changes, saying that the agency had a "fundamental misunderstanding" of Hamas's ideology and its concrete plans, believing that they were satisfied with their role as rulers of Gaza, funded by foreign donations and the lucrative work of some Gazans in Israel.

The site noted that the renewed focus on language and religious training represents what an intelligence officer calls a "deep cultural shift" in an organization whose senior officers have relied on translations. He added that the goal is to create an internal culture that "lives and breathes what our enemy thinks."

Bloomberg mentioned that the situation has changed after Israel once had a large number of Jewish immigrants from Arabic-speaking countries. The state is now poor and surrounded by hostile neighbors with large armies. Many of these immigrants were used in intelligence agencies, like Eli Cohen, who reached the highest positions in the Syrian government before being captured and executed in the 1960s.

Moving Away from Technology

However, the number of Arabic speakers has diminished, and Israelis whose ancestors came from Iraq, Syria, and Yemen no longer speak Arabic. Arab citizens of Israel are not obligated to perform military service, and only a few Arabic-speaking Druze joined the intelligence, making them less than 2% of the population.

As part of the intelligence changes, the agency is reviving a program it halted six years ago, encouraging high school students to study Arabic and aiming to expand the scope of its training on dialects. It is also directing resources toward a previously marginalized unit whose mission is to challenge prevailing intelligence conclusions by promoting unconventional thinking.

The site stated that the agency is moving away from technology and leaning more toward a deeper reliance on human intelligence, such as planting undercover agents in the field and building an interrogation unit, opposing the trend over the past decade towards operating using data from satellites and drones.

Ofer Gutterman, a former military intelligence officer currently working at a research institute on intelligence methodologies, said that these new methods will not only require more personnel but also require people who are "more vigilant in various fields," explaining that before the Hamas attack, "there was a national perception that the major threats were behind us, except for an Iranian nuclear weapon."

Dan Meridor, a former minister of strategic affairs who wrote a prominent study on Israel's security needs two decades ago, stated, "The failure of October 7 did not stem from a lack of knowledge of Quranic verses and Arabic dialect, but from Israel viewing its neighbors solely from a lens of hostility." He added, "We do not need more intelligence information, but more dialogue and negotiation."