Netflix series ‘Spy Ops’ looks deeply into Mossad history

If you’re interested in the history of Israeli espionage, you will want to see the Netflix series, Spy Ops, which features two full episodes on “The Wrath of God,” the famous Mossad operation to avenge the massacre of 11 Israeli team members at the 1972 Munich Olympic games.

Ido Aharoni, who was the consul general of Israel in New York from 2010-2016 and is a senior faculty member at Coller School of Management at Tel Aviv University, was a content consultant on the series and spoke about the why Wrath of God was much more than a routine operation.

“The Munich massacre was unique,” he said in an interview.

“Terrorism, however painful, however devastating...  never posed an existential threat to Israel, just as 9/11 did not destroy America. But this was different. Before this, there had been many horrible terrorist attacks on Israel, and the hijackings had started in the early 70s; but this was on the world stage, and I think the fact that it was on German soil and because it happened there less than three decades after the Holocaust, it had all the ingredients that required a different kind of response. This was the reason that the producers felt that it was worth two episodes.”

While the series covers many espionage operations, including US attempts to dismantle the Taliban in Afghanistan following 9/11, a plot to kill the Pope, a mission by the US to recover a Soviet submarine from the ocean floor, and much more, the two well-crafted episodes on the Wrath of God will be the high point for many viewers.

“The producers took a very fact-based approach to telling this story,” said Aharoni. In addition to extensive archival footage, the series features interviews with a number of people involved who have rarely, or never, spoken about the massacre and revenge operation. These include Avraham Melamed, an assistant coach to the Israeli swimming team who also competed as an Olympic swimmer in the past, and Meron Medzini, an adviser to prime minister Golda Meir.

“I’ve seen many documentaries about this but this one is very high quality,” Aharoni said.

“The general tone is not apologetic. Especially today, it’s important for countries, especially democracies, to say, clearly... that sometimes you have to protect democracy and sometimes it requires doing ugly things.”

Wrath of God is the operation that Steven Spielberg dramatized in the movie, Munich, although the actual facts as presented in Spy Ops offer more twists and turns than that film. The episodes of the series focus on two narratives.

The first is the hostage-taking incident itself at the Munich Olympics, and it shows how Germany’s security forces bungled their attempts to rescue the hostages, not allowing the Israelis to do anything but observe. In a particularly shocking moment, the series shows how live television crews filmed German agents attempting a rescue and how this broadcast alerted the terrorists to the attempt, which they were able to foil.

The second was the multifaceted plan to pursue and assassinate all those involved, a plan which was endorsed enthusiastically by both Meir and Zvi Zamir, head of the Mossad until 1974, as well as other military and intelligence officials. The series shows how each terrorist was tracked down and killed, and includes the operation in which former prime minister Ehud Barak led a raid on Beirut in which he and other commandos entered via the sea and some of whom, including Barak, dressed as women in order to take out terrorists.

Miss Universe and Prince Terror

Perhaps the most fascinating section in Spy Ops details how the Mossad killed the terrorist, Ali Hassan Salameh, who was hiding in plain sight with his wife, a former Miss Universe contestant, and was really living the high life in Beirut. The series also reveals that the US intelligence courted Salameh as a backchannel for information on the Palestinian leadership and other factions in Lebanon, and even sent him and his wife on a trip to the US, where he and his new bride honeymooned at Disneyland. It was difficult for the Mossad to target Salameh, but ultimately, Israeli agents managed to assassinate him, although, tragically, several civilians were killed along with him.

Spy Ops also includes the infamous mistake made earlier by the Israelis when agents misidentified Ahmed Bouchiki, a Moroccan waiter married to a Norwegian woman, as Salameh, and killed him in Lillehammer in 1973. This operation was botched in so many ways  – there was no evidence that Salameh lived in Norway or spoke Norwegian, several Israeli agents did little to cover their tracks in a small town, several were arrested very soon after the killing, and one even returned the rental car that the agents had used  – that it is hard to reconcile it with the public image of the Mossad as one of the world’s top intelligence agencies.

But Aharoni understood the need to show this sad chapter in the history of the Mossad. “Terrorists, and that goes for cyber terrorists as well, are always one step ahead of the game, they always improve, and so you have to... recalibrate the knowledge with which you fight terrorism. And sometimes you make mistakes and you have to work through those mistakes and move on, and unfortunately, Israel has made its share of mistakes.”

The second episode ends with a touching account of how Bouchiki’s brother, Chico Bouchiki, an acclaimed musician who was one of the founders of the Gipsy Kings, chose to participate in a performance before Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat to celebrate the first anniversary of the Oslo Accords, in Norway, the same country where his brother was killed.

Chico recalls that he shook hands with Peres and Arafat on stage, and the episode concludes with him saying, “I forgave because forgiveness is what helps us to rebuild, and especially to rebuild ourselves. Because, frankly, we were really touched.” In 1996, he became UNESCO’s special envoy for peace and went on to perform in Israel and Palestine. “I thought we could become a small bridge over this barrier that they have between them. And this bridge, I believe, is called forgiveness.” Following these words, a title says that the episode is dedicated to the memory of the 11 murdered Israeli athletes.

Speaking of this ending, Aharoni said, that he thought it was a fitting coda to the story: “I think Chico’s message is very important.”