Our allies, the Iranian people

On the sixth floor of the old Defense Ministry building one can learn about the gap between declarations and actions. In several small, crowded rooms are the offices of Uri Lubrani. His official title is "advisor" to the defense minister. In fact he is supposed to be the eyes and ears of the minister concerning events in Iran. Judging by the occasionally belligerent declarations of Israeli leaders and senior officials in the defense establishment, Iran is one of the two most important issues on the national agenda and prioritizing intelligence information relating to it is vital to Israel's intelligence community. They are speaking in terms of an existential threat to Israel if the regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad succeeds in developing nuclear weapons.

Therefore one would have assumed that the voice of Uri Lubrani and his handful of assistants would be heard loud and clear in the defense and intelligence establishments - that the offices of defense ministers and prime ministers would be open to them, that their assessments would be appreciated. Not only because of their official position, but mainly thanks to Lubrani's rich experience and wealth of knowledge regarding Iran, Lebanon, Hezbollah and the Shi'ite world. But in fact Lubrani feels like a man who has been left behind. The defense minister and senior officials moved about two years ago to a luxurious new building in the Kirya government compound in Tel Aviv, which has a helipad on the roof. Lubrani's unit remained in the old building.

It's not only a matter of out of sight, out of mind. Lubrani has a feeling that Israel's prime ministers and defense ministers are not really willing to learn and to understand the complexity of the problem. "Sometimes I really have a sense of despair," he says, in a special interview.

At the age of 80, after a long career in Israel's foreign affairs and defense services, Uri Lubrani can allow himself to be somewhat direct and open. The second Lebanon war, he says, really drove him crazy. "Suddenly everyone was surprised at the depth of Iran's penetration of Lebanon. People started to talk in terms of 'Iran's northern command is right on the Israeli border.' It really made me angry, and I had a lot I wanted to say about that. But I didn't want to vent my anger in the midst of the war, so I remained silent."

What made you so angry?

Lubrani: "We - that is, my small unit - had been watching the process for years. We saw long ago how the Iranians were building up their capability in Lebanon. This is a process that began even before the Islamic revolution."

Lubrani's involvement in this realm goes as far back as the late 1970s: "In 1978, during Operation Litani, when I was the Israeli ambassador to Iran, I received a complaint from the shah's palace to the effect that the Israel Defense Forces had harmed Shi'ites. I invited one of the shah's ministers to Israel and we traveled together to South Lebanon. We passed through Shi'ite villages and he saw with his own eyes that Israel had not harmed the Shi'ites. Then I understood how important the Lebanese Shi'ites were to Iran."

And what have you done since then?

"For years, at every opportunity we warned that there was an Iranian danger. That it was greater and more profound than any other danger facing Israel. Even more than the Palestinian issue. We said that it should be handled first. Not only in Lebanon, but in Tehran as well. Because from Tehran they send out tentacles to Berlin, to Saudi Arabia, to Argentina."

And they didn't pay attention to your warnings?

"No."

Several agencies in Israel are presently dealing with Iran and its nuclear issue: the Mossad espionage agency, Military Intelligence (MI), the Israel Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC), the National Security Council, the Foreign Ministry and the Defense Ministry. The previous prime minister, Ariel Sharon, assigned the Mossad to be in charge of Israel's preparations for preventing the Iranian nuclear program. MI and the Mossad are in charge of gathering intelligence information and locating Iran's nuclear sites. The IAEC is responsible for maintaining contact with the International Atomic Energy Agency and for providing a professional analysis of the progress of Iran's nuclear program. The Foreign Ministry is in charge of diplomatic contacts and information. Even the National Security Council, headed by Ilan Mizrahi, occasionally conducts a brainstorming session on the subject, with experts from the civil service and academia.

One could expect Uri Lubrani or one of his representatives to be invited to some of these discussions, at least those that focus on situation assessments, but they are not on the invitation list of any of these bodies. Even in the Defense Ministry some people, including at least one division head, want to neutralize and dismantle his small unit.

It's not a problem of grumbling and hurt egos because "they didn't invite me": Lubrani and his assistants truly understand what's happening in Iran. They keep track of what's going on there, read Iranian newspapers, surf the Web sites, and maintain contacts with organizations that oppose the regime and with representatives of Iranian communities in the diaspora. Those who do take an interest in them and make use of their wealth of information are the representatives of foreign governments and the international media. For example, two weeks ago, when she arrived in Israel, Lally Weymouth, a senior reporter for Newsweek and The Washington Post, and a member of the family that owns the two newspapers, rushed straight from the airport to a meeting with Lubrani.

'The village idiot'

"I was in Iran for six and a half years and I learned to appreciate the Iranians," Lubrani explains. "The Iranians have the patience of an elephant. They're a nation of carpet weavers. And weaving a carpet takes a year. They're chess players who can see three moves ahead. These are not impatient Arabs or Jews who are looking for immediate satisfaction. I saw their determination already during the first Lebanon war. After the attacks on the U.S. and French embassies and on the Marines headquarters, I discerned the fingerprints of Iran. I understood that they were trying to establish an Islamic republic in Lebanon and that they have the patience to wait until that happens. In my opinion they're on the way to doing it, because of demographics as well."

If it's an unstoppable process, does that mean that Israel actually can't do much?

"On principle I don't accept the assumption that nothing can be done. It's not in my lexicon. Israel has no organized Iranian policy. There are situation assessments, there are reactions, there are spontaneous processes."

What do you suggest?

"We have a big and important ally in Iran: the Iranian people. This is a spiritually repressed people. They lack joie de vivre. The regime represses it. The question is what is necessary to make them take to the streets instead of succumbing to submissiveness and depression."

Are you talking about taking the masses into the streets for demonstrations against the regime?

"Yes. The Iranians know how to take to the streets. We saw that already in the [Mohammed] Mossadegh affair in 1953 [a reference to the prime minister who decided to nationalize the oil sector, then controlled by the British. They wanted to topple him via a coup and failed. At their behest, the CIA succeeded in this effort, and the shah then returned to Iran and consolidated his power for the next 26 years - Y.M.]. And that's what [Ayatollah] Khomeini did against the shah. The Iranians took to the streets not only because of the shah's behavior and the corruption, but also because Khomeini knew how to appeal to their spirit."

In effect you are calling for a rebellion, or a revolution, or a change of regime in Iran?

"Right. I believe that there's a popular basis for a change in Iran. The Iranians do not want to be a nation that has religion forced upon it. It's true that this is a nation with a profound connection to religion, which incidentally includes anti-Semitic overtones. But the Iranians do not want religion to be forced on them. The Iranians have access to radio and television. They see what's going on in the world. There's a community of four million Iranian exiles and emigrants. There are family ties. Those who live abroad constitute an object for imitation and envy. The Iranians in Iran want the same standard of living as Iranians have abroad. But in order to encourage them they have to receive more significant messages stating that it's worth their while to take to the streets. Instead, U.S. President George W. Bush placed the Iranians on the 'axis of evil' and the previous U.S. secretary of state, Colin Powell, said that the United States would not intervene in an internal conflict in Iran.

"So what is a student in Iran, who may want to demonstrate against the regime, supposed to understand from these words? That he has no backing in the West. What is needed is an international effort to bring down the regime. The same way the United States under the leadership of president Ronald Reagan brought about the downfall of the Soviet Union and the communist Iron Curtain in Europe."

With what methods?

"With every possible method. I'm talking about propaganda, psychological warfare, financial assistance. A dichotomy is developing in Iran. On the one hand there is a great deal of wealth there as a result of the royalties from oil and the increase in oil prices. On the other hand there is astonishing poverty. The economic situation of most of the nation is very bad. There is tremendous unemployment. There is inflation of over 20 percent. I feel that conditions are ripe for carrying out a regime change. For example, it's possible to organize a strike in the oil industry."

How exactly?

"To pay the workers who don't go out to work in money and food. It will be worth their while not to go out to work."

For that you need a huge budget.

"Right. You need money. The United States has thus far spent $100 billion on Iraq; with a small fraction of this sum, the aim can be achieved. I know that many in Israel's defense and intelligence establishment will think that I'm the village idiot. They already think so. I greatly admire the role of intelligence, but I also have arguments with intelligence people. I don't see intelligence as the be-all and end-all, Torah from Sinai. You also need a gut feeling, and I believe that I have that. In 1978, when I wrote that the shah's days were numbered, they didn't believe me, and foreign minister Moshe Dayan fired me. But I had a gut feeling at the time that a change could be anticipated in Iran, even if I didn't know exactly who would replace him [the shah] in the government.

"Intelligence people want proof, and rightfully so. I have no proof. But when they tell me that something is not possible, that I'm a dreamer, I reply that as long as the opposite cannot be proved, we have to try what I'm recommending."

Toward a regime change

What part should Israel take in the campaign to bring about a revolution in the Iranian regime?

"We have to remain in the background. Not to be the spearhead."

Do you believe in military action against Iran, mainly against its nuclear sites?

"No. A military action is a 'Judgment Day weapon.' Only if there is no other choice. Like every Jew who is a post-Holocaust product, I believe that we must not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons. But in my opinion, we have not yet reached that situation. I won't get into the technical question of who should do what, but I don't accept the talk that there is only a military option that will prevent Iran from having a bomb. Unfortunately, in my assessment, Iran will obtain nuclear weapons in the end. Even if you bomb them, you'll be postponing the end for several years until they achieve capability once again. And besides, every military action will only unite the Iranian people - a proud people with a well-developed national awareness - around the regime."

So what's the solution?

"I'm interested only in the person who has his finger on the trigger. And I don't want to be at the mercy of this delusionary man (President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) and the group of people surrounding him. He behaves as though he has a direct link to God, and he has a dangerous and delusionary world view. I take every word of his seriously, including the talk about destroying Israel. And that is why we have to do everything possible so that he won't be in the government.

"We have to act to make this regime fall. And then someone else will come to power, someone less hostile and more friendly, and the question of whether they have nuclear capability will be less important. I don't accept the defeatist attitude that this is 'mission impossible.' The effort has not yet been made."

Who can replace the present leadership?

"There are enough worthy and less dangerous candidates. There is today in Iran a public backbone that can bring forth leaders. There are those who sat in prisons as opponents of the regime. There are people in exile. There are even some in the army. Even former president [Hashemi] Rafsanjani, who is quite a wicked man, could be a candidate. He can be bargained with."

You said that in Israel they don't really listen to you. Have you tried to explain your viewpoint in the United States?

"Yes. Years ago I tried to explain to people from the administration that if they want to bring down Saddam Hussein, they should not talk about occupying Iraq. There's no need for that. I suggested that they speak to the Iranians about bringing down Saddam Hussein without occupying Iraq. The Iranians would have done an excellent job. I think that the American invasion of Iraq was a huge mistake, for which we will all now pay. The Americans simply didn't understand the material.

"I remember that I asked a senior member of the Bush administration whether Paul Bremer, who was a kind of governor of Iraq, had any connection with the religious establishment, whether he had met with Ayatollah Sistani, who is the most important Shi'ite religious leader in Iraq, and I was told that Bremer would not meet with him because Sistani did not want to come and welcome him. That is a total lack of understanding. If you want to meet with a senior Shi'ite leader like Sistani, you come to him and don't wait for him to come to you. But I don't want to be too critical of the United States, because we are still in need of their good will."

Meager budget

Uri Lubrani has been serving in his not-really-defined job for six years. It can be said of his unit that it deals with issues that tread the thin line between propaganda, psychological warfare and the study of moods and trends in Iran. He has two assistants. One is Yitzhak Barzilai, a Persian speaker who headed several departments in the Mossad, including Tevel, the international liaison division. The second is Colonel Yitzhak Davidian, a former officer in MI's Unit 8200 - a secret unit responsible for communication interception and deciphering - who is responsible mainly for administrative matters.

Another person connected to Lubrani's unit is Brigadier General (res.) Reuven Ehrlich, who is involved in coordination and cooperation with the Center for Intelligence Heritage and Terrorism Information Center, and is an expert on terrorist organizations, fundamentalist Islam and anti-Semitism in the Arab world. Ehrlich in effect serves as a kind of clearing-house for information originating in the MI research division, which cannot disseminate it in its own name.

With the meager budget at its disposal, the unit maintains ties with Iranians in exile, the U.S. administration and the international media. In addition, its people help operate Israel Radio's Persian-language broadcasts and maintain the Israeli radio station (for whose content veteran journalist Oded Zarai is responsible) that broadcasts to South Lebanon.

Previously, and for almost two decades, Lubrani bore the title "coordinator of government activities" in Lebanon. In the framework of that job he was also asked to keep track of Iran. The person who endowed him with this authority and even gave him an initial budget was then defense minister Yitzhak Rabin. But with the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000, the Defense Ministry considered terminating Lubrani's activity, claiming there was no need for him.

Lubrani managed to convince then prime minister and defense minister Ehud Barak of the necessity of his job, and fought like a lion so that the radio station would not be closed. During the second Lebanon war the IDF suddenly remembered the importance of the station and wanted to use it for tactical needs, as well: When the need arose to instruct residents to evacuate their homes before their village was attacked by the IDF, for example, this was done via a broadcast from the station.

'Painful subject'

Uri Lubrani was born in Haifa to a well-to-do bourgeois family that owned a guest house (later the Megiddo Hotel) on Mt. Carmel. He describes himself as "a spoiled child." He studied at the prestigious Reali School, joined the Scouts and the Haganah (pre-state military force), and served in the 1948 War of Independence as an intelligence officer in the Yiftah Brigade and in the 7th Armored Brigade. After the war he began to work at the Foreign Ministry and, thanks to family connections and a previous acquaintance, foreign minister Moshe Sharett appointed Lubrani his secretary. Through his work at the ministry, Lubrani met his wife Sarah, who was a secretary at the Israeli embassy in Moscow.

In 1953 Lubrani went to study in England, and when he returned he was appointed deputy to the advisor on Arab affairs in the Prime Minister's Office.

"The most painful subject for the Arab population at the time, even more than the problem of the Military Administration, was the expropriation of their lands by the state," recalls Lubrani. "And here I tried to help as much as possible and to exercise my influence to limit the damage and if necessary to compensate them."

During the 1956 Sinai Campaign Lubrani was a helpless witness to another operation that goes almost unmentioned in the history books. Under pressure from the General Staff, the residents of two Arab villages located in the demilitarized zone near the Syrian border were expelled from their homes. A few of them moved to the village of Shaab in the Western Galilee and the rest were deported to Syria.

"They didn't consult with us at all," he explains. "It was an operational problem of the Northern Command that didn't want them. In such matters the tactical security consideration was always immediate and dictated the reality."

When the advisor on Arab affairs in the Prime Minister's Office was appointed ambassador to Ethiopia in 1958, Lubrani replaced him. Afterward he became the personal secretary of prime minister David Ben-Gurion, and in 1963 served in the same capacity under Ben-Gurion's successor, Levy Eshkol. These positions gave Lubrani the image of an incorruptible civil servant, but also aroused anger and criticism against him, for being prepared to serve any leader. In particular, his relations with Moshe Sharett and his family became unpleasant: According to Lubrani, they saw his willingness to work with Ben-Gurion as an act of betrayal.

Refugee reparations

In 1964, Lubrani discovered that there was a growing lack of confidence between him and Eshkol, who saw Lubrani as Ben-Gurion's man. He returned to the Foreign Ministry and was sent to represent Israel as ambassador in Uganda and later in Ethiopia. But first the head of the Mossad at the time, Meir Amit, sent Lubrani on a clandestine mission: He was asked to meet with government officials in Turkey in order to convince them to help Israel to solve the problem of the Palestinian refugees.

"I believed at the time, and I still believe, that the refugee problem, or part of it, can be solved with reparations," he says. "At the time I came to Ben-Gurion and told him that we had to find ways to pay reparations to the refugees. Ben-Gurion told me that he didn't believe that they would agree to accept reparations. I told him to let me try. An examination we conducted indicated that the property of the 1948 refugees was estimated at the time at $2-$3 billion. We made contact with the Americans, who informed us that they would be willing to share in the payments. Meanwhile Ben-Gurion resigned and Eshkol replaced him. After he had become settled in the job, I went to Eshkol with the idea that we would work to pay reparations to the Palestinian refugees. He looked at me and said in Yiddish: 'Bist meshugga geworen' - You've gone crazy. I imagine that the sum of $2-$3 billion scared him. That was the end of the story."

As ambassador to Uganda, Lubrani came to know chief of staff Idi Amin well. A few years later Amin spearheaded a military coup and took over the government. A decade later, thanks to Lubrani's ties with Amin and his familiarity with Uganda, foreign minister Yigal Allon brought Lubrani in from Tehran, where he was serving as ambassador. Lubrani was a passenger on the plane carrying Operation Entebbe's commanders, en route to freeing the hostages being held in the airport in Uganda's capital. "I had no defined role," Lubrani explains, "but they kept me in reserve in case the operation didn't succeed and there was a need to conduct negotiations with Amin."

Past connections enabled him to make a significant contribution to the implementation of Operation Solomon in 1991, during which about 15,000 Ethiopian Jews were brought to Israel: "Yitzhak Shamir asked me to conduct the negotiations with Ethiopian leader Mengistu [Haile Mariam], but he conditioned it on not selling weapons - because at the time the Americans had vetoed selling arms to Mengistu - and also asked that I would make sure to get the money from non-Israeli sources."

Fulfilling those conditions was not simple, because Mengistu demanded weapons for his army, which was fighting against the Eritrean rebels. The only "military" equipment that was sent to the Ethiopians was a desalination plant for their naval base in Dahlak. Lubrani got the money that was paid to Mengistu in exchange for his agreement to the emigration of the Jews, $35 million, from leaders of U.S. Jewish organizations. The money was transferred directly to the bank account of the Ethiopian government in New York, so that there would be no suspicion that some of it was used to pay bribes to corrupt government officials.

"There are countries in which you cannot advance any transaction without paying someone," says Lubrani. "But we Israelis are not allowed to put anything in our pockets."

'On my conscience'

In 1982, after the first Lebanon War, Lubrani was appointed coordinator of government activities in Lebanon. In this role he conducted negotiations with Nabih Beri, the leader of the Shi'ite Amal movement, whose members held kidnapped navigator Ron Arad for about a year and a half, until May 1988. A key person in facilitating the contact with Beri was Shabtai Kalmanowitz, an Israeli businessman in Africa who was subsequently arrested in Israel for spying for the Soviet Union. Kalmanowitz introduced Lubrani to Jamil Said, a Shi'ite businessman who was active in West Africa, and the negotiations with Beri were conducted through him. When Kalmanowitz stood trial, Lubrani agreed to appear as a character witness for the defense, as a gesture of thanks for his help.

The meetings between Said and Beri, and between Said and Lubrani, took place in hotels in London and other European cities.

"Failure is always an orphan," says Lubrani, "but I didn't act alone on this issue. I was the head of a team. I received the letters and the pictures of Arad from Beri, and I conveyed Beri's demands. The person who made the decisions was defense minister Yitzhak Rabin, who consulted with the prime minister."

Why wasn't a deal made through negotiations?

"A very simple thing happened: Beri kept raising his demands. He demanded money and release not only for Lebanese prisoners, but for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners as well."

And Rabin did not want to approve this?

"Rabin thought that we could get a better deal. He was still traumatized by the 'Jibril deal' of 1985." The government was then publicly criticized for its consent to release 1,100 Palestinian terrorists in exchange for three IDF soldiers who were being held by Ahmed Jibril's organization, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command. Lubrani is convinced that in the end Arad was transferred to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

What do you think happened to him?

"There are three possibilities: One, that he fell ill and died in captivity. The second, that he tried to escape and they killed him. The third, that after years of denying any knowledge of him, the Iranians killed him so there would be no proof that they had lied. I live with the feeling that it would be a miracle if he's alive. This story is with me all the time. Every morning I look in the mirror and see Arad's face. It weighs on my conscience, even though I wasn't the one who could have freed him. It wasn't in my hands." W

By Yossi Melman