Mossad and the mystery men who smuggled a MiG-21 to Israel

JORDAN MOSHE

“It was the coup of the stolen jet which resulted in Israel winning a war against all odds,” Edwin Shuker, the vice-president of the British Board of Deputies, told a Limmud audience on Sunday morning. “From the moment it landed at the Hatzor airbase in Israel, it changed reality.”

So began Shuker’s account of Operation Diamond, a daring attempt made by the Mossad beginning in mid-1963. Its goal was the acquisition of a Soviet-built Mikoyan-Gurevich, or MiG-21, the most advanced Soviet fighter plane at that time. The operation was the brainchild of then head of the Mossad, Meir Amit, who approached Ezer Weizman, then airforce chief and later president of Israel, with an unusual offer.

Said Shuker, “Amit said to him, ‘If you could have any gift possible, what would it be?’ The greatest source of tension in the region at the time was [Egyptian President Gamal Abdel] Nasser’s determination to wipe Israel off the map, and Weizman knew that the MiG-21 was the mystery plane on which so much depended.”

Only Iraq, Syria and Egypt possessed the Soviet aircraft, and their respectively small fleets were closely guarded and impossible to access. The Soviets reportedly trained each pilot of the aircraft themselves, and restricted their movements. “The Soviets made sure every pilot they trained lived at his country’s air base,” said Shuker. “His family was also made to do so.”

Between 1963 and 1966, Israel made two attempts to gain access to the jets in Egypt and Iraq, both of which failed. The Mossad persisted, however, and eventually received word from one of its agents, Yaakov Nimrodi, a military attaché serving in Tehran. He informed them that a Jewish man based in Iraq and known only as YS would be able to procure the aircraft. YS apparently knew a pilot in Iraq who supported Israel, and would be able to provide what the Jewish state so desperately wanted.

“At first, Israel thought the offer was utter nonsense,” said Shuker. “It shelved the idea. However, it chose to revisit it a short while later. It found out that YS had a mistress whose sister was married to a pilot in the Iraqi air force.

“His name was Munir Redfa, and he was one of only ten pilots in Iraq who was trained to fly the aircraft, and was also the only one who was Christian. He’d had enough of living in a cage on the airbase, and was willing to help give Israel what it wanted.”

Originally, said Shuker, the story “was basically just about a pilot who defected, sought asylum in Israel, and delivered the plane. Nothing about the Mossad’s role was publicised, and that was that”.

The true story began to surface only about 32 years later, when the details of the role played by the Mossad began to surface.

“YS and the Mossad came up with a story that his mistress, Camille, had a cancer which could be treated only in Rome,” Shuker said. “Because she spoke no English, they said she needed someone to escort her there, and Munir was the only person in the family who spoke the language. The Soviets relented, and gave Redfa, Camille, and YS five days to travel to Rome.”

The Mossad met him in Rome, agreed to give him $50 000 (R767 000) in exchange for his assistance, and Redfa accepted. While Redfa arranged the additional fuel needed for the journey, the Mossad moved his family to Israel via Paris.

Not only did Redfa bring Israel the aircraft, he also provided all its training and technical manuals. The plane was dismantled, its weakness identified, and the knowledge it provided used to eliminate every such aircraft in use by the Arab countries in the Six-Day War in 1967.

“It was a story of betrayal and loyalty, love, triumph and tragedy,” said Shuker. “However, it wasn’t over yet.” Indeed, in 2007, Shuker was contacted with a singular request: to exhume and transport the buried remains of an individual buried in London to Israel. Perplexed, Shuker visited the grave in question, and discovered the resting place of one Yosef Shamash who died in 1973.

“It made no sense to me. Who was this man? I insisted on knowing more, so I went to Israel to meet the person I was told was the man’s sister.”

However, in Israel, Shuker was introduced to Nimrodi, the former Mossad attaché. He told Shuker what he least expected to hear: the grave in the United Kingdom was that of the fabled YS.

“Yosef Shamash was let down by the Mossad,” Shuker says. “He was driven to drinking and death because he arrived in Israel without a hero’s welcome. He was sworn to secrecy, given little for his efforts, and felt betrayed. Shamash left Israel for the UK, and died there.”

Shuker was tasked with convincing Shamash’s living sister, Estherine, to agree to have her brother’s remains exhumed and transported to Israel. While negotiating with her, Shuker made yet another extraordinary discovery: Estherine and her brother had been his neighbours in his native Baghdad in their shared youth.

Shuker also learned from her the fate of Redfa. According to Estherine, he and his wife failed to integrate into Israeli society after the success of his mission, resettling in the United States until their death. “Israel settled them at a small petrol station in America where they ran a convenience shop until they passed,” said Shuker. “They had two sons who have never been seen since, and they died unhappy and unknown.

“The official story tells us that some guy brought the whole thing together,” Shuker said. “The name of Yosef Shamash has been forgotten. No one today knows the story except me and those I share it with.”