The Mossad
An Israeli intelligence agency.
Officially named: The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations.
Without getting into details, and according to foreign sources, this is an organization with (...) people who deal with matters about which silence is golden. And that's a lot—in a country like Israel, they are prominent and exceptional among many people who feel the need to talk about the things they've done.
Israelis don't talk about the Mossad operatives.
Not in private conversations and not in large group discussions. If you need to say something about someone from the organization, you say they are involved in "shushu" (a common slang word that means absolute secrecy, and is said in the context of organizations like the Mossad or the Shin Bet). Just shushu, without expanding any further.
The "shushu-ists" remain anonymous.
Aside from the "head"—the organization's commander—none of them are identified in the Israeli media by their full name, but rather by letters (A, G, or any other letter). Their photos are forbidden from publication, and if by chance a face of one of them appears in a published picture, the censorship will take care to blur it. In many cases, their names and photos are forbidden from publication even after their deaths in the line of duty.
The most you can say about them is said with a face concealing a secret: "The country owes a lot to these people" or "A day will come when we can tell their stories."
After their retirement from the service, none of them will remain unemployed. Someone will make sure they find a job.
And if one of them prefers to look for a job on their own, when they apply for a position at any Israeli company, they will note a plain line in their CV that reads: "Between the years (..)-(..) I worked at the office of the Prime Minister" - Every Israeli manager will understand immediately. The Mossad is an external organization that is directly subordinate to the office of the Prime Minister.
The Mossad logo with the words (in Hebrew):
"Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is victory."
The "shushu-ist" from the Mossad lives among us, and we haven't got the slightest clue.
It could be your neighbor from the third floor of your building; your friend's son who travels abroad a lot on business; the blogger who writes posts about wonderful places around the world; that quiet boy you went to high school with and barely knew his name; the kind pensioner who paints for pleasure.
Any one of them could be an expert in assassinations and eliminations or an agent who recruits spies, or an expert in gathering information from computer networks.
Israel is a small and familial jewish country.
A lot of people know a lot of people who crossed paths at different stages of their lives—in a kibbutz or a moshav, in the same city neighborhood, at school, during military service, in a yeshiva or at university. Gossip spreads quickly, and nosiness and curiosity shorten the path to acquaintance, and yet: as in any family, Israelis also have national secrets that everyone keeps in their hearts.
The Mossad is one of those secrets that are not talked about, even if you don't know exactly what the secret is.
And if you're talking to a friend, and during the conversation, a sentence slips out that might hint at a friend or family member who is involved in "shushu," there's a chance you'll want to hear more details, but you won't dare to ask. We maintain self-discipline.
Despite the secrecy surrounding it, this is the only state body that Israelis trust blindly, without having any idea what exactly is going on there. There are no information leaks from it, and if there are, one can always assume it's a "reverse psychology" operation and every leak has a disguised purpose.
And yet, without getting into details and according to foreign sources, Google knows a lot about it.
A fact: anyone can go online and find tens of thousands of websites dealing with the Mossad, its organizational structure, the location of its central headquarters, the way it recruits agents, listens to the enemy, tracks and locates and eliminates and thwarts, and writes the script for a reality that a film, which seems utterly fictional, will later be made about.
The Mossad is an Israeli and Jewish pride.
It brought Eichmann here, meticulously eliminated the murderers of the athletes from the Munich Olympics one by one. It retrieved Iran's nuclear documents, and other daring operations that are permitted to be told about and passed down as an Israeli heritage.
Every now and then, a book is published that tells the story of one plot out of the hundreds of plots it was involved in, and immediately after publication, it fills the bookstores and sells out quickly. We love to read about "our" people who were involved in a story that seems fictional but happened in reality.
Around the world, the organization is known by the common name: "Mo-ssad", with the stress on the first syllable.
Israel's enemies are afraid of it, its friends admire it. Production companies make blockbuster movies about its exploits, authors and journalists publish plots and investigations that may or may not be related to reality. And only a few in the country and around the world know what is true and what is not and what exactly they do in that mysterious organization.
We will know, maybe, in so-and-so many years, when someone has an interest in publishing. And even then, most of the heroes' names will remain G or S or any other letter in the alphabet.
And until then, all that is left for us Israelis is to remember the organization's motto—"Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is victory." To trust the "shushu-ists", and let them remain beautiful in their anonymity and golden in their silence.
In the 1970s, "The Shushu Song" became well-known in Israel. Its lyrics tell the story of a Mossad agent, known as "The Shushu." The song was written by Yaron London, composed by Sasha Argov, and sung by Kobi Recht.
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