Most of the characters and incidents featured in The Angel are known to the world. This is not a novel. The author has written the incidents in the form of a novel without any element of fiction from the word go till the end and the readers are taken for a spine-chilling experience, a feeling which most of the books and authors fail to offer.
Before reading the 372 page book brought out by Harper Collins, one should get a brief idea about Israel, a small but a major country (area 20,770 sq km and population 8.5 million) which is surrounded by countries out to destruct the Jewish state from the face of the earth. Since its formation in 1948, Israel had to fight terrorism and aggressions literally on a daily basis for its survival.
Uri Bar Joseph tells us the incidents which led to the 20 day-long Yom Kippur War which was fought between Israel on one side and Egypt and Syria on the other side. Egypt and Syria unleashed attacks over Israel on October 6, 1973 when the Jews were observing Yom Kippur (The Day of Atonement), a day when all Jews would be fully engaged in praying and fasting. It is estimated that Israel lost nearly 3,000 gallant soldiers in this war. Both Egypt and Syria too suffered major casualties.
What is shocking about this war is that the Israeli Intelligence, especially Mossad and the military Intelligence, were aware of the full details about the plans of Egypt and Syria to unleash a combined shocking multi-pronged offensive against the Jewish state. The failure of the Israeli authorities to make use of this vast data of precise information is flabbergasting, surprising and astonishing. As usual, the turf war and ego clash between people in higher places resulted in Israel, otherwise known for its intelligence, perseverance and brilliance losing face and many lives in the Yom Kippur war. Had it effectively used the advanced information it had collected through the Mossad operatives, the present landscape of Middle East and geopolitics would have been entirely different from what it is today.
But the most exhilarating and enthralling part of the incidents which led to the Yom Kippur war is the source from whom the Mossad collected the information. Egypt had been thoroughly exposed to the Israeli counter intelligence agencies by none other than Ashraf Marwan, son-in-law of former President Gamal Abdel Nasser. The Angel was the code name given to Marwan by the agents of Mossad
Marwan, born into an average Egyptian family was very ambitious and that was how he managed to enter into a matrimonial alliance with the family of President Nasser. A chemist or chemical engineer by training, Marwan managed to entrap Mona, Nasser’s second daughter through a romance drama much to the opposition of the Nasser clan.
Though Nasser and other family members were against the marriage, they were forced to fall in line because of the intransigence of young Mona and the wedding took place in 1966. The ties between President Nasser and his younger son-in-law were never comfortable. Marwan was kept at a safe distance from the Presidential entourage though the former managed to get into the President’s office as a special assistant in 1968.
What mattered to Marwan were money and power. Author Joseph has not gone into the scandalous part, in the marital relation between Marwan and Mona and the readers are left to make their own conclusions about Marwan’s fidelity to his wife. Following reports about Marwan’s loose life in london where the couple had relocated as part of his master’s programme in Chemistry, Nasser had persuaded Mona to divorce Marwan to save the country and the president from embarrassment. But Mona was adamant and Nasser had to accommodate Marwan back in the President’s Office. But he was kept off sensitive matters as Nasser never ever trusted his second son-in – law.
Though Marwan was a celebrity in Cairo because of his ties with the first family, he knew well that he would never make it to the inner circle of the President. He decided to make hay while the sun was shining, shining well. Marwan knew being a spy for Israel would bring him lot of money with which he could pursue his hobby of gambling. He established contacts with Mossad by 1970. It was Marwan who approached Mossad with offers of supplying information straight from the President’s office.
By this time ill-health had taken a toll on Nasser and he died in 1970 at the age of 52. According to Joseph, it was Marwan’s inferiority complex towards the Nasser clan which brought him to the Mossad. He knew well that Nasser would never allow him anywhere near the table where the matters of State were discussed. “The greed for power, money and the anger against Nasser’s family made him offer his services to Mossad,” writes Joseph. All in Mossad as well as the then Prime Minister Golda Meir had rated Marwan as the most important and credible spy Israel had come across.
Joseph throws light into how Marwan was elevated to an important position in the office of Anwar Sadat who succeeded Nasser. According to Joseph, Sadat was not known for honesty and integrity. “He could be bought for a low price,” Nasser had told about Sadat, who was his vice-president. Had death not robbed Nasser of his life at the reasonably young age of 52, history of the Arab world would have been different. Nasser was seriously thinking about firing Sadat from his position following reports of massive corruption against the latter. But the sudden demise of Nasser turned out to be a boon for Sadat who made Marwan a special director in his office as a sign of gratitude for providing him vital information about the operation against him planned by his rivals in the party. In spite of his elevation in the President’s office, Marwan continued to be a spy for the Mossad. He informed Dubi, his Mossad handler, of all developments taking place in President Sadat’s on an hourly basis. But the Israeli administration failed to make use of the precise information to their advantage and hence the set back to the Jews in the 20-day-long Yom Kippur War.
The failure by the Israeli leadership to take note of the intelligence input given by Marwan could be understood from the fact that Golda Meir, the then Prime Minister of Israel, who was also known as the Iron lady had to resign following her indictment by the Agranat Commission, the national commission of Israel which probed the Yom Kippur War.
The Camp David accord signed between Israel and Egypt at the instance of the USA was a fall out of the Yom Kippur War, Israel had to withdraw from the Sinai Province which it had occupied since the Six-Day War of 1967.
Why is the book important to IndiaIJ Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier this year while addressing the centenary of Girdhari lal Dogra, former Congress leader of Jammu and Kashmir, who was also the father-in-law of union finance minister Arun Jaitley had said: “Girdhari lal Dogra was a good judge of character. The example is the sons-in-law he chose. In this case the son-in-law is not known for his father-in-law and the father-in-law is not known for his son-in-law. There are some sons-in-law who do not bask in their in-laws’ glory. But today, we all know how political damaads can be”.
There are damaads in business families too who have managed to sell out their father-in-law and brother-in-law. In Kerala, there is the Nambiar family which once owned the elite BPl India brand. The son-in-law overpowered TPG Nambiar, the founder of the group and his son Ajith who are now struggling for their survival. There are a lot of similarities between Marwan and these modern-day damaads of India. Both the BJP and the Congress should be alert and vigilante to these scheming damaads.
In addition to this, The Angel offers a rare insight into the functioning of the Mossad. It has many hitherto untold incidents about how nearly 400 passengers of El Al airways had a miraculous escape from Black September, a Palestinian terrorist organisation in 1973. One can never be blamed if one feels that India too should have an espionage agency like Mossad and chiefs like Zvi Zameer, who as the head of the agency supervised Mission Angel. A brilliant work featuring the rise and fall of Marwan, The Angel is a must read for those interested in espionage, intelligence and diplomacy.
