The world of espionage is filled with strange stories, secret gadgets, marvelous adventures — and at times pure unadulterated bull-you-know-what.
Sometimes, when you’re dealing with the dark world of spying, where whistle blowers can get blown away, it’s hard to tell what the truth is and, what is trash.
Sometimes the trash is good for a laugh, and that brings us to the accusations by certain bad actors, that the Israelis are using ‘all creatures great and small’ to spy on their enemies.
It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Super Spy
Now if some readers think this animal spying stuff is for the birds, they’d be right.
A bird bearing a foot band was found in Turkey in 2013, and originally thought to be an Israeli spy. After some use of whatever brains were located in the skulls of local authorities, they let the bird fly away.
Not so, again in Turkey the year before, when a dead bird was found with a band on its leg and again was thought to be an Israeli agent. Eventually, the bird was exonerated postmortem.
It probably isn’t lost on the reader that this bird-brained logic occurred in a country named Turkey. But to be fair, it has happened in other countries.
Like the Sudan, where, in 2012, a local newspaper reported that a vulture was a spy from Israel, as it was bearing a tag in Hebrew. It was also carrying what was referred to as ‘electronic’ devices.
Avian expert, Ohad Hatzofe of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, told the Israeli Press that there wasn’t much purpose in having a vulture involved in spying, asking the very reasonable question, ‘but what would be learned from putting a camera onto a vulture? You cannot control it. It’s not a drone that you can send where you want. What would be the benefit of watching a vulture eat the insides of a dead camel?’[1]
The eagle-eyed Lebanese Hezbollah in 2013 shot down an eagle they claimed was an Israeli spy. An Israeli ornithologist at the time opined, ‘Unfortunately, this bird made the stupid mistake of moving to Lebanon. It's not enough that they kill people, now they are killing birds too.’[2]
There are more stories about spying birds. But we don’t need to only focus on our fine feathered friends when it comes to the Muslim world believing that at times, the Mossad is the Moo-sad.
There was the case of the spying cow, for example.
In 2023, there was an article in the Jerusalem Post. It included accusations from a Palestinian that Israel was using a cow for spying. It seems, according to Rushd Morrar, a villager, that:
‘On the neck of each cow, they hang a medallion with an eavesdropping and recording device on it and sometimes cameras, in order to monitor every detail in Khirbet Yanun, large and small.’
There is a likelihood that old Rushd, rushed to judgment, and that more or less what Morrar said was nonsense.[3]
Now, it’s not only in the air and on the land that Israel supposedly uses spy animals to annoy its Muslim neighbors, but under the sea as well. Hamas believed that Israeli had trained killer spy dolphins.
In 2015, a representative of Hamas, revealed ‘that it managed to discover a killer dolphin, which Palestinian media said was “stripped of its will” and trained to be “a murderer” by Israel’s military,’[4] and Hamas wouldn’t lie about a thing like that, would they?
Let’s stay in the water for a while, and discuss the evil sharks that Israeli intelligence uses for dirty deeds. This, of course, is another nonsensical accusation that doesn’t have any teeth in it.
In 2010, after there were several shark attacks against Islamic beach goers in the Sinai Peninsula, it was determined by a local diver, (who perhaps came to the surface too fast when he said this), ‘that a GPS device found on one of the captured sharks was of Israeli origin, and that the Mossad was using the shark attacks to kill tourism in the beach town.’
To be fair, eventually, the governor of South Sinai realized the sharks were not agents of Israel seeking to destroy tourism; they were merely independent actors seeking to eat tourists. [5]
Now, as Israel and the U.S. are close allies, let’s leave the Holy Land for a moment. Let’s talk about how the United States was accused of having spy squirrels working for its intelligence community.
‘The Iranian Army arrested 14 spy squirrels in 2007 who were allegedly working for the Americans and wearing small recording devices that could be used for eavesdropping.’[6]
Okay, so we’ve heard of birds spying, dolphins, sharks, and squirrels. But what about lizards?
Well, seven years ago, in February 2018, ‘The former chief-of-staff of Iran’s armed forces said Tuesday that Western spies had used lizards to “attract atomic waves” and spy on his country’s nuclear program.’[7]
Propaganda, disinformation, and psychological operations exist in the military and intelligence worlds, and have for millennia.
In times past, Jews were accused of making Passover bread from the blood of Christian children. Now the Israelis are accused of using fish, fowl and who knows what other kind of fauna to spy on and attack the poor innocent followers of Allah.
Why You Should Care
It’s always amazing the complete and utter bull… that some people can spout, and that some people can believe.
These stories about animal spies and assassins is just an extreme example of the lies told by countries and spread by state-controlled media.
The consumer of information must have a functioning bull… detector to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to reporting.
[1] ISRAEL RELATED ANIMAL CONSPIRACY THEORIES, Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel-related_animal_conspiracy_theories#cite_note-13
[2] IBID.
[3] PALESTINIANS ACCUSE ISRAEL OF TRAINING SPY COWS, Jerusalem Post, 1/6/23 https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-726825
[4] HAMAS ACCUSES ISRAELI MILITARY OF USING SPY DOLPHINS, I24, 1/12/22 https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/middle-east/palestinian-territories/1641985919-hamas-accuses-israel-s-military-of-using-spy-dolphins
[5] TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SHARK , The Forward, 7/9/16 Feldman, https://forward.com/israel/344574/the-killer-mossad-shark-and-5-other-animals-that-dont-really-spy-for/
[6] SPIES IN THE WILD, SPYSCAPE https://spyscape.com/article/spies-in-the-wild-the-animals-used-for-covert-espionage-missions
[7] IRAN ACCUSES WEST OF USING LIZARDS FOR NUCLEAR SPYING,Bachner, 2/13/18 Times of Israel https://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-accuses-west-of-using-lizards-for-nuclear-spying/