SHAI

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In the British Mandate of Palestine the SHA'I (Sherut ha'Yediot ha'Artzit or National Information Service) was the intelligence and counter-espionage arm of the Haganah and the forebear of Mossad. During World War II the British Special Operations Executive supplied the Haganah with weapons, training and funding and in turn the Haganah provided linguistic experts and SHAI operatives. The British provided commando training for special operations to both SHAI operatives and FOSH veterans through a training school designated ME 102, which was set up by MI4.

Following the defeat of Nazi Germany,

... until 1948 the SHAI's primary objectives included the promoting of an independent Israeli state; infiltrating British mandate offices in order to inform the Jewish and Zionist leadership of British attitutes and proposed actions; collecting political information that could be used as propaganda; penetrating Arab and anti-Zionist factions in Palestine and abroad; and providing security for the arms-smuggling and illegal immigration programmes of the Haganah (Richelson, 1997, p. 238).

Famous SHAI operatives included Reuven Shiloah and Nahum Admoni. The SHAI was one of five intelligence agencies set up by David Ben-Gurion, the others being the internal security agency Shin Beth, the Aliyah Beth, repsonsible for smuggling immigrants, and the police intelligence forces.

[edit] References

• Katz, Sam (1988). Israeli Units Since 1948. Osprey Publishing. ISBN 0-85045-837-4
• Richelson, Jeffery T. (1997). A Century of Spies: Intelligence in the Twentieth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-511390-X