Undercover in the World of Radical Islam

When Zvi Yehezkeli was born in Jerusalem in 1970 to secular Iraqi and Kurdish Jewish parents, they believed they were welcoming a child into a future of peace. History had other plans. Like nearly every Israeli family, they watched their son trade childhood for a uniform at eighteen, as the country’s threats only multiplied. Zvi didn’t just serve—he threw himself into Israel’s security, first in an elite army unit and then in the Shin Bet, the Israeli Security Agency.

In the 1990s, Zvi witnessed the Oslo Accords, the landmark agreements in which Israel and the PLO formally recognized each other and launched a peace process meant to lead to Palestinian self-rule and a final settlement. Like many Israelis, he desperately wanted the peace agreement to succeed. He decided to study Arabic and learn more about Israel’s “peace partners.” Then he spent some time living in Hebron and Jenin.

With his Middle Eastern looks and fluent Arabic, it was easy for Zvi to blend into the Arab society and observe its workings from the inside. As a spy, and later as a journalist, Zvi obtained information valuable for Israel’s security.

He has been cautioning about the dangers of Islamic terrorism long before the Hamas attack on October 7^th, 2023. Unfortunately, his warnings went unheeded.

Today, Zvi is a senior commentator on Arab affairs at i24 News. He also lectures throughout the world on the current situation in the Middle East.

Zvi recently spoke in Beit Shemesh, at an event organized by Alisa Coleman, Director of the Bet Shemesh Municipality Aliya and Absorption Department, sharing what he learned “the hard way” over his 30 years of experience.

Spiritual Journey

Zvi recalls a 2004 encounter with Zakaria Zubeidi, the head of al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades in Jenin, the day after Israel eliminated Zubeidi’s deputy. “He was my friend. I went to the refugee camp.” Zvi did not know that in response to his deputy’s assassination, Zubeidi swore to kill the first Jew he saw. Zvi was that first Jew, and Zubeidi pointed his gun at Zvi and said, “I have to kill you.”

Zvi tried to object. “I’m not a Jew. I’m a journalist. I’m Israeli. I’m secular. I speak Arabic.”

Zubeidi replied, “No, Zvi. You are a Jew. You are part of the Jewish people, and I’m going to shoot you and kill you in the name of something you don’t even know! Go to your Judaism!”

Then Zubeidi let Zvi go.

On a personal level, this encounter spurred Zvi to learn more about his Jewish heritage. Later, after the Second Lebanon War, Zvi took a break from reporting and traveled the world, stopping in Uman, Ukraine, the burial place of Rabbi Nachman. There, he spent Shabbat with a religious family and discovered that Judaism was that elusive missing piece that he’d been searching for as he’d built his successful career. Upon returning to Israel, he committed to Jewish observance and married a woman who was also newly observant. Today, the couple is raising a large family.

Our enemies are telling us, “Be who you are! Because if you are not who you are, I’m going to push you to be who you are.”

On a community level, says Zvi, “This gun is pointed at every one of us. Our hostages met God in the tunnels. Each one of us in some way is a hostage. Now, we are going back to our treasures.” Our enemies, explains Zvi, are telling us, “Be who you are! Because if you are not who you are, I’m going to push you to be who you are.”

Understanding the Middle Eastern Mentality

To understand the conflict in the Middle East, Zvi explains, we must understand the Middle Eastern mentality instead of making the mistake common to many Western politicians and commentators – trying to interpret the events from a Western perspective.

In the West, people tend to think that wars are a thing of the past. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in the 90s, the Western perception is that “people are not going to fight anymore, because they are going to be democratic, and they are going to love each other.”

In the Middle East, on the other hand, “there’s been a lot of wars since the 90s, resulting in enormous casualties. In the last month, 150,000 people were killed in Sudan. There are millions of refugees. Sometimes, the West doesn’t know that people are still fighting.”

Zvi recalls that back in the 90s, he had also supported the Oslo Accords and believed in peace. But after spending 30 years interacting with the potential peace partners, including top terrorists, he began to understand their dreams and goals and how they educate their children. “I woke up,” he says. “They woke me up.”

“There is a way to understand the Middle East,” Zvi says. “It’s a tribal society. And in a tribal society, there is always fighting.” Zvi describes the fighting among the clans he witnessed when he lived in Hebron. “The Arabs that I lived with – a doctor, a lawyer, and a journalist – they killed four neighbors.” When Zvi asked them why, they said that they had fought over a parking spot. Since Zvi was still confused, they explained, “It’s not about a parking spot. We fight every two or three years, because this is our identity.”

Zvi recalls spending two weeks with Yasser Arafat in the midst of the Second Intifada. “I said to him, ‘We signed an agreement, and look what happened!’ He said, ‘It’s natural. Why are you so surprised?’ I said, ‘Israel gave you 92% of the West Bank!’ He said, ‘It’s not about numbers. Even 100% in my view is 0.’”

When Zvi still didn’t understand, Arafat explained, “You’re signing an agreement to share between us. We are signing an agreement as part of war, to throw you into the sea.”

In Islamic culture, agreement is “the weapon of the weak” because if one is strong, others see the strength and don’t attack. The first agreement in Muslim history was signed and later broken by Mohammed himself in his conquest of Mecca. Once the weak regain strength, they no longer feel bound by the agreement.

Likewise, in a tribal society, terms like “states” or “borders” do not have the same meaning as they do for Westerners. “The rules of the tribe are honor, controlling roads or lands, and revenge.”

Their vision is world domination but they are willing to achieve this goal slowly, step by step, even if it takes decades or even centuries.

Another principle in Islamic society is patience. Their vision is world domination but they are willing to achieve this goal slowly, step by step, even if it takes decades or even centuries. Therefore, Zvi says, when things are quiet in the Islamic world, that is not necessarily a good sign. Israel got too comfortable with the relative quiet in Gaza, thinking that the Gazans were no longer interested in war. In reality, the Gazans were digging tunnels and preparing to attack.

Zvi believes that the fundamental mistake of the Israeli military leadership before October 7^th was that they did not make an effort to understand the Arab society and to learn the Arabic language. While the soldiers on the ground and in intelligence might have reported suspicious activities, the leadership remained oblivious because those reports did not fit into their understanding of the situation. Unfortunately, those lessons were learned the hard way.

In addition, even now, the army is focused on weapons and military capabilities. Zvi suggests going to the root of the problem – the education and indoctrination that take place in schools and mosques controlled by Hamas, Hezbollah, Muslim Brotherhood, and other terror organizations. For as long as this ideology exists, “banning weapons won’t help.”

Jihad in Europe

In the 2000s and 2010s, Zvi traveled all over Europe disguised as a Palestinian Arab, and filmed several documentaries. He found that the Middle Eastern mentality is now spreading to Europe with the influx of refugees from the Middle East.

Zvi explains that the Islamists don’t begin with violence and jihad. First, they try to spread Islam peacefully. If that doesn’t work, they move on to jihad. Hamas was peaceful between 1982 and 1987. “Then they were so ready to continue with jihad,” says Zvi. “That’s what’s going to happen in Europe. Now, people are converting to Islam. Now, you’re not allowed to say ‘Merry Christmas’ because you are hurting the immigrants.”

The clash of civilizations in Europe stems from the same source – democratic societies “forgot about war; they can’t imagine that immigrants are still fighting.”

In Zvi’s first documentary, Allah Islam, which came out in 2010, Muslims residing in Europe describe, in fluent English, their vision for their host countries. In Belgium, immigrants speak about extending Sharia law not only to Belgium but to the rest of the world. They openly reject democracy and ridicule their host country. “We want to establish Islam here, in Europe,” one of them says. “That’s our main objective.”

In London, Zvi says, “I found the sheikh that was responsible for all the terror attacks in London. Now, after I did these interviews, they jailed him. He was free until last year. He said to me, ‘It’s a matter of time. We’re going to conquer Britain.’”

“I went to a mosque, and I filmed the sheikh saying, ‘Kill the Jews!’” Instead of taking his warnings seriously, the British intelligence objected to eavesdropping on religious institutions.

When Zvi first attempted to bring the sheikh’s incitement to the attention of the local authorities, they responded that the U.K. valued freedom of speech. Meanwhile, the sheikh had plenty of time to indoctrinate the young generation that attends his mosque.

Also in the U.K., Zvi says, “I went to a mosque, and I filmed the sheikh saying, ‘Kill the Jews!’” Instead of taking his warnings seriously, the British intelligence objected to eavesdropping on religious institutions.

In 2018, Zvi infiltrated the Syrian refugee community in Germany. The refugees shared with him that they wanted to spread Islam in Germany and establish Sharia law.

Jihad in America

“The same is happening in the United States today,” says Zvi. “But the United States is a huge country, and you can’t feel it like in the streets of London or Berlin. I was in a small town [of Belle Glade in Florida]. I found there a sheikh who is working by the book of the Muslim Brotherhood. He sued me after he saw the documentary because I was undercover. But he told me step by step what he’s going to do in his small town.”

Zvi laments that “nobody from the Western intelligence is doing such a job.” They don’t realize the danger. “But this will affect the West in 3-5 years from now,” says Zvi. “We’re in the middle of a war. And we [Israel] are the pioneers of this war.”

The Way Forward

Despite the bleak picture of the future that emerges from his documentaries and personal encounters, Zvi remains optimistic. Even though there is more work to do on the security front, he believes that Israelis have learned their lessons from October 7^th. “We’re now more mature and more aware,” more capable of defending Israel from its enemies.

We will go to the roots, we will fix it, and we will give our children a great Israel to live in.

Moreover, he believes in the strength and resilience of Israelis. “We are great people,” he says. Despite the security threats, Israel has been growing and developing, bringing much good into the world.

Zvi places great hope in the young generation of Israelis. “Our new generation is not as confused as us, my generation. They are clear in their vision. They know there is an enemy. And if you know there is an enemy, you’re going to fight. This is the victorious generation.”

Zvi concludes, “We will go to the roots, we will fix it, and we will give our children a great Israel to live in.”