In the 1950s, Israel’s internal security service, the Shin Bet, was spying on immigrants from North Africa. It states that it was Minister David Ben-Gurion who asked the Shin Bet to help the police “prevent terrorist actions and hooliganism.” Avraham Ahituv, later head of the Shin Bet under Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Menachem Begin, was put in charge of this activity. The head of the Shin Bet assessed that the elections would mark the end of the protest. He also mentioned a Shin Bet “mission” that was assigned to two agents. Interestingly, within the agency itself at the time, there was criticism about the Shin Bet playing any part in “thwarting” the Mizrahi protest, Hazkani says.

Source: The North Africa Journal May 27, 2021 09:22 UTC