Sheffy, Yigal. "British Intelligence and the Middle East, 1900-1918: How Much Do We Know?" Intelligence and National Security 17, no. 1 (Spring 2002): 33-52.
Sheffy, Yigal. "British Intelligence and the Middle East, 1900-1918: How Much Do We Know?" Intelligence and National Security 17, no. 1 (Spring 2002): 33-52.
Until World War I, "almost no institutionalized British intelligence agency functioned in the region on a permanent basis." The coming of the war "completely altered the picture." There are sufficient primary sources available to allow serious study within a broad context of the functioning of the British intelligence apparatus in the Middle East during the first two decades of the 20th century. However, "available evidence remains obscure and fragmentary with regard to the inner mechanism of the system."
[RefMats/Release/UK; UK/Historical; UK/Overviews/I&NS17.1; WWI/UK/ME]
Sheffy, Yigal. British Intelligence in the Palestine Campaign, 1914-1918. London: Frank Cass, 1997.
Campbell, AFIO WIN 12-99 (24 Mar. 1999), says that Sheffy "has done a thorough job in integrating intelligence into operations in this study of an often overlooked conflict.... This is a scholarly work on the development and utilization of military intelligence during World War I, appropriate for serious students of intelligence." According to Kruh, Cryptologia 24.1, this "excellent" work "presents the development, operations and contribution of British Military Intelligence to the campaign against the Ottoman Empire on the Egyptian and Palestinian front..., placing it in regional context and historical perspective."
[WWI/UK/ME/Gen]
Sheffy, Yigal. "Une convergence d'intérêts collaboration entre les services secrets français et britanniques au Levant pendant la Première Guerre mondiale." In De Bonaparte à Balfour: La France, L'Europe occidentale et la Palestine, 1799-1917, eds. Dominique Trimbur and Ran Aaronson, 89-107. Paris: CNRS Editions, 2001.
[France/Historical; UK/Historical]
Sheffy, Yigal. "Institutionalized Deception and Perception Reinforcement: Allenby's Campaigns in Palestine." Intelligence and National Security 5, no. 2 (Apr. 1990): 173-236.
The author compares Allenby's use of deception prior to the Battle of Gaza (to hide from where the attack would come) and in the Megiddo Campaign (to hide the very existence of the coming offensive). What is distinctive, in Sheffy's opinion, is that Allenby "regarded the planning of the deception and its implementation as an integral and institutionalized part of the staff work in the combat procedure phase as well as during the conduct of operations."
[WWI/UK/ME][c]
Sheffy, Yigal. "Overcoming Strategic Weakness: The Egyptian Deception and the Yom Kippur War." Intelligence and National Security 21, no. 5 (Oct. 2006): 809-828.
The success of the Egyptian deception "can be attributed to it being unpretentious, sober, realistic and synchronized [intentionally or not] with its environment." The "greatest benefit" to Egypt "was retardation of any cognitive transformation among Israeli decision-makers. In consequence, the IDF's military response was delayed to a date that was, by itself, irrelevant to Egypt's war aims."
[Israel/Surprise/YomKippur]
Sheffy, Yigal. "The Spy Who Never Was: An Intelligence Myth in Palestine, 1914-18." Intelligence and National Security 14, no. 3 (Autumn 1999): 123-142.
The author argues that the daring deeds attributed to "German super-spy" Fritz Frank in Sinai and Palestine during World War I "were almost entirely imaginary."
[Germany/WWI][c]
Sheffy, Yigal. "Unconcern at Dawn, Surprise at Sunset: Egyptian Intelligence Appreciation Before the Sinai Campaign, 1956." Intelligence and National Security 5, no. 3 (Jul. 1990): 7-56.
The author notes that Egyptian President Nasser had received recent early warnings of an Israeli attack, yet was shocked when the attack began on 29 October 1956 and was surprised yet again when the British and French entered the fray. The question, then, is, "Why?" Sheffy finds the answer rooted in "almost universal failures in judgement at [the] national level which give rise to mistaken intelligence appreciations. Such failures are based at first on fixed perceptions and preconceptions, gather strength with the adaptation of information to the conception, and finally fall victim to the enemy's deception stories."
For information on the Israeli deception plan, see Michael Handel, "Crisis and Surprise in Three Arab Israeli Wars," in Strategic Military Surprise: Incentives and Opportunities, eds. Klaus Knorr and Patrick Morgan, 111-122 (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1984).
[Analysis/Surprise; Israel; Other Countries/Arab][c]
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