Israel Claims Ex-Syrian PM Jamil Mardam Bey Was ‘Double Agent’

Jamil Mardam Bey. (Getty Images)
Jamil Mardam Bey. (Getty Images)
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Israel Claims Ex-Syrian PM Jamil Mardam Bey Was ‘Double Agent’

Jamil Mardam Bey. (Getty Images)
Jamil Mardam Bey. (Getty Images)

A new book that will be published in Israel claims that former Syrian Prime Minister Jamil Mardam Bey, who served in office in the 1930s and 1940s, was in fact a “double agent” working for France, Britain and Israel.

Author and Israeli researcher, Meir Zamir revealed that Mardam Bey had provided Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion with “information” and warned him that “Britain was planning to thwart the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.”

Zamir’s book, “The Secret Anglo-French War in the Middle East: Intelligence and Decolonization, 1940-1948,” is due to be published in December. Israel’s Haaretz has released excerpts of the book.

Syrian historians in Damascus questioned the timing of the publication of the book and its citation of “Syrian documents”. They also criticized it for “misinterpretation of Mardam Bey’s position in regional alliances during the early 20th Century.”

Zamir is an expert in intelligence affairs and Syrian history. He has garnered attention for reviewing history from the lens of intelligence agencies. He has, since 2010, been publishing research on the role of French intelligence in planting spies in the Syrian government in 1944. He also claimed that Britain succeeded in 1941 in recruiting a large number of Syrian and Lebanese nationalists under the banner of French mandate.

Many of these figures have been commemorated with streets and squares in Syria, said Zamir. They include former Syrian President Shukri al-Quwatli, who served in office in the 1940s, Mardam Bey, who served as premier for two terms, and former Lebanese Prime Minister Riad al-Solh, who was in office in the 1940s and 1950s.

Zamir said the figures were recruited in exchange for financial rewards or were being extorted. Many agreed to cooperate with foreign intelligence agencies because they believed the West will emerge victorious in World War II. They also believed that Britain would back their personal ambition to rise to power.

Zamir said that the British demanded that the agents agree that their countries come under British or Hashemite rule, and oppose, even if covertly, the French mandate. Britain indeed fulfilled its pledges, but the agents did not, and they reneged on their agreement to its rule.

The Palestinian cause at the time was seen as a “secondary” issue, while the British and French vied for power in the post-WWII Middle East.

“In the summer of 1945, no one was more hated by French officials in Syria and Lebanon than Jamil Mardam Bey,” wrote Zamir in excerpts published by Haaretz. “Intelligence information obtained by France revealed that Mardam Bey, the prime minister of Syria under the French mandate there, had been recruited by Brig. Iltyd Nicholl Clayton, head of MI6 in the Middle East, and by Nuri Sa'id, the Iraqi prime minister.”

“Mardam Bey had also reportedly agreed to a plan whereby Syria, after the expulsion of France from its mandated territories, would unite with Iraq and with Transjordan under the Hashemite family, and Britain – which controlled those two countries – would enjoy hegemony in Damascus as well. For Mardam’s part in what was called the ‘Greater Syria’ plan, he received handsome sums and was promised that he would rule in Syria, under the Hashemite monarch.”

“What happened was that the French decided to exploit the situation for their own purposes and began to blackmail Mardam Bey. They threatened to publish the documents in their possession and to leak the information to his political foes. Mardam Bey ultimately resigned in August 1945 after consulting with his British handlers, but they did not know that he had capitulated to blackmail and had become a double agent,” said Zamir.

“In that period, with the future of the region hanging in the balance, Mardam Bey provided the French with valuable information about the intentions of the British military and intelligence services in the Middle East.”

“But the story doesn’t end there. Research in French and Israeli archives, together with a perusal of Syrian government documents, now shows that the Syrian prime minister was actually handled by a Zionist intelligence agent together with the French. (…) It all began in October 1945, when the French encountered a new problem. Mardam Bey had been appointed Syria’s ambassador to Egypt and its envoy to the Arab League headquarters in Cairo, but the French had a hard time utilizing him there without arousing suspicion. The solution was to recruit Eliahu Sasson for the mission of relaying the information provided by Mardam Bey.”

“Sasson, who was then the head of the Arab division of the Jewish Agency’s political department, had been appointed by Agency head Ben-Gurion in February 1945 to coordinate cooperation with French intelligence. The Syrian-born Sasson knew Mardam Bey and had met with him in 1937, when the latter had served an earlier term as prime minister. The French, who were well acquainted with Sasson and thought highly of his operational capabilities, began to collaborate with him in handling Mardam Bey.”

“The documents show that on November 12, 1945, Sasson met with Mardam Bey in Cairo; he did so again six days later, when Mardam Bey visited Jerusalem as head of an Arab League delegation to arrange Palestinian representation in the League. Following these encounters, Ben-Gurion met with Sasson, and in a diary entry of November 22, related details of the Jewish Agency official’s conversations with Mardam. This is one of the few occasions when Mardam can be identified directly as an intelligence source of Ben-Gurion’s. In the years that followed, both French intelligence and Sasson concealed by various means the fact that Mardam was the source of information, in order not to expose him.

“From July 1945, Ben-Gurion had prepared for the possibility of an attack by the Arab states should the Jewish state declare its independence. But the information from Mardam Bey turned the spotlight elsewhere. Ben-Gurion learned that the immediate threat to the establishment of the Jewish state lay not in an attack by Arab armies, but rather in the plan of British military commanders and intelligence agencies in the Middle East to thwart that development by various other means. These included declaring the Haganah militia a terrorist organization and disarming it, and implementing the Greater Syria plan, under which a limited Jewish entity would be created in Mandatory Palestine, but not an independent state. It was apparently also Mardam Bey who revealed the fact that British intelligence had recruited an agent who was operating in the Jewish Agency and conveying to his superiors information about the discussions being held by the Agency’s leadership, including copies of the minutes of its most secret meetings,” said Zamir.

“According to the information passed on by Mardam Bey, the Arab rulers who were fearful of Soviet intervention had decided to assist the British in the event of an all-out war in the Middle East between the Soviet Union and the West, while London’s policy was to play for time in order to rehabilitate its economy and set relations with the United States on a solid footing. As to the Palestinian question, in deliberations of the Arab League council concern was expressed that ongoing Jewish immigration to Palestine would allow the Haganah to field an army of an estimated 80,000 troops and that ‘we will never be able to match them in preparation and organization, even if the English help us.’ Accordingly, the Arab leaders wanted the British Army to remain in Palestine.

“(…) On July 14, 1946, the British government was compelled to declare that it did not support the Greater Syria project. Nevertheless, the British military and secret services in the Middle East continued their efforts to establish a Hashemite Greater Syria as part of a regional defense alliance against the Soviet threat.”

“The events that occurred in 1946 confirmed the accuracy of the information conveyed by Mardam Bey about British military intentions in Palestine. To begin with, in May of that year Brig. Iltyd Clayton initiated a meeting of the heads of the Arab states at the Inshas Palace in Cairo. The conference’s resolutions asserted for the first time that Zionism constituted a danger not only to the Palestinians but to all the Arab states. A second meeting of the Arab League council was held in June in Bloudan, near Damascus. Some of its resolutions, which were secret, stated that the danger existed of a military confrontation with the Zionist movement, and in that case the Arab states would be duty-bound to assist their Palestinian brethren with money, arms and manpower.”

“Mardam Bey was present at the Bloudan discussions, as was Sasson, who returned thereafter to Jerusalem with the information about the secret resolutions,” said Zamir.



Palestinians’ Dangerous Ordeal to Reach Israeli-Approved Aid in Gaza

Palestinians collect what remains of relief supplies from the distribution center of the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, June 5, 2025. (Reuters)
Palestinians collect what remains of relief supplies from the distribution center of the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, June 5, 2025. (Reuters)
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Palestinians’ Dangerous Ordeal to Reach Israeli-Approved Aid in Gaza

Palestinians collect what remains of relief supplies from the distribution center of the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, June 5, 2025. (Reuters)
Palestinians collect what remains of relief supplies from the distribution center of the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, June 5, 2025. (Reuters)

When university professor Nizam Salama made his way to a southern Gaza aid point last week, he came under fire twice, was crushed in a desperate crowd of hungry people and finally left empty handed.

Shooting first started shortly after he left his family's tent at 3 a.m. on June 3 to join crowds on the coast road heading towards the aid site in the city of Rafah run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a new US-based organization working with private military contractors to deliver aid in Gaza.

The second time Salama came under fire was at Alam Roundabout close to the aid delivery site, where he saw six dead bodies.

Twenty-seven people were killed that day by Israeli fire on aid seekers, Palestinian health authorities said. Israel said its forces had shot at a group of people they viewed as a threat and the military is investigating the incident.

At the aid delivery site, known as SDS 1, queues snaked through narrow cage-like fences before gates were opened to an area surrounded by sand barriers where packages of supplies were left on tables and in boxes on the ground, according to undated CCTV video distributed by GHF, reviewed by Reuters.

Salama said the rush of thousands of people once the gates opened was a "death trap."

"Survival is for the stronger: people who are fitter and can make it earlier and can push harder to win the package," he said. "I felt my ribs going into each other. My chest was going into itself. My breath...I couldn't breathe. People were shouting; they couldn't breathe at all."

A Palestinian man, next to a child, displays the aid supplies he received from the US-supported Gaza Relief Organization, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, June 5, 2025. (Reuters)

Reuters could not independently verify all the details of Salama's account. It matched the testimonies of two other aid seekers interviewed by Reuters, who spoke of crawling and ducking as bullets rattled overhead on their way to or from the aid distribution sites.

All three witnesses said they saw dead bodies on their journeys to and from the Rafah sites.

A statement from a nearby Red Cross field hospital confirmed the number of dead from the attack near the aid site on June 3.

Asked about the high number of deaths since it began operations on May 26, GHF said there had been no casualties at or in the close vicinity of its site.

The Israeli military didn't respond to detailed requests for comment. Israeli military spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin told reporters on Sunday that Hamas was "doing its best" to provoke troops, who "shoot to stop the threat" in what he called a war zone in the vicinity of the aid sites. He said military investigations were underway "to see where we were wrong."

Salama, 52, had heard enough about the new system to know it would be difficult to get aid, he said, but his five children - including two adults, two teenagers and a nine-year-old - needed food. They have been eating only lentils or pasta for months, he said, often only a single meal a day.

"I was completely against going to the aid site of the American company (GHF) because I knew and I had heard how humiliating it is to do so, but I had no choice because of the bad need to feed my family," said the professor of education administration.

In total, 127 Palestinians have been killed trying to get aid from GHF sites in almost daily shootings since distribution under the new system began two weeks ago, Gaza's health authority said on Monday.

The system appears to violate core principles of humanitarian aid, said Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, a major humanitarian organization. He compared it to the Hunger Games, the dystopian novels that set people to run and fight to the death.

"A few will be rewarded and the many will only risk their lives for nothing," Egeland said.

"International humanitarian law has prescribed that aid in war zones should be provided by neutral intermediaries that can make sure that the most vulnerable will get the relief according to needs alone and not as part of a political or military strategy," he said.

GHF did not directly respond to a question about its neutrality, replying that it had securely delivered enough aid for more than 11 million meals in two weeks. Gaza's population is around 2.1 million people.

A Palestinian man shows blood stains on his palm after he carried casualties among people seeking aid supplies from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. (Reuters)

FAMINE RISK

Israel allowed limited UN-led aid operations to resume on May 19 after an 11-week blockade in the enclave, where experts a week earlier warned a famine looms.

The UN has described the aid allowed into Gaza as "drop in the ocean."

Separate to the UN operation, Israel allowed GHF to open four sites in Gaza, bypassing traditional aid groups. The GHF sites are overseen by a US logistics company run by a former CIA official and part-owned by a Chicago-based private equity firm, with security provided by US military veterans working for a private contractor, two sources have told Reuters.

An Israeli defense official involved in humanitarian matters told Reuters GHF's distribution centers were sufficient for around 1.2 million people. Israel and the United States have urged the UN to work with GHF, which has seen a high churn of top personnel, although both countries deny funding it.

Reuters has not been able to establish who provides the funding for the organization but reported last week that Washington was considering an Israeli request to put in $500 million.

GHF coordinates with the Israeli army for access, the foundation said in reply to Reuters questions, adding that it was looking to open more distribution points. It has paused then resumed deliveries several times after the shooting incidents, including on Monday.

Last week, it urged the Israeli army to improve civilian safety beyond the perimeter of its operations. GHF said the UN was failing to deliver aid, pointing to a spate of recent lootings.

Israel says the UN's aid deliveries have previously been hijacked by Hamas to feed their own fighters. Hamas has denied stealing aid and the UN denies its aid operations help Hamas.

The UN, which has handled previous aid deliveries into Gaza, says it has over 400 distribution points for aid in the territory. On Monday it described an increasingly anarchic situation of looting and has called on Israel to allow more of its trucks to move safely.

SHOOTING STARTS

Salama and four neighbors set out from Mawasi, in the Khan Younis area of the southern Gaza Strip, at 3 a.m. on Tuesday for the aid site, taking two hours to reach Rafah, which is several miles away near the Egyptian border.

Shooting started early in their journey. Some fire was coming from the sea, he said, consistent with other accounts of the incidents. Israel's military controls the sea around Gaza.

His small group decided to press on. In the dark, the way was uneven and he repeatedly fell, he said.

"I saw people carrying wounded persons and heading back with them towards Khan Younis," he said.

By the time they reached Alam Roundabout in Rafah, about a kilometer from the site, there was a vast crowd. There was more shooting and he saw bullets hitting nearby.

"You must duck and stay on the ground," he said, describing casualties with wounds to the head, chest and legs.

He saw bodies nearby, including a woman, along with "many" injured people, he said.

Another aid seeker interviewed by Reuters, who also walked to Rafah on June 3 in the early morning, described repeated gunfire during the journey.

At one point, he and everyone around him crawled for a stretch of several hundred meters, fearing being shot. He saw a body with a wound to the head about 100 meters from the aid site, he said.

Palestinians gather to collect aid supplies from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. (Reuters)

The Red Cross Field Hospital in Rafah received a mass casualty influx of 184 patients on June 3, the majority of them injured by gunshots, the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement, calling it the highest number of weapon-wounded patients the hospital had ever received in a single incident. There were 27 fatalities.

"All responsive patients said they were trying to reach an assistance distribution site," the statement said.

When Salama finally arrived at the aid point on June 3, there was nothing left.

"Everyone was standing pulling cardboard boxes from the floor that were empty," he said. "Unfortunately, I found nothing: a very, very, very big zero."

Although the aid was gone, more people were arriving.

"The flood of people pushes you to the front while I was trying to go back," he said.

As he was pushed further towards where GHF guards were located, he saw them using pepper spray on the crowd, he said.

GHF said it was not aware of the pepper spray incident, but said its workers used non-lethal measures to protect civilians.

"I started shouting at the top of my lungs, brothers I don't want anything, I just want to leave, I just want to leave the place," Salama said.

"I left empty-handed... I went back home depressed, sad and angry and hungry too," he said.