Mista‘arvim (Hebrew: מִסְתַּעַרְבִים; Arabic: مُسْتَعْرِبِين|translit=musta‘ribīn,), also spelled mista‘aravim, is the name given to certain units in the Israel Defense Forces, Israel Border Police, and Israel Police that assimilate into local Arab populations to operate undercover while gathering intelligence or conducting law enforcement, hostage rescue, and counter-terrorism operations.
The Hebrew word mista‘arev (plural mista‘arvim) is a Hebraization of the Arabic musta‘rib, meaning "he who has become Arab", which refers to both the Musta'arabi Jews, Arabic-speaking Jews who lived in the Middle East from the beginning of Arab rule in the 7th century[1] prior to the arrival of Ladino-speaking Sephardic Jews following their expulsion from Spain in 1492, and the Mozarabs of al-Andalus.
Members of mista‘arvim units are specifically trained to assimilate among the Arab population and operate within Arab societies to accomplish their missions. Gary Spedding, a consultant on the Middle East, said that the activity of mista‘arvim "allows the Israeli military and border police to identify protesters they wish to arrest and detain. Israeli affairs expert Antoine Shalhat claimed that the main missions of the mista‘arvim "include gathering intelligence and counterterrorist operations." Mista‘arvim dress as Arabs, know the customs and etiquette of Arab society and speak fluent Arabic, in the appropriate dialect. Mista‘arvim have participated in public demonstrations and may support the protests as if they were demonstrators.
A mista‘arvim unit, with the code-name ha-Shahar (The Dawn) was established secretly by the Palmach in 1943 and consisted mainly of native Arabic-speaking Sephardic Jews, virtually indistinguishable from Arabs generally. With the outbreak of the 1948 Palestinian War in November 1947, members of ha-Shahar were deployed as intelligence agents capable of penetrating Arab urban neighbourhoods and villages and, at times, in sabotage and assassinations. In 1948, the commander of this Arab platoon Moshe Ben-Zvi expressed interest in assisting Israeli operations of biological warfare. It appears that subsequently, on 21 May, two mista‘arvim, David Mizrahi and Ezra Horin, operating out of Dorot and kibbutz Gevar‘am were captured by Egyptian troops as they attempted to poison with typhoid and diphtheria bacteria the wells from which Egyptian troops in Gaza drew their water supplies, an incident which led Egypt to make a formal protest to the Secretary General of the United Nations later that month.[2] In his book, Spies of No Country, Matti Friedman tells the history of a pre-statehood unit operating in Lebanon and Syria.[3]
Training for these units takes about 15 months:
The first mista‘arvim unit, known as the "Arab Department" (ha-Maḥlaka ha-Aravit), was established in 1942 as a unit of the Palmach. Other mista‘arvim groups in Israel have included: