The Ilan Grapel affair was an alleged

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

espionage Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering, as a subfield of the intelligence field, is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information ( intelligence). A person who commits espionage on a mission-specific contract is called an ...

incident in

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

involving dual U.S.-Israeli citizen Ilan Grapel. On 12 June 2011, Egyptian authorities arrested Grapel on charges of fomenting unrest in Egypt as a

Mossad The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations (), popularly known as Mossad ( , ), is the national intelligence agency of the Israel, State of Israel. It is one of the main entities in the Israeli Intelligence Community, along with M ...

agent in the wake of the

2011 Egyptian revolution The 2011 Egyptian revolution, also known as the 25 January Revolution (;), began on 25 January 2011 and spread across Egypt. The date was set by various youth groups to coincide with the annual Egyptian "Police holiday" as a statement against ...

. Israel and Grapel's friends and family firmly rejected the charges, and the Egyptian government never provided public evidence to support its claim of Grapel being in involved in espionage. On October 25, 2011, Israel and Egypt agreed on the release of Grapel in exchange for 25 Egyptian prisoners held in Israeli jails. The exchange was executed on October 27, 2011, ending Grapel's nearly five months of imprisonment.

Arrest and charges

Ilan Grapel, a 27-year-old man born in

Queens Queens is the largest by area of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Located near the western end of Long Island, it is bordered by the ...

with dual American and Israeli nationality, was arrested on 12 June 2011 by Egyptian authorities, who claimed that Grapel was sent to Egypt by Mossad to build a team that had been trying to gather information and data and to monitor the events of the 2011 Egyptian revolution. The authorities also claimed that Grapel tried to incite violence amongst Egyptian protesters to spark a face-off with the military and spreading chaos in Egypt. Friends and family of Grapel, as well as the Israeli government, adamantly rejected the espionage charges against Grapel and denied he had any connections to the Mossad. At the time of his arrest, Grapel was a rising third-year student at the

Emory University School of Law Emory University School of Law is the law school of Emory University, a private research university in Atlanta, Georgia. It was founded in 1916 and was the first law school in Georgia to be granted membership in the American Association of Law ...

. Grapel's friends and family said he went to Egypt for the summer to intern at Saint Andrew's Refugee Services, a non-government legal group that helps resettle refugees. Grapel had a long-time interest in Islam and the Middle East. He is trilingual, speaking English, Hebrew and Arabic. The Egyptian government never gave evidence to support its claims against Grapel, and even in Egypt, the arrest was widely ridiculed. In early October 2011, with reports increasingly indicating that Grapel would be released shortly, a senior Egyptian official admitted that Grapel wasn't a spy, according to the London-based newspaper ''

al-Hayat ''Al-Hayat'' ( ''Life'') was an Arabic newspaper based in Beirut from its founding 28 January 1946 to 1976 and in London after its refounding in 1988. It was a pan-Arab newspaper owned by Saudi Prince Khalid bin Sultan, that had a circulation ...

''. The source stated, "what Grapel did during the revolution did not amount to spying, and by this logic, he can be released in exchange for financial benefits".

Biography

Ilan Grapel is a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen originally from Queens, New York. In 2005, Grapel graduated from

Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...

in Baltimore, Maryland, with a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...

in international studies. He then moved to Israel and performed compulsory military service in Israel. During his service, he was wounded in the

2006 Lebanon War The 2006 Lebanon War was a 34-day armed conflict in Lebanon, fought between Hezbollah and Israel. The war started on 12 July 2006, and continued until a United Nations-brokered ceasefire went into effect in the morning on 14 August 2006, thoug ...

. Grapel later returned to U.S. for law school, enrolling in

Emory University Emory University is a private university, private research university in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It was founded in 1836 as Emory College by the Methodist Episcopal Church and named in honor of Methodist bishop John Emory. Its main campu ...

in Atlanta, Georgia. His mother, Irene, said her son "always wanted to do good for the world" and went to Egypt to perform legal aid as part of this commitment. She added, "Ilan is a young man who wanted to see all sides of every issue." In the summer of 2002, Grapel worked as an intern in the Queens office of Democratic congressman Gary Ackerman, who has lobbied for his release.

Prisoner exchange deal

Following the successful execution of the first phase of the

Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange The Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange (; ), also known as Wafa al-Ahrar () ("Faithful to the free"), followed a 2011 agreement between Israel and Hamas to release Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for 1027 prisoners — almost all Palestinia ...

on October 18, 2011, with the support of Egyptian mediators, Israel and Egypt agreed on the release of Grapel in exchange for 25 Egyptian prisoners. On October 25, 2011, Israel's Security Cabinet unanimously approved the prisoner swap, clearing the way for Grapel to be released to Israel on October 27. Israeli prime minister

Benjamin Netanyahu Benjamin Netanyahu (born 21 October 1949) is an Israeli politician who has served as the prime minister of Israel since 2022, having previously held the office from 1996 to 1999 and from 2009 to 2021. Netanyahu is the longest-serving prime min ...

thanked the U.S. for helping achieve the Grapel deal. The Israeli government stated that none of the Egyptian prisoners to be released are "security prisoners". On October 27, 2011, Egyptian authorities released Grapel, and he arrived in Israel on a private jet. He subsequently flew to New York. The same day, Israel sent the 25 Egyptian prisoners into Egypt through the

Taba Border Crossing The Taba Border Crossing (, ), also known in Israel as the Menachem Begin Crossing (), is an international border crossing between Taba, in Egypt, and Eilat, in Israel. The Taba Border Crossing is the southernmost point in Israel. History Opened ...

Implications

The arrest of Grapel sparked fears in Israel that relations with Egypt would sour after the fall of long-time Egyptian ruler

Hosni Mubarak Muhammad Hosni El Sayed Mubarak (; 4 May 1928 – 25 February 2020) was an Egyptian politician and military officer who served as the fourth president of Egypt from 1981 to 2011 and the 41st Prime Minister of Egypt, prime minister from 1981 to ...

. Yaroslav Trofimov of ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...

'' asserted that the arrest of Grapel and other Westerners in the aftermath of the 2011 Egyptian revolution was part of a "military-inspired xenophobia campaign" to distance Egypt's new military rulers from the West, "portraying pro-democracy activists as spies and saboteurs, blaming the country's economic crisis and sectarian strife on foreign infiltrators, and blasting the U.S. for funding agents of change". He wrote, "As a result, connections with the U.S. and other Western countries have turned toxic just as the largest Arab country is struggling with a rocky transition to democracy." The detention of Grapel served to aggravate U.S.-Egyptian relations.

Boaz Ganor Boaz Ganor () is the former dean of the Lauder School of Government and Diplomacy at the Interdisciplinary Center and the current President of Reichman University. Biography Boaz Ganor is the founder and the executive director of the Intern ...

, founder and executive director of Israel's

International Institute for Counter-Terrorism The International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) is an Israeli think tank founded in 1996 and located at Reichman University, in Herzliya, Israel. Activities According to ''The Village Voice'', the ICT is a think tank developing public-poli ...

(ICT), said that it has always been dangerous for Israeli citizens to visit Arab countries. Still, it is unlikely for Arab states to adopt the arrest of Israelis as a tactic to extort Israel. Ganor stated that "the Grapel affair was designed to satisfy the Egyptian masses, and was a stage-managed incident meant to use 'the traditional rival – Israel – to distract Egyptians from their real problems. Ely Karmon, a senior researcher at ICT added that Egypt "has a record of arresting innocent Israelis such as

Azzam Azzam Azzam Azzam (, Levantine Arabic: , ; born 1962) is an Israeli Druze who was convicted in Egypt of spying for Israel, and jailed for eight years. He maintained his innocence throughout the ordeal. Arrest and trial Azzam is from the town of Magha ...

and

Ouda Tarabin Ouda Tarabin (, ; born in 1981) is an Israeli Bedouin who was imprisoned in Egypt for 15 years on suspicion of spying for Israel after illegally crossing the Israeli-Egyptian border. Tarabin, then aged 19, was arrested in 2000 after he illegally c ...

and framing them as spies to prove to its anti-Israel public it is looking after state security".

References

External links

*
"Timeline: Five months in Egyptian detention"
(Ilan Grapel), ''

The Jerusalem Post ''The Jerusalem Post'' is an English language, English-language Israeli broadsheet newspaper based in Jerusalem, Israel, founded in 1932 during the Mandate for Palestine, British Mandate of Mandatory Palestine, Palestine by Gershon Agron as ''Th ...