Rafi Eitan
Encyclopedia
Rafael "Rafi" Eitan is an Israel
i politician and former intelligence officer. Today he leads Gil and is a former Minister of Pensioner Affairs
. In the past, he was in charge of the Mossad
operation that led to the capture of Adolf Eichmann
. He served as an advisor on terrorism
to Prime Minister
Menachem Begin
, and in 1981 he was appointed to head the Bureau of Scientific Relations
, then an intelligence
entity on par with Mossad
, Aman
and Shabak. Eitan assumed responsibility for and resigned over the Jonathan Pollard
affair, and the Bureau was disbanded. From 1985 until 1993, he was head of the government's Chemicals company, which was expanded under his leadership. After 1993, he became a businessman, noted for several large scale agricultural and construction ventures in Cuba
.
Ein Harod
during the Mandate era. His parents were Zionist immigrants from Russia in 1923. His father Noach Hantman was a farmer and poet and his mother Yehudit Volwelsky, a social activist. They had four children, Rafi, Oded, Rina and Ami(Yechiam) and lived happily in Ramat HaSharon, a small settlement consisting of 100 families. Eitan went to a regular junior high public school, but finished his high school at the Agricultural School in Givat HaShlosha
in 1940 before going to the London School of Economics
for his BSc in Economics.
At age 12, engulfed in the prevalent Zionist sentiments of the day and to defend his settlement from Arab insurgencies, Eitan joined the Haganah
from which he moved to the Palmach
, a more elite part of the Haganah, upon completion of high school in 1944. Through clandestine operations, he was to assist the illegal immigration of Jewish refugees from Europe
, who were fleeing Nazism
, into Palestine. His most famous operation at this time was blowing up the British radar on Mount Carmel
near the port city of Haifa
. To reach it, Eitan had to crawl underground through sewers, thus earning the name 'Rafi the Smelly', which would differentiate him in later years from the other Rafael Eitan
, a well-known Israeli Chief of Staff
and politician. It was also during this time that he met Yitzhak Rabin
, who would later become Israeli Prime Minister.
. This position would allow him the biggest triumph in a post-Holocaust Israel: the capture of Adolf Eichmann
. In a daring mission, after much intelligence research recognized Adolf Eichmann alive and well, and living in Argentina, Eitan and his team went to Argentina to kidnap and take him to Israel, where he was tried and found guilty of atrocious crimes against the Jewish people during World War II. During the process of capturing Eichmann, Eitan personally vetoed the capture of Josef Mengele
, who was under Mossad surveillance, arguing that the eventual loss of focus could jeopardize the Eichmann mission.
During 1964-1966, Eitan headed a two-year operation in which armaments sold and delivered by the Germans to the Egyptian government 'disappeared'. In those days, Israel had no peace treaty with Egypt.
In 1968 Eitan, listed as an Israeli Ministry of Defense chemist, visited the U.S. Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) nuclear fuel plant, where later it is alleged 200 pounds of highly enriched uranium disappeared and was diverted to Israel in an event known as The Apollo Affair
.
Eitan was also involved in the secret planning and implementation of the attack
on the Iraq
i Osirak nuclear reactor in June 1981, an event widely criticized at the time by many countries.
, the then Prime Minister of Israel, called him back to be his advisor on terrorism, as Eitan was regarded and admired as one of the most respected experts in this field. In 1981, Eitan was named head of the Defense Ministry's Lekem
, the Bureau for Scientific Relations, where he continued work on terrorism. According to the British journalist, Gordon Thomas, Eitan then participated in a partnership between Israeli and U.S. intelligence during the early 1980s in selling to foreign intelligence agencies in excess of $500 million worth of licenses to a trojan horse version of the Washington, D.C.-based, Inslaw Inc.'s people-tracking software called Promis
, in order to spy on them.
In 1984, Lekem was put in touch with Jonathan Pollard
, an American
citizen, who worked on anti-terrorist activities at the US Naval Investigative Services. Pollard had contacted the Israeli government with top secret information on the terrorist activities of Israel's enemies. When Jonathan Pollard was arrested in the US in 1985, Lekem was disbanded. Eitan was offered then the position as head of the state-owned Israel Chemicals Corporation
, from where he retired in 1993 at the age of 67. During his tenure, the company underwent a rapid expansion in terms of sales, development and manpower making it the largest government-held firm in the country.
government in Britain
during the mid 1980's developed a relationship with Eitan as an advisor to MI6 on counterterrorism operations in Northern Ireland
. This relationship came to a head in 1985, when Mossad
agents helped track an IRA
bomb team in Gibraltar
. The three member IRA team was killed
by the British SAS
, under highly controversial circumstances. It was subsequently reported in British papers that Rafi Eitan and Mossad had played a surveillance role in the operation, and IRA command put out orders for assassination teams in Ireland
and Britain to find and kill Rafi Eitan. Due to this threat of assassination, and the embarrassment of the Israeli government over Eitan's unauthorized relationship with the operation, Eitan left Britain and ended his relationship with Britain's intelligence services. This incident strained Israeli/British relations for several years.
, which involved the cultivation of the largest citrus grove cooperative on the island. After winning the bid, Eitan built a partnership with four other international entrepreneurs to run the deal. The company BM Group was incorporated in Panama, and traded with Israeli suppliers.
Due to the success of the venture and the connections acquired, BM also won the contract to build the world trade center
in Havana
, and a Holocaust
Memorial at the center of the Old City of Habana. Recently, GBM was awarded the "Medal for Agricultural Work" by the Cuban government.
In addition to this deal, BM has started expanding its business deals to the rest of Latin America
. It runs various agricultural projects in the Dominican Republic
, among others.
the party failed to cross the electoral threshold, and Eitan lost his seat.
In February 2010, Eitan remarked "In principle, when there is a war on terror you conduct it without principles. You simply fight it.".
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i politician and former intelligence officer. Today he leads Gil and is a former Minister of Pensioner Affairs
Pensioner Affairs Minister of Israel
The Pensioner Affairs Minister of Israel is the political head of the Israeli Ministry of Pensioner Affairs and a position in the Israeli cabinet. The post was created following the coalition agreement between Kadima and Gil after the 2006 elections...
. In the past, he was in charge of the Mossad
Mossad
The Mossad , short for HaMossad leModi'in uleTafkidim Meyuchadim , is the national intelligence agency of Israel....
operation that led to the capture of Adolf Eichmann
Adolf Eichmann
Adolf Otto Eichmann was a German Nazi and SS-Obersturmbannführer and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust...
. He served as an advisor on terrorism
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
to Prime Minister
Prime Minister of Israel
The Prime Minister of Israel is the head of the Israeli government and the most powerful political figure in Israel . The prime minister is the country's chief executive. The official residence of the prime minister, Beit Rosh Hamemshala is in Jerusalem...
Menachem Begin
Menachem Begin
' was a politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of the State of Israel. Before independence, he was the leader of the Zionist militant group Irgun, the Revisionist breakaway from the larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah. He proclaimed a revolt, on 1 February 1944,...
, and in 1981 he was appointed to head the Bureau of Scientific Relations
Lekem
Lekem, an acronym for ha-Lishka le-Kishrei Mada , was an Israeli intelligence agency. It collected scientific and technical intelligence abroad from both open and covert sources. It was disbanded in 1986 following the arrest of Jonathan Pollard for espionage on behalf of Israel...
, then an intelligence
Intelligence community
Intelligence community may refer to* Bangladeshi intelligence community* Croatian intelligence community * Israeli intelligence community* Italian intelligence community, see SISMI...
entity on par with Mossad
Mossad
The Mossad , short for HaMossad leModi'in uleTafkidim Meyuchadim , is the national intelligence agency of Israel....
, Aman
Aman (IDF)
The Directorate of Military Intelligence is Israel's central, overarching military intelligence, of the Israel Defense Forces. Aman was created in 1950, when the Intelligence Department was spun off from the IDF's General Staff ; the Intelligence Department itself was composed largely of former...
and Shabak. Eitan assumed responsibility for and resigned over the Jonathan Pollard
Jonathan Pollard
Jonathan Jay Pollard worked as a civilian intelligence analyst before being convicted of spying for Israel. He received a life sentence in 1987....
affair, and the Bureau was disbanded. From 1985 until 1993, he was head of the government's Chemicals company, which was expanded under his leadership. After 1993, he became a businessman, noted for several large scale agricultural and construction ventures in Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
.
Biography
Eitan was born in kibbutzKibbutz
A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...
Ein Harod
Ein Harod
Ein Harod was a kibbutz in Israel. It was located in northern Israel near Mount Gilboa. It is notable for being built near the battlefield of Ayn Jalut , a battle of huge macro-historical importance where the Mongols were defeated for the first time, in 1260.-History:The kibbutz was founded by...
during the Mandate era. His parents were Zionist immigrants from Russia in 1923. His father Noach Hantman was a farmer and poet and his mother Yehudit Volwelsky, a social activist. They had four children, Rafi, Oded, Rina and Ami(Yechiam) and lived happily in Ramat HaSharon, a small settlement consisting of 100 families. Eitan went to a regular junior high public school, but finished his high school at the Agricultural School in Givat HaShlosha
Givat HaShlosha
Givat HaShlosha is a kibbutz in central Israel, about 4 km east of Petah Tikva, near the Yarkon river.A member of the Kibbutz Movement, it falls under the jurisdiction of Drom Hasharon Regional Council...
in 1940 before going to the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
for his BSc in Economics.
At age 12, engulfed in the prevalent Zionist sentiments of the day and to defend his settlement from Arab insurgencies, Eitan joined the Haganah
Haganah
Haganah was a Jewish paramilitary organization in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine from 1920 to 1948, which later became the core of the Israel Defense Forces.- Origins :...
from which he moved to the Palmach
Palmach
The Palmach was the elite fighting force of the Haganah, the underground army of the Yishuv during the period of the British Mandate of Palestine. The Palmach was established on May 15, 1941...
, a more elite part of the Haganah, upon completion of high school in 1944. Through clandestine operations, he was to assist the illegal immigration of Jewish refugees from Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, who were fleeing Nazism
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
, into Palestine. His most famous operation at this time was blowing up the British radar on Mount Carmel
Mount Carmel
Mount Carmel ; , Kármēlos; , Kurmul or جبل مار إلياس Jabal Mar Elyas 'Mount Saint Elias') is a coastal mountain range in northern Israel stretching from the Mediterranean Sea towards the southeast. Archaeologists have discovered ancient wine and oil presses at various locations on Mt. Carmel...
near the port city of Haifa
Haifa
Haifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...
. To reach it, Eitan had to crawl underground through sewers, thus earning the name 'Rafi the Smelly', which would differentiate him in later years from the other Rafael Eitan
Rafael Eitan
Rafael "Raful" Eitan was an Israeli general, former Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces and later a politician, a Knesset member government minister...
, a well-known Israeli Chief of Staff
Ramatkal
The Chief of the General Staff, also known as the Commander-in-Chief of the Israel Defense Forces is the supreme commander and Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces. At any given time, the Chief of Staff is the only active officer holding the IDF's highest rank, Rav Aluf , which is usually...
and politician. It was also during this time that he met Yitzhak Rabin
Yitzhak Rabin
' was an Israeli politician, statesman and general. He was the fifth Prime Minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, 1974–77 and 1992 until his assassination in 1995....
, who would later become Israeli Prime Minister.
Career in intelligence
During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Eitan served in Army intelligence, from where he was propelled to commanding posts in the internal intelligence agency (Shin Bet). Later, Eitan served as Chief of Coordination between Shin Bet and MossadMossad
The Mossad , short for HaMossad leModi'in uleTafkidim Meyuchadim , is the national intelligence agency of Israel....
. This position would allow him the biggest triumph in a post-Holocaust Israel: the capture of Adolf Eichmann
Adolf Eichmann
Adolf Otto Eichmann was a German Nazi and SS-Obersturmbannführer and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust...
. In a daring mission, after much intelligence research recognized Adolf Eichmann alive and well, and living in Argentina, Eitan and his team went to Argentina to kidnap and take him to Israel, where he was tried and found guilty of atrocious crimes against the Jewish people during World War II. During the process of capturing Eichmann, Eitan personally vetoed the capture of Josef Mengele
Josef Mengele
Josef Rudolf Mengele , also known as the Angel of Death was a German SS officer and a physician in the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. He earned doctorates in anthropology from Munich University and in medicine from Frankfurt University...
, who was under Mossad surveillance, arguing that the eventual loss of focus could jeopardize the Eichmann mission.
During 1964-1966, Eitan headed a two-year operation in which armaments sold and delivered by the Germans to the Egyptian government 'disappeared'. In those days, Israel had no peace treaty with Egypt.
In 1968 Eitan, listed as an Israeli Ministry of Defense chemist, visited the U.S. Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) nuclear fuel plant, where later it is alleged 200 pounds of highly enriched uranium disappeared and was diverted to Israel in an event known as The Apollo Affair
The Apollo Affair
The Apollo Affair was a 1965 the incident in which a US company, Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation , in Apollo, Pennsylvania was investigated for losing 200-600 pounds of highly enriched uranium. In 1965, the FBI investigated Zalman Shapiro, the company's president, over the loss 200...
.
Eitan was also involved in the secret planning and implementation of the attack
Operation Opera
Operation Babylon was a surprise Israeli air strike carried out on June 7, 1981, that destroyed a nuclear reactor under construction 17 kilometers southeast of Baghdad, Iraq....
on the Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
i Osirak nuclear reactor in June 1981, an event widely criticized at the time by many countries.
Post-intelligence career
Eitan continued his work in intelligence until 1972, when he left the organization and went on to the private sector, raising tropical fish and other agricultural ventures. But in 1978, the government of Menachem BeginMenachem Begin
' was a politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of the State of Israel. Before independence, he was the leader of the Zionist militant group Irgun, the Revisionist breakaway from the larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah. He proclaimed a revolt, on 1 February 1944,...
, the then Prime Minister of Israel, called him back to be his advisor on terrorism, as Eitan was regarded and admired as one of the most respected experts in this field. In 1981, Eitan was named head of the Defense Ministry's Lekem
Lekem
Lekem, an acronym for ha-Lishka le-Kishrei Mada , was an Israeli intelligence agency. It collected scientific and technical intelligence abroad from both open and covert sources. It was disbanded in 1986 following the arrest of Jonathan Pollard for espionage on behalf of Israel...
, the Bureau for Scientific Relations, where he continued work on terrorism. According to the British journalist, Gordon Thomas, Eitan then participated in a partnership between Israeli and U.S. intelligence during the early 1980s in selling to foreign intelligence agencies in excess of $500 million worth of licenses to a trojan horse version of the Washington, D.C.-based, Inslaw Inc.'s people-tracking software called Promis
Prosecutor's Management Information System
The Prosecutor's Management Information System is a database system developed by Inslaw Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based, information technology company....
, in order to spy on them.
In 1984, Lekem was put in touch with Jonathan Pollard
Jonathan Pollard
Jonathan Jay Pollard worked as a civilian intelligence analyst before being convicted of spying for Israel. He received a life sentence in 1987....
, an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
citizen, who worked on anti-terrorist activities at the US Naval Investigative Services. Pollard had contacted the Israeli government with top secret information on the terrorist activities of Israel's enemies. When Jonathan Pollard was arrested in the US in 1985, Lekem was disbanded. Eitan was offered then the position as head of the state-owned Israel Chemicals Corporation
Israel Chemicals
Israel Chemicals Ltd. , also known as ICL, is a multi-national Israeli manufacturing concern that develops, produces and markets fertilizers, metals and other special-purpose chemical products.-History:...
, from where he retired in 1993 at the age of 67. During his tenure, the company underwent a rapid expansion in terms of sales, development and manpower making it the largest government-held firm in the country.
Advisor to MI6 on Counter-Terrorism
Further revelations from the book Gideon's Spies:The Secret History of the Mossad by Gordon Thomas, describe how the ThatcherMargaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
government in Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
during the mid 1980's developed a relationship with Eitan as an advisor to MI6 on counterterrorism operations in Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
. This relationship came to a head in 1985, when Mossad
Mossad
The Mossad , short for HaMossad leModi'in uleTafkidim Meyuchadim , is the national intelligence agency of Israel....
agents helped track an IRA
Provisional Irish Republican Army
The Provisional Irish Republican Army is an Irish republican paramilitary organisation whose aim was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and bring about a socialist republic within a united Ireland by force of arms and political persuasion...
bomb team in Gibraltar
Gibraltar
Gibraltar is a British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean. A peninsula with an area of , it has a northern border with Andalusia, Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the major landmark of the region...
. The three member IRA team was killed
Operation Flavius
Operation Flavius was the name given to an operation by a Special Air Service team in Gibraltar on 6 March 1988 tasked to prevent a Provisional Irish Republican Army bomb attack...
by the British SAS
Special Air Service
Special Air Service or SAS is a corps of the British Army constituted on 31 May 1950. They are part of the United Kingdom Special Forces and have served as a model for the special forces of many other countries all over the world...
, under highly controversial circumstances. It was subsequently reported in British papers that Rafi Eitan and Mossad had played a surveillance role in the operation, and IRA command put out orders for assassination teams in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
and Britain to find and kill Rafi Eitan. Due to this threat of assassination, and the embarrassment of the Israeli government over Eitan's unauthorized relationship with the operation, Eitan left Britain and ended his relationship with Britain's intelligence services. This incident strained Israeli/British relations for several years.
Cuban business venture
In 1992, Eitan was approached in order to bid on a contract for an agricultural deal in CubaCuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
, which involved the cultivation of the largest citrus grove cooperative on the island. After winning the bid, Eitan built a partnership with four other international entrepreneurs to run the deal. The company BM Group was incorporated in Panama, and traded with Israeli suppliers.
Due to the success of the venture and the connections acquired, BM also won the contract to build the world trade center
World Trade Center (disambiguation)
The World Trade Center was a complex of office buildings in New York City, United States, destroyed in the September 11, 2001 attacks.World Trade Center may also refer to:* One of many buildings with this name...
in Havana
Havana
Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...
, and a Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
Memorial at the center of the Old City of Habana. Recently, GBM was awarded the "Medal for Agricultural Work" by the Cuban government.
In addition to this deal, BM has started expanding its business deals to the rest of Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
. It runs various agricultural projects in the Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
, among others.
Political career
Eitan was asked to represent the pensioners' party Gil in the 2006 Knesset elections. The party went on to win a large number of seats (7), despite predictions that it would not secure more than 2-3, at best, and would not pass the vote threshold, at worst. In the 2009 electionsIsraeli legislative election, 2009
Elections for the 18th Knesset were held in Israel on 10 February 2009. These elections became necessary due to the resignation of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as leader of the Kadima party, and the failure of his successor, Tzipi Livni, to form a coalition government...
the party failed to cross the electoral threshold, and Eitan lost his seat.
In February 2010, Eitan remarked "In principle, when there is a war on terror you conduct it without principles. You simply fight it.".
Personal life
Eitan enjoys good health and claims to be nowhere near retirement. In his spare time, he is known as an avid sculptor. Over the 30 years that he has been sculpting, Eitan has produced over 100 pieces. He recently had a one man show at the offices of the high-tech company "Brown".External links
- Bio: Rafi Eitan, Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 4 May 2006
- "Eitan vows to focus on pensioner's issues" Jerusalem Post, 29 March 2006