{{infobox govt agency | agency name

The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations | nativename | nativename_a מדינת ישראלהמוסד למודיעין ולתפקידים מיוחדיםالموساد للاستخبارات والمهام الخاصة | seal Mossad seal.svg | seal_width 150px | seal_caption "Where no counsel is, the people fall, but in the multitude of counselors there is safety." (Proverbs XI:14) | formed December 13, 1949 as the Central Institute for Coordination | headquarters Tel Aviv, Israel | employees 1,200 (est) | budget | chief1_name Tamir Pardo | chief1_position Director | parent_agency Office of the Prime Minister | website Official Website }}

The Mossad (, , ''al-Mūssād''), short for HaMossad leModi'in uleTafkidim Meyuchadim (, meaning "Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations"; ''''), is the national intelligence agency of Israel.

The Mossad is responsible for intelligence collection and covert operations which are suspected to include targeted killings and paramilitary activities beyond Israel's borders, bringing Jews to Israel from countries where official Aliyah agencies are forbidden, and protecting Jewish communities worldwide. It is one of the main entities in the Israeli Intelligence Community, along with Aman (military intelligence) and Shin Bet (internal security), but its director reports directly to the Prime Minister.

Organization

Executive offices

The largest department of the Mossad is Collections, tasked with many aspects of conducting espionage overseas. Employees in the Collections Department operate under a variety of covers, including diplomatic and unofficial. The Political Action and Liaison Department is responsible for working with allied foreign intelligence services, and nations that have no normal diplomatic relations with Israel. Additionally, the Mossad has a Research Department, tasked with intelligence production, and a Technology Department concerned with the development of tools for Mossad activities.

Field operations

Field intelligence officers, called katsas (Hebrew, acronym, meaning "Collections Officer"), are similar to case officers of the CIA. Thirty to forty operate at a time, mainly in Europe and the Middle East. The Mossad also makes use of volunteer or informal operatives known as ''sayanim'' ("assistants") who are recruited from the Jewish Diaspora (non-Israeli Jews) to provide help in the field based on their citizenship, residency or occupation.

History

Mossad was formed on December 13, 1949 as the "Central Institute for Coordination" at the recommendation of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to Reuven Shiloah. Ben Gurion wanted a central body to coordinate and improve cooperation between the existing security services – the army's intelligence department (AMAN), the Internal Security Service ("Shin Bet") and the foreign office's "political department". In March 1951, it was reorganized and made a part of the prime minister's office, reporting directly to the prime minister.

Motto

Mossad's former motto, ''be-tachbūlōt ta`aseh lekhā milchāmāh'' () is a quote from the Bible (Proverbs 24:6): "For by wise guidance you can wage your war" (NRSV). Ostrovsky claims this translates, "By Way Of Deception, Thou Shalt Do War." The motto was recently changed to another Proverbs passage: ''be-'éyn tachbūlōt yippol `ām; ū-teshū`āh be-rov yō'éts'' (, Proverbs 11:14). This is translated by NRSV as: "Where there is no guidance, a nation falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety." (As for the meaning of the word "tachbulot" in modern rather than Biblical Hebrew, both the "RavMilim" and "Morfix" online Hebrew-English dictionaries translate "tachbulot" as "stratagems, ruses, tricks".)

Directors

Reuven Shiloah, 1949–52

Isser Harel, 1953–63

Meir Amit, 1963–68

Zvi Zamir, 1968–73

Yitzhak Hofi, 1973–82

Nahum Admoni, 1982–89

Shabtai Shavit, 1989–96

Danny Yatom, 1996–98

Efraim Halevy, 1998–2002

Meir Dagan, 2002–2011

Tamir Pardo, 2011–present

Alleged operations

Americas

Argentina

In 1960, the Mossad discovered that the Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann was in Argentina. A team of five Mossad agents slipped into Argentina and through surveillance, confirmed that he had been living there under the name of Ricardo Klement. He was abducted on May 11, 1960 and taken to a hideout, where the agents put an SS cap on him and compared him to a photograph of Eichmann in SS uniform, confirming that it was Eichmann. He was subsequently smuggled to Israel aboard an El Al flight. He was tried and executed. Argentina protested what it considered as the violation of its sovereignty, and the United Nations Security Council noted that "repetition of acts such as [this] would involve a breach of the principles upon which international order is founded, creating an atmosphere of insecurity and distrust incompatible with the preservation of peace" while also acknowledging that "Eichmann should be brought to appropriate justice for the crimes of which he is accused" and that "this resolution should in no way be interpreted as condoning the odious crimes of which Eichmann is accused." Mossad abandoned a second operation, intended to capture Josef Mengele.

United States

During the 1990s, the Mossad discovered a Hezbollah agent operating within the United States in order to procure materials needed to manufacture IEDs and other weapons. In a joint operation with U.S. intelligence, the agent was kept under surveillance in hopes that he would betray more Hezbollah operatives, but was eventually arrested.

The Mossad informed the FBI and CIA in August 2001 that based on its intelligence as many as 200 terrorists were slipping into the United States and planning "a major assault on the United States." The Israeli intelligence agency cautioned the FBI that it had picked up indications of a "large-scale target" in the United States and that Americans would be "very vulnerable." However, "It is not known whether U.S. authorities thought the warning to be credible, or whether it contained enough details to allow counter-terrorism teams to come up with a response," The Mossad has a history of credibility issues, before and after 9-11 which continue to influence the perceptions of the reliability or veracity of information provided to U.S., and other intelligence agencies around the world. A month later, terrorists struck at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Uruguay

Mossad assassinated Latvian Nazi collaborator Herberts Cukurs in 1965.

Europe

Austria

The Mossad gathered information on Austrian politician Jörg Haider using a mole.

Belgium

The Mossad is alleged to be responsible for the killing of Canadian engineer and ballistics expert Gerald Bull on March 22, 1990. He was shot multiple times in the head outside his Brussels apartment. Bull was at the time working for Iraq on the Project Babylon supergun. Others, including Bull's son, believe that the Mossad is taking credit for an act they did not commit to scare off others who may try to help enemy regimes. The alternative theory is that Bull was killed by the CIA. Iraq and Iran are also candidates for suspicion.

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Assisted in air and overland evacuations of Bosnian Jews from war-torn Sarajevo to Israel in 1992 and 1993.

Cyprus

The killing of Hussein Al Bashir in Nicosia, Cyprus, in 1973.

France

Cherbourg Project - Operation Noa, the 1969 smuggling of Israel Navy boats out of Cherbourg.

The alleged killing of Zuheir Mohsen in 1979.

The alleged killing of Atef Bseiso in Paris in 1992. French police believe that a team of assassins followed Atef Bseiso from Berlin, where that first team connected with another team to close in on him in front of a Left Bank hotel, where he received three head-shots at point blank range.

The killing of Yehia El-Mashad in 1980.

The killing of Dr. Mahmoud Hamshari with an exploding telephone in his Paris apartment in 1972.

The killing of Dr. Basil Al-Kubaissi in Paris in 1973.

The killing of Mohammad Boudia in Paris in 1973.

On April 5, 1979, Mossad agents are believed to have triggered an explosion which destroyed 60 percent of components being built in Toulouse for an Iraqi reactor. Although an environmental organization, ''Groupe des écologistes français'', unheard of before this incident, claimed credit for the blast, most French officials discount the claim. The reactor itself was subsequently destroyed by an Israeli air strike in 1981.

The Mossad allegedly assisted Morocco's domestic security service in the disappearance of dissident politician Mehdi Ben Barka in 1965.

Germany

Operation Plumbat (1968) was an operation by Lekem-Mossad to further Israel's nuclear program. The German freighter "Scheersberg A", disappeared on its way from Antwerp to Genoa along with its cargo of 200 tons of yellowcake, after supposedly being transferred to an Israeli ship.

The sending of letter bombs during the Operation Wrath of God campaign. Some of these attacks were not fatal. Their purpose might not have been to kill the receiver. Some of the more famous examples of the Mossad letter bombs were those sent to Nazi war-criminal Alois Brunner.

The alleged targeted killing of Dr Wadie Haddad, using poisoned chocolate, in 1978. The PFLP-EO movement dissolved after his killing.

The Mossad discovered that Hezbollah had recruited a German national named Steven Smyrek, and that he was travelling to Israel. In an operation conducted by the Mossad, the CIA, the German Internal Security agency Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, and the Israeli Internal Security agency Shin Bet, Smyrek was kept under constant surveillance, and arrested as soon as he landed in Israel.

Greece

The killing of Zaiad Muchasi by an explosion in his Athens hotel room in 1973.

Italy

The Mossad abducted nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu in Rome and smuggled him to Israel in 1986 after American-Israeli Mossad agent Cheryl Bentov lured him from the United Kingdom.

The killing of Wael Zwaiter.

Malta

The killing of Fathi Shiqaqi. Shiqaqi a leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, was shot several times in the head in 1995 in front of the Diplomat Hotel in Sliema, Malta.

Norway

On July 21, 1973, Ahmed Bouchiki, a Moroccan waiter in Lillehammer, Norway, was killed by Mossad agents. He had been mistaken for Ali Hassan Salameh, one of the leaders of Black September, the Palestinian group responsible for the Munich massacre, who had been given shelter in Norway. The Mossad agents had used fake Canadian passports, which angered the Canadian government. Six Mossad agents were arrested, and the incident became known as the Lillehammer affair. Israel subsequently paid compensation to Bouchiki's family.

United Kingdom

In 1986, Mossad used an undercover agent to lure nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu from the United Kingdom to Italy where he was abducted and transported to Israel where he was tried for treason because of his role in exposing Israel's nuclear programme.

Mossad assisted the UK Intelligence organisation MI5 following the 7/7 bombings in London. According to the 2007 edition of a book about the Mossad titled ''Gideon’s Spies'', shortly after the 7/7 London underground bombings, MI5 gathered evidence that a senior al-Qaeda operative known only by the alias Mustafa travelled in and out of England shortly before the 7/7 bombings. For months, the real identity of Mustafa remained unknown, but in early October 2005, Mossad told MI5 that this person was, in fact, Azhari Husin, a bomb-making expert with Jemaah Islamiyah, the main al-Qaeda affiliate in Southeast Asia. Husin studied in Britain and reports claim that he met the main 7/7 bomber, Mohammad Sidique Khan, in late 2001 in a militant training camp in the Philippines (see Late 2001). Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad, apparently also told MI5 that Husin helped plan and recruit volunteers for the bombings. Mossad claimed that Husin may have been in London at the time of the bombings, and then fled to al-Qaeda’s principal haven in the tribal area of Pakistan, where he sometimes hid after bombings. Husin was killed in a shootout in Indonesia in November 2005. Later official British government reports about the 7/7 bombings did not mention Husin.

Switzerland

In February 1998, five Mossad agents were caught wiretapping the home of a Hezbollah agent in a Bern suburb. Four agents were freed, but the fifth was tried, found guilty, sentenced to one year in prison, and following his release was banned from entering Switzerland for five years.

Soviet Union/Russia

The Mossad was involved in outreach to Refuseniks in the Soviet Union during the crackdown on Soviet Jews in the 50's, 60's, 70's, and 80's. Mossad helped establish contact with Refuseniks in the USSR, and helped them acquire Jewish religious items, banned by the Soviet government, in addition to passing communications into and out of the USSR.

Ukraine

In February 2011, a Palestinian engineer, Dirar Abu Seesi, was allegedly pulled off a train by Mossad agents enroute to the capital Kiev from Kharkiv. He had been planning to apply for Ukrainian citizenship, and reappeared in an Israeli jail only 3 weeks after the incident.

Middle East

Egypt

Provision of intelligence for the cutting of communications between Port Said and Cairo in 1956.

Mossad spy Wolfgang Lotz, holding West German citizenship, infiltrated Egypt in 1957, and gathered intelligence on Egyptian missile sites, military installations, and industries. He also composed a list of German rocket scientists working for the Egyptian government, and sent some of them letter bombs. After the East German head of state made a state visit to Egypt, the Egyptian government detained thirty West German citizens as a goodwill gesture. Lotz, assuming that he had been discovered, confessed to his cold war espionage activities.

After a tense May 25, 1967 confrontation with CIA Tel Aviv station chief John Hadden, who warned that the United States would help defend Egypt if Israel launched a surprise attack, Mossad director Meir Amit flew to Washington, D.C. to meet with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and reported back to the Israeli cabinet that the United States had given Israel "a flickering green light" to attack.

Provision of intelligence on the Egyptian Air Force for Operation Focus, the opening airstrike of the Six-Day War.

Operation Bulmus 6 – Intelligence assistance in the Commando Assault on Green Island, Egypt during the War of Attrition.

Operation Damocles - A campaign of assassination and intimidation against German rocket scientists employed by Egypt in building missiles.

Iran

Prior to the Iranian Revolution of 1978–79, SAVAK (Organization of National Security and Information), the Iranian secret police and intelligence service was created under the guidance of United States and Israeli intelligence officers in 1957. After security relations between the United States and Iran grew more distant in the early 1960s which led the CIA training team to leave Iran, Mossad became increasingly active in Iran, "training SAVAK personnel and carrying out a broad variety of joint operations with SAVAK."

The Mossad discovered Iran's covert nuclear program before it officially became known, and conducted espionage operations against nuclear facilities in the country.

A US intelligence official told ''The Washington Post'' that Israel orchestrated the defection of Iranian general Ali Reza Askari on February 7, 2007. This has been denied by Israeli spokesman Mark Regev. ''The Sunday Times'' reported that Askari had been a Mossad asset since 2003, and left only when his cover was about to be blown.

Le Figaro claimed that the Mossad was possibly behind a blast at the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's Imam Ali military base, on 12 October 2010. The explosion at the base killed 18 and injured 10 others. Among the dead was also general Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam, who served as the commander of the Revolutionary Guards’ missile program and was a crucial figure in building Iran’s long-range missile program. The base is believed to store long-range missiles, including the Shahab-3, and also has hangars. It is one of Iran's most secure military bases.

Iranian Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi has accused Mossad of assassination plots and killings of Iranian Physicists in 2010. Reports have noted that such information has not yet been evidently proven. Iranian state TV broadcast a stated confession from Majid Jamali-Fash, an Iranian man who claimed to have visited Israel to be trained by the Mossad.

The Mossad has been accused of assassinating Masoud Alimohammadi, Ardeshir Hosseinpour, Majid Shahriari, Darioush Rezaeinejad and Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan; scientists involved in the Iranian nuclear program. It is also suspected of being behind the attempted assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Fereydoon Abbasi. Meir Dagan - who served as Director of the Mossad from 2002 until 2009 - while not taking credit for the assassinations, praised them in an interview with a journalist, saying "the removal of important brains" from the Iranian nuclear project had achieved so-called "white defections," frightening other Iranian nuclear scientists into requesting that they be transferred to civilian projects.

In early February 2012, Mossad director Tamir Pardo met with U.S. national security officials in Washington, D.C. to sound them out on possible American reactions in the event Israel attacked Iran over the objections of the United States.

Iraq

Assistance in the defection and rescuing of the family of Munir Redfa, an Iraqi pilot who defected and flew his MiG-21 to Israel in 1966: "Operation Diamond". Redfa's entire family was also successfully smuggled from Iraq to Israel. Previously unknown information about the MiG-21 was subsequently shared with the United States.

Operation Sphinx – Between 1978 and 1981, obtained highly sensitive information about Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor by recruiting an Iraqi nuclear scientist in France.

Operation Bramble Bush II – In the 1990s, the Mossad began scouting locations in Iraq where Saddam Hussein could be ambushed by Sayeret Matkal commandos inserted into Iraq from Jordan. The mission was called off due to Operation Desert Fox and the ongoing Israeli-Arab peace process.

Jordan

In what is thought to have been a reprisal action for a Hamas suicide-bombing in Jerusalem on July 30, 1997 that killed 16 Israelis, Benjamin Netanyahu authorised an operation against Khaled Mashal, the Hamas representative in Jordan. On September 25, 1997, Mashal was injected in the ear with a toxin (thought to have been a derivative of the synthetic opiate Fentanyl called Levofentanyl). Jordanian authorities apprehended two Mossad agents posing as Canadian tourists and trapped a further six in the Israeli embassy. In exchange for their release, an Israeli physician had to fly to Amman and deliver an antidote for Mashal. The fallout from the failed killing eventually led to the release of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the founder and spiritual leader of the Hamas movement, and scores of Hamas prisoners. Netanyahu flew into Amman on September 29 to apologize personally to King Hussein, but was met instead by the King's brother, Crown Prince Hassan.

Lebanon

The provision of intelligence and operational assistance in the 1973 Operation Spring of Youth special forces raid on Beirut. The sending of letter bombs to PFLP member Bassam Abu Sharif. Sharif was severely wounded, but survived.

The targeted killing of Ali Hassan Salameh, the leader of Black September, on January 22, 1979 in Beirut by a car bomb.

The killing of Ghassan Kanafani, also by a car bomb, in 1972.

Providing intelligence for the killing of Abbas al-Musawi, secretary general of Hezbollah, in Beirut in 1992.

Allegedly killed Jihad Ahmed Jibril, the leader of the military wing of the PFLP-GC, in Beirut in 2002.

Allegedly killed Ghaleb Awwali, a senior Hezbollah official, in Beirut in 2004.

Alllegedly killed Mahmoud al-Majzoub, a leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in Sidon in 2006.

The Mossad was suspected of establishing a large spy network in Lebanon, recruited from Druze, Christian, and Sunni Muslim communities, and officials in the Lebanese government, to spy on Hezbollah and its Iranian Revolutionary Guard advisors. Some have allegedly been active since the 1982 Lebanon War. In 2009, Lebanese Security Services supported by Hezbollah's intelligence unit, and working in collaboration with Syria, Iran, and possibly Russia, launched a major crackdown which resulted in the arrests of around 100 alleged spies "working for Israel". Previously, in 2006, the Lebanese army uncovered a network that allegedly assassinated several Lebanese and Palestinian leaders on behalf of Israeli intelligence agency Mossad.

Pakistan

In a September 2003 news article, it was alleged by Rediff News that General Pervez Musharaf, the then-President of Pakistan, decided to establish a clandestine relationship between Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Mossad via officers of the two services posted at their embassies in Washington, DC.

In January 2009 it was alleged by Indian news agencies that Mossad officers lead a rescue mission to extract an Indian former member of parliament and an Israeli cultural attache who were arrested on the charges of producing methamphetamine.

Syria

Eli Cohen infiltrated the highest echelons of the Syrian government, was a close friend of the Syrian President, and was considered for the post of Minister of Defense. He gave his handlers a complete plan of the Syrian defenses on the Golan Heights, the Syrian Armed Forces order of battle, and a complete list of the Syrian military's weapons inventory. He also ordered the planting of trees by every Syrian fortified position under the pretext of shading soldiers, but the trees actually served as targeting markers for the Israel Defense Forces. He was discovered by Syrian and Soviet intelligence, tried in secret, and executed in 1965. His information played a crucial role during the Six Day War.

The alleged killing of Izz El-Deen Sheikh Khalil, a senior member of the military wing of Hamas, in an automobile booby trap in September 2004 in Damascus.

The alleged killing of Muhammad Suleiman, head of Syria's nuclear program, in 2008. Suleiman was killed by a sniper firing from a boat while on a beach in Tartus.

The alleged killing of Imad Mughniyah, a senior leader of Hezbollah complicit in the 1983 United States embassy bombing, with an exploding headrest in Damascus in 2008.

United Arab Emirates

The Mossad is suspected of killing Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a senior Hamas military commander, in January 2010 at Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The team which carried out the killing is estimated, on the basis of CCTV and other evidence, to have consisted of at least 26 agents traveling on bogus passports. The operatives entered al-Mabhouh's hotel room, where Mabhouh was subjected to electric shocks and interrogated. The door to his room was reported to have been locked from the inside. Although the UAE police and Hamas have declared Israel responsible for the killing, no direct evidence linking Mossad to the crime has been found. The agents' bogus passports included six British passports, cloned from those of real British nationals resident in Israel and suspected by Dubai, five Irish passports, apparently forged from those of living individuals, forged Australian passports that raised fears of reprisal against innocent victims of identity theft, a genuine German passport and a false French passport. Emirati police say they have fingerprint and DNA evidence of some of the attackers, as well as retinal scans of 11 suspects recorded at Dubai airport. Dubai's police chief has said "I am now completely sure that it was Mossad," adding: "I have presented the (Dubai) prosecutor with a request for the arrest of (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu and the head of Mossad," for the murder.

Africa

Morocco

In September 1956, the Mossad established a secretive network in Morocco to smuggle Moroccan Jews to Israel after a ban on immigration to Israel was imposed.

In early 1991, two Mossad operatives infiltrated the Moroccan port of Casablanca and planted a tracking device on the freighter ''Al-Yarmouk'', which was carrying a cargo of North Korean missiles bound for Syria. The ship was to be sunk by the Israeli Air Force, but the mission was later called off by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Tunisia

The 1988 killing of Khalil al-Wazir (Abu Jihad).

The alleged killing of Salah Khalaf in 1991.

Uganda

For Operation Entebbe in 1976, Mossad provided intelligence regarding Entebbe International Airport and extensively interviewed hostages who had been released.

South Africa

After the Mossad discovered the presence of two Iranian agents in Johannesburg on a mission to procure advanced weapons systems from Denel, a Mossad agent was deployed, and met up with a local Jewish contact. Posing as South African intelligence, they abducted the Iranians, drove them to a warehouse, and beat and intimidated them before forcing them to leave the country.

Sudan

After the 1994 AMIA bombing, the Mossad began gathering intelligence for a raid by Israeli Special Forces on the Iranian embassy in Khartoum as retaliation. The operation was called off due to fears that another attack against worldwide Jewish communities might take place as revenge. The Mossad also assisted in Operation Moses, the evacuation of Ethiopian Jews to Israel from a famine-ridden region of Sudan in 1984, also maintaining a relationship with the Ethiopian government.

Zimbabwe

The Mossad secretly evacuated Zimbabwean Jews out of the country due to fears of persecution by the Zimbabwean government, which was allied with the Palestine Liberation Organization and Libya. The Mossad infiltrated the Zimbabwean government's Central Intelligence Organization, in response to the supply of uranium from the Congo via Zimbabwe to North Korea, Syria, and Iran.

Oceania

New Zealand

In July 2004, New Zealand imposed diplomatic sanctions on Israel over an incident in which two Australian based Israelis, Uriel Kelman and Eli Cara, who were allegedly working for Mossad, attempted to fraudulently obtain New Zealand passports by claiming the identity of a severely disabled man. Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom later apologized to New Zealand for their actions. New Zealand cancelled several other passports believed to have been obtained by Israeli agents. Both Kelman and Cara served half of their six-month sentences and, upon release, were deported to Israel. Two others, an Israeli, Ze'ev Barkan, and a New Zealander, David Reznick, are believed to have been the third and fourth men involved in the passport affair but they both managed to leave New Zealand before being apprehended.

Asia

North Korea

British intelligence writer Gordon Thomas hinted that the Mossad was involved in the 2004 explosion of Ryongchon, where several Syrian nuclear scientists working on the Syrian and Iranian nuclear-weapons programs were killed.

Relations with other agencies

The Mossad has experienced a mixed relationship with Western intelligence agencies. A secret addendum was promised to Anwar Sadat by the CIA if he agreed to the terms of the Camp David Accords. The CIA would supply Sadat with all of Israel's military secrets, as part of a covert intelligence liaison between Washington and Cairo. According to a former US army officer:

We gave Sadat everything. Satellite photos, intercepts, the location of Israel's nuclear force, everything he wanted. As it turned out, the Israelis discovered that we had bribed Sadat, but Begin told everyone to keep their mouths shut. America was the only ally Israel had left. Still, betraying all of Israel's secrets was a pretty shitty thing for us to do.

Starting in 1979, the CIA started sharing intelligence provided by the Mossad with Saudi Arabia. The CIA was "pouring intelligence about Israel into the Saudi's military headquarters." The Saudis lacked the skills to interpret and analyze most of the Israeli intelligence, so the CIA would provide the expertise, and in exchange, the Saudis would share US-supplied information about Israel's weak points with other Arab nations.

In the aftermath of the Six Day War, the French government and military terminated all weapons support for Israel. Despite the ban, the Mossad was able to convince French intelligence to force their French contractors to finish construction on Israel's nuclear weapons project. Prior to the ban, the Mossad uncovered Charles De Gaulle's role in recruiting Fascist fugitives as French agents to fight the Communists in the Balkans. The Mossad revealed that several prominent members of de Gaulle's administration had been Nazi collaborators, among them André François-Poncet. The Israelis threatened to expose de Gaulle if he were to implement the weapons ban. No matter how furious French leaders became at Israel, their military intelligence continued to supervise the construction of the plutonium factory at Dimona.

During the Eisenhower administration, CIA director Allen Welsh Dulles was responsible for recruiting Nazi war criminals as intelligence agents and sponsored their immigration to the United States. United States Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and Allen Welsh Dulles actively betrayed British, French and Israeli military secrets to the Arab nations in order to gain the dominant role in the Middle East. In response to Eisenhower's policies, the Mossad temporarily abandoned intelligence sharing with the United States and switched allegiances to MI6 and French intelligence.

See also

Aman - Israeli's military intelligence agency

Eli Cohen

Duvdevan Unit - Israel's undercover strike unit

Israeli Special Forces Units

Kidon - A department within Mossad that is allegedly responsible for assassination and kidnapping.

List of Israeli assassinations

Shin Bet - Israel's internal security service

Special Activities Division

''The Spy Machine''

Unit 8200 - Israeli Intelligence Corps SIGINT and cyber unit

Yamam - Israel's elite Border Police SWAT Unit

References

Further reading

Ben-Menashe, Ari. ''Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network''. New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1992. ISBN 1-879823-01-2. . Black, Ian and Benny Morris. ''Israel's Secret Wars: A History of Israel's Intelligence Services''. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1991. ISBN 978-0-8021-3286-4. .

Central Intelligence Agency. ''Israel: Foreign Intelligence and Security Services: A Survey.'' Washington, D.C., 1979. (Included in ''Documents from the US Espionage Den''. Tehran: Center for the Publication of the US Espionage Den's Documents, 1982.)

Jonas, George. ''Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team''. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984. ISBN 0-671-50611-0. . Ostrovsky, Victor. ''By Way of Deception: The Making and Unmaking of a Mossad Officer''. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990. ISBN 0-9717595-0-2. . Ostrovsky, Victor. ''The Other Side of Deception: A Rogue Agent Exposes the Mossad's Secret Agenda''. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1994. ISBN 0-06-017635-0. . Parsi, Trita. ''Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States''. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. ISBN 0-300-12057-5, ISBN 0-300-14311-7. .

Eric Frattini. ''Mossad, los verdugos del Kidon''. Madrid: Atanor Ediciones, 2011. ISBN 978-84-938718-6-4

External links

GlobalSecurity.org entry for Mossad

Category:Government agencies established in 1949 Category:Hebrew words and phrases Category:Intelligence agencies

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honorific-prefix	Aluf
name	Meir Dagan
native name	מאיר דגן‎
birth date	January 30, 1945
death date
birth place	Novosibirsk, USSR
Office	Director of the Mossad
Term start	2002
Term end	2010
Primeminister	Ariel SharonEhud OlmertBenjamin Netanyahu
Predecessor	Efraim Halevy
Successor	Tamir Pardo
birth name	Meir Hubermann
allegiance	Israel
branch	Israeli Defense Forces
serviceyears	1963–1996
rank	Aluf
battles	Six Day WarYom Kippur War1982 Lebanon War
awards	Medal of Courage
laterwork	Director of Mossad (2010-2011) }}

Aluf Meir Dagan (; born 30 January 1945) is a former Israel Defense Forces officer and former Director of the Mossad.

Biography

Meir Huberman (later Dagan) was born to parents from Novosibirsk on a train in 1945, while they were being deported to a Nazi concentration camp in Poland. His maternal grandfather, Ber Erlich Sloshny, was murdered in the Holocaust. In 2009, the Israeli newspaper ''Yedioth Ahronoth'' published two photos of Nazi soldiers standing next to a kneeling Sloshny shortly before they shot him. During his term as Director of the Mossad, Dagan kept one of the photographs hanging in his office. In 1950, Meir and his family made aliyah to Israel.Dagan is a vegetarian and an amateur painter, who studied painting and sculpture at the Tel Aviv University.

Military career

During the 1967 Six-Day War, Dagan served as an officer in the Paratroopers Brigade. In the early 1970s, he commanded an ad hoc undercover commando unit, known as Sayeret Rimon, whose task was to combat the increasing violence in the Palestinian territories. He received a Medal of Courage for disarming a terrorist in 1971. Dagan later fought in the Yom Kippur War. During the 1982 Lebanon War, he commanded an armored brigade.

Dagan was appointed Director of the Mossad by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in August 2002, replacing outgoing Director Ephraim Halevy. He was reconfirmed until the end of 2008 by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in February 2007, and in June 2008 Olmert again extended his tenure until the end of 2009.

In mid 2007 Dagan had a "spat with the Deputy Director N, who was thought to be a candidate for replacing Dagan in late 2008. Dagan restored his former deputy T to the post and Dagan was thought likely to recommend T as his replacement.

He was re-appointed in 2009 by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to serve until the end of 2010. In June 2010 a report from Channel 2 stated that Netanyahu had denied a request by Dagan for another year as Mossad director, though this was quickly denied by the Prime Minister's Office. In November 2010, Tamir Pardo was announced as his replacement.

Following his departure, Dagan made several controversial public statements concerning the prudence of an Israeli military attack on Iran's nuclear facilties. He called it a "stupid idea." After Dagan voiced criticism of the prime minister, he was asked to return his diplomatic passport before its expiration date. Dagan repeated the opinion in a March, 2012 interview with Leslie Stahl of CBS News' ''60 Minutes'', calling an Israeli attack of Iran before other options were exhausted "the stupidest idea" and saying he considered the Iranians "a very rational regime."

Business career

As of 2011, Dagan serves as the director of the Israel Port Authority. In 2011 he was also appointed chairman of Gulliver Energy Ltd. (TASE:GLVR), which announced that it intends to mine uranium at a license in the Dead Sea area.

References

Category:1945 births Category:Living people Category:People from Novosibirsk Category:Russian Jews Category:Polish Jews Category:Directors of the Mossad Category:Israeli generals Category:Recipients of the Medal of Courage Category:University of Haifa alumni Category:Soviet emigrants to Israel Category:Israeli vegetarians Category:Israeli Jews

bg:Меир Даган cs:Me'ir Dagan de:Meir Dagan es:Meir Dagan fr:Meïr Dagan it:Meir Dagan he:מאיר דגן ja:メイール・ダガン pl:Meir Dagan ro:Meir Dagan ru:Даган, Меир sl:Meir Dagan tr:Meir Dagan zh:梅尔·达甘

name	The Edge
background	solo_singer
birth name	David Howell Evans
birth date	August 08, 1961
Birth place	Barking, Essex, England, United Kingdom
origin	County Dublin, Ireland
instrument	Guitar, vocals, keyboards, piano, bass guitar
genre	Rock, post-punk, alternative rock
occupation	Musician, songwriter, activist
years active	1976–present
label	Island, Mercury
associated acts	U2, Passengers
website
notable instruments	Gibson ExplorerFender StratocasterGibson Les PaulFender TelecasterGretsch Country GentlemanGretsch White FalconRickenbacker 330/12 }}

David Howell Evans (born 8 August 1961), more widely known by his stage name The Edge (or just Edge), is a musician best known as the guitarist, backing vocalist, and keyboardist of the Irish rock band U2. A member of the group since its inception, he has recorded 12 studio albums with the band and has released one solo record. As a guitarist, The Edge has crafted a minimalistic and textural style of playing. His use of a rhythmic delay effect yields a distinctive ambient, chiming sound that has become a signature of U2's music.

The Edge was born in England to a Welsh family, but was raised in Ireland after moving there as an infant. In 1976, at Mount Temple Comprehensive School, he formed U2 with his fellow students and his older brother Dik. Inspired by the ethos of punk rock and its basic arrangements, the group began to write its own material. They eventually became one of the most popular acts in popular music, with successful albums such as 1987's ''The Joshua Tree'' and 1991's ''Achtung Baby''. Over the years, The Edge has experimented with various guitar effects and introduced influences from several genres of music into his own style, including American roots music, industrial music, and alternative rock. With U2, The Edge has also played keyboards, co-produced their 1993 record ''Zooropa'', and occasionally contributed lyrics. The Edge met his second and current wife, Morleigh Steinberg, through her collaborations with the band.

As a member of U2 and as an individual, The Edge has campaigned for human rights and philanthropic causes. He co-founded Music Rising, a charity to support musicians affected by Hurricane Katrina. He has collaborated with U2 bandmate Bono on several projects, including songs for Roy Orbison and Tina Turner, and the soundtracks to the musical ''Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark'' and the Royal Shakespeare Company's London stage adaptation of ''A Clockwork Orange''. In 2011, ''Rolling Stone'' magazine placed him at number 38 on its list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".

Personal life

David Howell Evans was born at the Barking Maternity Hospital, Essex, England to Welsh parents Garvin and Gwenda Evans. When he was one, his family moved to County Dublin, Ireland where he attended St Andrew's National School. He received piano and guitar lessons and often performed with his brother Dik Evans before they both answered an advertisement posted by Larry Mullen, Jr. at their school, Mount Temple Comprehensive School, seeking musicians to form a band. The band accepted both of them. This band went through several incarnations before emerging as U2 in March 1978 (Dik Evans left the band just before the name change). U2 began performing in various venues in Ireland and eventually began developing a following. Their debut album, ''Boy'', was released in 1980.

In 1981, leading up to the October tour, Evans came very close to leaving U2 for religious reasons, but he decided to stay. During this period, he became involved with a group called Shalom Tigers, in which bandmates Bono and Larry Mullen Jr. were also involved. Shortly after deciding to remain with the band, he wrote a piece of music that later became "Sunday Bloody Sunday". The Edge married his high school girlfriend Aislinn O'Sullivan on 12 July 1983. The couple had three daughters together: Hollie in 1984, Arran in 1985 and Blue Angel in 1989. The couple separated in 1990, but were unable to get officially divorced because of Irish laws regarding marriage annulment; divorce was legalised in 1995 and the couple were legally divorced in 1996.

In 1993, The Edge began dating Morleigh Steinberg, a professional dancer and choreographer employed by the band as a belly dancer during the Zoo TV Tour. They had a daughter, Sian (born 1997), and a son, Levi (born 25 October 1999), before marrying on 22 June 2002. He appeared in the 2009 music documentary film ''It Might Get Loud''. The Edge has been criticized for his efforts to build five luxury mansions on a 156 acre plot of land in Malibu, California. The California Coastal Commission voted 8-4 against the plans, with the project described by the commission's executive director, Peter Douglas, as "In 38 years...one of the three worst projects that I've seen in terms of environmental devastation...It's a contradiction in terms – you can't be serious about being an environmentalist and pick this location." The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy agreed to remain neutral on the issue following a $1 million donation from The Edge and a commitment from The Edge to designate 100 acres of the land as open space for public footpaths.

Music style

Guitar playing

As a guitar player, The Edge has a sound typified by a low-key playing style, a chiming, shimmering sound (thanks in part to the sound of VOX AC-30s) that he achieves with extensive use of delay effects and reverb. The feedback delay is often set to a dotted eighth note (3/16 of a measure), and the feedback gain is adjusted until a note played repeats two or three times.

On 1987's ''The Joshua Tree'', The Edge often contributes just a few simple lead lines given depth and richness by an ever-present delay. For example, the introduction to "Where the Streets Have No Name" is simply a repeated six-note arpeggio, broadened by a modulated delay effect. The Edge has said that he views musical notes as "expensive", in that he prefers to play as few notes as possible. He said in 1982 of his style,

"I like a nice ringing sound on guitar, and most of my chords I find two strings and make them ring the same note, so it's almost like a 12-string sound. So for E I might play a B, E, E and B and make it ring. It works very well with the Gibson Explorer. It's funny because the bass end of the Explorer was so awful that I used to stay away from the low strings, and a lot of the chords I played were very trebly, on the first four, or even three strings. I discovered that through using this one area of the fretboard I was developing a very stylized way of doing something that someone else would play in a normal way."

Many different influences have shaped The Edge's guitar technique. His first guitar was an old acoustic guitar that his mother bought him at a local flea market for only a few pounds; he was nine at the time. He and his brother Dik Evans both experimented with this instrument. He said in 1982 of this early experimentation, "I suppose the first link in the chain was a visit to the local jumble sale where I purchased a guitar for a pound. That was my first instrument. It was an acoustic guitar and me and my elder brother Dik both played it, plonking away, all very rudimentary stuff, open chords and all that." The Edge has stated that many of his guitar parts are based around guitar effects. This is especially true from the ''Achtung Baby'' era onwards, although much of the band's 1980s material made heavy use of echos.

Vocals

The Edge also supplies the backing vocals for U2. U2's 1983 live album and video release, ''Under a Blood Red Sky'' and ''Live at Red Rocks: Under a Blood Red Sky'' are good reference points for his singing (as are the live DVDs from the Elevation Tour, ''U2 Go Home: Live from Slane Castle'' and ''Elevation 2001: Live from Boston''). For example, he sings the chorus to "Sunday Bloody Sunday" (Bono harmonizes on the final 'Sunday'). U2 used this tradeoff technique later in "Bullet the Blue Sky" as well. His backing vocals are sometimes in the form of a repeated cry; examples of songs that use this approach include "Beautiful Day", "New Year's Day" and "Stay (Faraway, So Close!)". Another technique he uses in his backing vocals is the falsetto, in songs such as "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of", "Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own", "A Man and a Woman", "The Wanderer", live versions of "The Fly", and "Window in the Skies".

The Edge sings the lead vocal on "Van Diemen's Land" and "Numb", the first half of the song "Seconds", dual vocals with Bono in "Discotheque", and the bridge in the song "Miracle Drug". He also sings the occasional lead vocal in live renditions of other songs (such as "Sunday Bloody Sunday" during the PopMart Tour and "Party Girl" during the Rotterdam Zoo TV show when it was Bono's birthday). He also plays a solo acoustic version of the song "Love is Blindness" that is featured in the documentary film ''From the Sky Down''.

Other instruments

He has played piano and keyboards on many of the band's songs, including "I Fall Down", "October", "So Cruel", "New Year's Day", "Running to Stand Still", "Miss Sarajevo", "The Hands that Built America", and "Original of the Species" and others. He plays the organ on "Please". In live versions of "New Year's Day", "The Unforgettable Fire", "Your Blue Room", and "Moment of Surrender", he plays both the piano and guitar parts alternately. In most live versions of "Original of the Species," piano is the only instrument played during the song. Although The Edge is the band's lead guitarist, he occasionally plays bass guitar, including the live performances of the song "40" where The Edge and bassist Adam Clayton switch instruments.

Solo recordings

In addition to his regular role within U2, The Edge has also recorded with such artists as Johnny Cash, B. B. King, Tina Turner, Ronnie Wood, Jay-Z, and Rihanna. The Edge connected with Brian Eno and Lanois collaborator Michael Brook (the creator of the infinite guitar, which he regularly uses), working with him on the score to the film ''Captive'' (1986). From this soundtrack the song "Heroine", the vocal of which was sung by a young Sinéad O'Connor was released as a single.

He also created the theme song for season one and two of ''The Batman''. He and fellow U2 member, Bono, wrote the lyrics to the theme of the 1995 James Bond film ''GoldenEye''. The Edge, along with bandmate Bono, recently composed a musical adaptation of Spider-Man. On May 25, 2011, a single titled ''Rise Above 1: Reeve Carney Featuring Bono and The Edge'' was released digitally. The music video was released on July 28, 2011.

Musical equipment

The Edge plays electric guitar, acoustic guitar, keyboards, piano, bass guitar (on "40" and "Race Against Time") and lap steel guitar. Compared to many lead guitarists, The Edge is known for using many more guitars during a show. According to his guitar tech Dallas Schoo, a typical lead guitarist uses four or five different guitars in one night, whereas The Edge takes 45 on the road, and uses 17 to 19 in one 2.5-hour concert. He is estimated to have more than 200 guitars in the studio.

Philanthropy

In 2005, The Edge along with Bob Ezrin and Henry Juszkiewicz co-founded Music Rising, a charity that helped provide replacement instruments for those that were lost in Hurricane Katrina. The instruments were originally only replaced for professional musicians but they soon realized the community churches and schools needed instruments as well. The charity's slogan is "Rebuilding the Gulf Region note by note" and has so far helped over a hundred musicians who were affected by Hurricane Katrina. The Edge also serves on the board of the Angiogenesis Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to improving global health by advancing angiogenesis-based medicine, diets, and lifestyle.

See also

List of people on stamps of Ireland

Timeline of U2

References

;Footnotes

;Bibliography

External links

U2.com, official U2 site

Music Rising

The Edge – Album Credits

A Study of The Edge's Guitar Delay

The Edge: 'It's all about the vision'

Food Bank For New York City public service announcement

Comment on the mathematical analysis of The Edge's guitar sound

Category:Irish male singers Category:Irish rock guitarists Category:British male singers Category:British rock guitarists Category:Irish people of Welsh descent Category:People from County Dublin Category:People from Essex Category:People from Dalkey Category:Lead guitarists Category:Slide guitarists Category:Ivor Novello Award winners Category:Golden Globe Award winning musicians Category:Backing vocalists Category:U2 members Category:1961 births Category:Living people Category:Pseudonymous musicians Category:Rock songwriters

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