Posted on 02/19/2003 7:56:23 AM PST by Israel Insider
Israel's first and most powerful man of espionage, Isser Harel, who founded the Shin Bet and was head of the Mossad in its early years, died yesterday at the age of 91. Harel is best known for orchestrating the daring capture of Nazi Adolf Eichmann, establishing the Israeli intelligence infrastructure as one of the most feared and respected in the world.
Born in Vitebsk Russia in 1912 as Isser Halperin, Harel was active in local Zionist youth movements and immigrated to Palestine in 1930, settling on Kibbutz Shefayim in the Herzliya area. Harel joined the Haganah and rose through the ranks quickly, becoming head of Haganah intelligence and later serving as a lieutenant colonel in the Israel Defense Forces.
Harel was appointed head of the General Security Services - Shin Bet - responsible for internal security matters, and in 1952 was named chief of The Central Institute for Intelligence and Security, known as the Mossad, which dealt with international espionage and intelligence.
"Isser was the one who created the Mossad," said former Mossad chief Nahum Admon. "He had exceptional intuition. We were all his students and we learned not only the secrets of the trade but the need for integrity."
For eleven years Harel remained actively involved in the activities of both organizations, making him a highly revered and controversial figure in Israeli society. Harel, known publicly as "the man in charge" or "Isser the little" (because of his height and the fact that there was a second Isser in the intelligence service) had a quiet and unassuming disposition. During the peak of his intelligence activity he enjoyed almost complete anonymity, with only a select few in senior governmental posts knowing his true identity.
Professor Michael Bar Zohar, who wrote a biography on Harel, said the spymaster wielded an enormous amount of power in his day. "He held tremendous power in his hands that was not granted to any man before or after him in the history of the State of Israel. In the hierarchy of the state he had the status of minister or 'super minister' whose authority, power and views had greater importance than most government ministers."
Harel's crowning achievement was the operation that culminated in the capture and Israeli trial of Adolf Hitler's top aide Adolf Eichmann, responsible for implementing what the Nazis called the Final Solution -- the murder of all the Jews in Europe. In 1960, Mossad agents kidnapped Eichmann, who was living under cover as Ricardo Klement in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Eichmann was brought to trial in Israel, convicted of mass murder and put to death.
Moshe Tabor, the Mossad operative who captured Eichmann, said Harel played an instrumental role in the operation, "If you were in a room with Isser and a hundred other people, he wouldn't even have caught your eye. He was small and quiet. He had a sharp ability to analyze situations and reach the right conclusions. Isser was the one who coordinated the whole Eichmann operation."
In a television interview aired long after Eichmann's capture, Harel said he told Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion: "I have brought you a present... Eichmann is here."
"I didn't know what sort of man Eichmann was," Harel wrote in a book describing the capture. "I didn't know with what sort of morbid zeal he pursued his murderous work... I didn't know that he was capable of ordering the slaughter of babies -- and depicting himself as a disciplined soldier."
Harel also pursued Israeli Communist spies who supplied sensitive intelligence information to Eastern European states, leading to the arrests of operatives including Aharon Cohen, Kirt Site and Dr. Israel Beer, who held a senior military post. Harel revealed Beer's true identity as a Russian spy and caught him transferring top-secret documents to the Soviet Embassy.
Harel resigned from the Mossad in 1963 following a dispute with Ben-Gurion regarding a campaign aimed at intimidating German scientists who were working on Egyptian weapons development. Ben-Gurion feared that the Mossad's use of strong-arm tactics was jeopardizing efforts at developing diplomatic relations between Israel and Germany.
Following his departure from the Mossad, Harel served as an intelligence adviser to Prime Minister Levi Eshkol and as a Knesset member from 1969 until 1973. After his retirement from public service, Harel devoted himself to pursuit of a writing career, authoring twenty books. His most popular book, "The House on Garibaldi Street" published in 1975, outlines the details of the Eichmann operation.
Admission here that there was a PALESTINE???
I am told that his "boys" had an even more complimentary nickname for him -- "Isser the Pisser."
He was one shrewd, tough little man. "The House on Garibaldi Street" is not only a great read, but it gives you a good sense for Harel himself. With patriots like him in the government, it is not hard to understand how Israel has survived.
The name "Palestine" actually has a Hebrew origin and refers to the Holy Land, or the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea--IOW, what we currently call Israel. The so-called "Palestinians" are more correctly referred to as Arabs living in Palestine.
The Arabs have appropriated this name pretty much like socialists stole the term "liberal" for themselves. "Liberal" used to mean a person who believes in freedom through limited government--the exact opposite of a socialist.
Wow, talk about having an interesting life---I'll have to read that book too.For finding and detaining Eichmann, That is one serious claim to fame! We don't really have that many people like him on earth anymore, do we?
I've been looking for this book for years, since I read an excerpt in Reader's Digest, but couldn't remember the title.
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