Ephraim Halevy

Efraim Halevy (2014)

Efraim Halevy , also Ephraim Halevy ( Hebrew אפרים הלוי; born 1934 in London ), is a lawyer and was the ninth director of the Israeli foreign intelligence service Mossad from 1998 to 2002 . He succeeded Dani Jatom and was replaced by Meir Dagan . From 2002 to 2003 he was chairman of the Israeli Security Council.

As a person trusted in Jordan, Halevy played a central role in negotiating the Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty of 1994.

life and career

Halevy was the child of an established Orthodox Jewish family. In 1948 he emigrated to Israel, where he attended the religiously oriented Ma'aleh school in Jerusalem . He then successfully studied law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem . From 1957 to 1961 he was editor of the Journal Monthly Survey . He started working for the Mossad in 1961 and stayed there for the next 28 years. In 1967 he was named to the Chief Branches Forum of the Transatlantic Institute , where he lectured in 2007. From 1990 to 1995 he was deputy director of the Mossad and head of the headquarters under Schabtai Schavit . In 1996 Efraim Halevy became the Israeli ambassador to the European Union in Brussels .

Halevy served as envoy and confidante of five Israeli prime ministers : Yitzchak Shamir , Yitzchak Rabin , Benjamin Netanyahu , Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon . As Yitzchak Rabin's liaison to the Hashemite royal family, he played an active role in negotiating the Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty of 1994. After the Mossad's failed assassination attempt on Hamas leader Khalid Maschal in Jordan in 1997 , he was involved in settling the crisis and in the release of one of the arrested Mossad agents. In March 1998 he took the position of resigned Mossad leader Dani Jatom and held it until he was replaced by Meir Dagan in 2002 .

In October 2002 Halevy resigned from the post of Mossad chief and became chairman of the National Security Council. In 2003 he resigned from this position, criticizing Ariel Sharon, and from then on worked for the Hebrew University of Jerusalem .

In contrast to other secret service employees, who tend to take extreme ideological positions, Halevy is seen as a sober pragmatist in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict . In 2007, he said that Israel should try to negotiate with Hamas from a position of strength. She is respected by the Palestinians and usually keeps her word. "They're not very pleasant people, but they're very, very believable," he said.

In 2006 he published the book Man in the Shadows , in which he describes the history of the Middle East since the late 1980s. He spoke about the book on the Daily Show in April of that year and was a guest on the Charlie Rose Show .

In January 2007, an interview with Halevy was published in Portugal in which he stated that the West was in a “third world war” with radical Islam and that it would take at least 25 years to win it. He thought a nuclear attack by militant Islamists was likely. In 2011, he said that Iran should be prevented from becoming a nuclear power, but warned of an attack on the country that would have unforeseeable consequences for the entire region. He added that the increasing radicalization of ultra-Orthodox Judaism posed a greater risk than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad .

Halevy, a law graduate, admitted to Jewish students in London in 2016 that his studies had helped him break the law over the course of his career. He will not say how many times he has done this because he does not want to spend the rest of his life in prison. The incumbent Israeli Minister for Intelligence , Israel Katz , criticized this statement. There is an "incredible gap" between the knowledge of some former Mossad leaders and the responsibility or irresponsibility they display after they have left their jobs. He quoted from the Talmud : "Silence is a fence around wisdom."

Works

• The Role of the Intelligence Community in the Age of Strategic Alternatives for Israel (Engl.)
• Man in the shadows: inside the Middle East crisis with the man who led the Mossad . St. Martin's Press, New York 2006, ISBN 978-0-312-33771-1 . (engl.)
• 13 años que cambiaron el mundo: mi vida en el Mossad; Paperback, 334 pages . Ediciones B, Barcelona 2007, ISBN 978-84-666-3393-2 . (span.)

Web links

Commons : Efraim Halevy  - collection of images

• Efraim Halevy: In defense of the intelligence services In: The Economist , July 2004. (Engl.)
• "Bridges to the enemy" . Efraim Halevy on the challenges posed by Islamist terror, diplomacy and his experience as Mossad leader. In: Jüdische Allgemeine online on December 17, 2015, accessed on July 5, 2016.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Berliner Zeitung on March 6, 1998: The new Mossad leader Ephraim Halevy was Israel's EU ambassador up to now. He's supposed to end the agents' breakdown series. By Inge Günther: A diplomat in secret service. Retrieved October 5, 2012 . 
2. ^ ^{A b} American Friends of The Hebrew University: Ambassador Efraim Halevy. (No longer available online.) Formerly in the original ; Retrieved October 5, 2012 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  
3. ^ The Transatlantic Institute on May 10, 2007: “A new light on the Middle East conflict”. Retrieved October 5, 2012 . 
4. ^ Israelnetz on July 25, 2002: Mossad leader Halevy becomes chairman of the Security Council. (No longer available online.) Formerly in the original ; Retrieved October 5, 2012 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  
5. ^ Haaretz on September 4, 2003: Halevy: Decisions are made with intolerable offhandedness. Retrieved October 5, 2012 . 
6. ^ The Hebrew University of Jerusalem: The Shasha Center for Strategic Studies. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on November 18, 2011 ; accessed on October 5, 2012 . 
7. ↑ Orly Halpern, The Forward, February 9, 2007: Experts Question Wisdom of Boycotting Hamas. Retrieved October 5, 2012 . 
8. ↑ Charlie Rose: Interview on April 25, 2006. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on October 17, 2012 ; accessed on October 5, 2012 . 
9. ↑ ynetnews on January 27, 2007: World War III has already begun, says Israeli spy chief. Retrieved October 5, 2012 . 
10. ^ Ynet on November 4, 2011: Iran far from posing existential threat. Retrieved October 5, 2012 . 
11. ^ Ex-Mossad chief: I broke the law 'doing what I was doing'. Efraim Halevy tells Jewish students in London he can't give details of his activities as he has no desire 'to spend the rest of my life in jail'. In: The Times of Israel . April 1, 2016, accessed July 6, 2016 . 
12. ^ Minister Katz warns ex-Mossad chiefs to keep quiet. After Efraim Halevy says in London: 'I broke the law,' Katz delivers a message to former Mossad heads who choose to bash the state. April 1, 2016, accessed July 6, 2016 . 

predecessor	Office	successor
Dani Jatom	Director of Mossad 1998–2002	Meir Dagan