Friday, January 14, 2011

Uncloaked

Meir Dagan, recently retired as chief of the Mossad, wanted to reestablish the agency as a powerful deterrent to Israel’s enemies. With a string of daring operations, he succeeded.

Yossi Melman
Tablet Magazine
13 January '11

Meir Dagan, the recently retired chief of the Mossad, is enjoying a festive season in the limelight of public recognition and adoration. He is making his farewell rounds after nearly 100 months—eight years and three months—of service clouded in darkness and secrecy. Dagan is the second-longest-serving director of Israel’s famous and feared foreign espionage agency. Only the legendary Isser Harel, who grabbed worldwide headlines when his agents caught the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Argentina in 1960, served a lengthier tenure, three years more than Dagan.

Wherever Dagan goes, he gets standing ovations for his achievements. Two Sundays ago, Israeli cabinet ministers clapped their hands in appreciation. Four days later, Mossad employees shed tears when Dagan said goodbye and drove his gray 4-wheel-drive car through the gates of Mossad headquarters. Israeli journalists and commentators known for their unflattering, bitter, and cynical approach to nearly everything and everyone—journalists who, it should also be said, rarely had a chance to talk to him, not to mention to know him—are going out of their way to praise him.

“He is one of the best directors, if not the best one, Mossad has had in our 60 years or so of existence,” Ilan Mizrahi, a veteran case officer, told me last week. Mizrahi, who served as former Mossad Director Ephraim Halevy’s deputy, found himself vying with Dagan in 2002 for the top job. He lost but now admits that “Meir restored Mossad’s reputation and brought the organization to new levels.”

(Read full "Uncloaked")

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

No comments:

Post a Comment