The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations, popularly known as Mossad, is the national intelligence agency of the State of Israel. It is one of the main organizations in the Israeli intelligence community, along with Aman (military intelligence) and Shin Bet (internal security).
Mossad is responsible for intelligence collection, covert operations, and counterterrorism. Its director answers directly and only to the prime minister. Its annual budget is around ₪10 billion (US$2.73 billion), and it employs around 7,000 people, making it one of the world's largest espionage agencies. The organization has orchestrated many assassination plots across a variety of locations.
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 Political Intelligence Service (Mossad). The central body governing the three security services was Va'adat; today it is the Ministry of Intelligence.
In March 1951, it was reorganized and incorporated into the prime minister's office, reporting directly to the prime minister of Israel. Due to Mossad's accountability directly to the prime minister and not to the Knesset, journalist Ronen Bergman has described Mossad as a "deep state".
In the 1990s, Aliza Magen-Halevi became the highest-ranking woman in Mossad's history when she served as the agency's deputy director under Shabtai Shavit and Danny Yatom.
Mossad made an unusual move on Israel's 68th Independence Day by releasing a secret recruitment ad for its Cyber Division. The ad featured seemingly random letters and numbers, which turned out to be a hidden puzzle. Over 25,000 people attempted to solve it, and while most failed, dozens succeeded and were recruited. In a rare 2012 interview with "Lady Globes", Mossad fighters talked about the recruitment of men and women to the Mossad, the screening tests, their work in the Mossad alongside starting a family, the relationship between the time to prepare for the actions and the actions themselves, working in teams, the emotional intelligence required of them, the nature of the activity, avoiding fame and omnipotence, and conversations with enemies.
Organization
Divisions
The organizational structure of the Mossad is officially classified. Mossad is organized into divisions, each led by a director who is equivalent to a major general in the Israel Defense Forces.
Tzomet: Mossad's largest division, staffed with case officers called katsas tasked with conducting espionage overseas and running agents. Employees in Tzomet operate under a variety of covers, including diplomatic and unofficial. The division was led from 2006 to 2011 by Yossi Cohen and from 2013 to 2019 by David Barnea, both of whom later served as Mossad directors.
Caesarea: conducts special operations and houses the Kidon (Hebrew: כידון, "bayonet", "javelin" or a "spear") unit, an elite group of assassins.
Keshet ("Rainbow"): electronic surveillance, break-ins, and wiretapping
Human Resources
A special unit called Metsada allegedly runs "small units of combatants" whose missions include "assassinations and sabotage".
Venture capital
Mossad opened a venture capital fund in June 2017, to invest in high-tech startups to develop new cyber technologies. The names of technology startups funded by Mossad are not published.
Personnel
Katsa
A katsa is a field intelligence officer of the Mossad. The word katsa is a Hebrew acronym for Hebrew: קצין איסוף, romanized: ktsin issuf, "intelligence officer", literally "gathering officer". A katsa is a case officer who runs agents to clandestinely collect intelligence.
Kidon
The kidon are Mossad's elite assassins. Recruits receive two years of training at Mossad's training facility near Herzliya.
Sayanim
Sayanim (Hebrew: סייענים, lit. helpers, assistants) are unpaid Jewish civilians who help Mossad out of a sense of devotion to Israel. They are recruited by Mossad's field agents, katsas, to provide logistical support for Mossad operations. A sayan running a rental agency, for instance, could help Mossad agents rent a car without the usual documentation. The usage of sayanim allows the Mossad to operate with a slim budget yet conduct vast operations worldwide. Sayanim can have dual citizenships but are often not Israeli citizens. According to Gordon Thomas, there were 4,000 sayanim in Britain and some 16,000 in the United States in 1998. Israeli students called bodlim are often used as gofers for Mossad.
Motto
Mossad's former motto, be-tachbūlōt ta`aseh lekhā milchāmāh (Hebrew: בתחבולות תעשה לך מלחמה) is a quote from the Bible (Proverbs 24:6): "For by stratagems you wage war" (NJPS).
The motto was later changed to another Proverbs passage: be-'éyn tachbūlōt yippol `ām; ū-teshū`āh be-rov yō'éts (Hebrew: באין תחבולות יפול עם, ותשועה ברוב יועץ, Proverbs 11:14), translated as "For want of strategy an army falls, But victory comes with much planning" (NJPS).
Directors
About half of the Mossad's leaders rose through its ranks, while the rest are retired IDF soldiers appointed to head the agency. The Prime Minister personally appoints the head of the Mossad for Intelligence and Special Duties without needing government or other supervisory body approval (unlike the Chief of Staff or the Shin Bet's head). The appointment undergoes review by the advisory committee for appointing senior civil service officials. The term is five years, extendable by the Prime Minister for another year without conditions.
Until 1996, the head of Mossad's name was kept confidential. Mossad argued that secrecy allowed the head to move freely worldwide. In response to public criticism, the government began revealing the head's name when Danny Yatom assumed office.
Alleged operations
Operation Harpoon
In 2001, together with the legal group Shurat HaDin, Mossad started Operation Harpoon, for "destroying terrorists' money networks".
Africa
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 confrontation with CIA Tel Aviv station chief John Hadden on May 25, 1967, 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 air strike 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.
A letter bomb sent to the Heliopolis rocket factory killed five Egyptian workers, allegedly sent by Otto Skorzeny on behalf of the Mossad.
Heinz Krug, 49, the chief of a Munich company supplying military hardware to Egypt disappeared in September 1962 and is believed to have been assassinated by Otto Skorzeny on behalf of the Mossad.
Morocco
In September 1956, 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), a founder of Fatah.
The alleged killing of Salah Khalaf, head of intelligence of the PLO and second in command of Fatah behind Yasser Arafat, in 1991.
The 2016 alleged killing of Hamas operative Mohamed Zouari in Sfax. Known to Israel's security echelon as "The Engineer", he was a Hamas-affiliated engineer who was believed to be constructing drones for the group. He was shot at close range.
Uganda
For Operation Entebbe in 1976, Mossad provided intelligence regarding Entebbe International Airport and extensively interviewed hostages who had been released.
South Africa
In the late 1990s, after Mossad was tipped off to 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 largest bombing in Argentine history, 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. 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.
Americas
Argentina
In 1960, Mossad discovered that the Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann was in Argentina. A team of five Mossad agents led by Shimon Ben Aharon 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. He was subsequently smuggled to Israel, where he was tried and executed. Argentina protested what it considered as a 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
Shortly after Rafael Eitan visited Inslaw in February 1983, the software PROMIS was allegedly stolen and copied by the United States Department of Justice, which triggered years of litigation. Earl W. Brian and Edwin Meese, two men with close ties to Reagan, are said to have sold or given the software to over 80 countries, with a "back door" built into the program, which allowed for espionage. Two versions of the software are said to have been sold: an American one for the CIA and an Israeli one for the Mossad. The software with the built-in back door is said to have reached the KGB via the British publisher Robert Maxwell, a Mossad agent. Maxwell was also able to sell the bugged Israeli version of PROMIS to Sandia National Laboratories and Los Alamos National Laboratory, two of the most important nuclear research and national security facilities in the United States. He is said to have been assisted by John Tower.