2025-08-03 13:59 <br/> Tags: #Mossad #Israel #Intel #people ![[THE MATRIX/images 3/image-4.png|277x406]] # Meir Amit (1921-2009) - Meir Amit was the third [[Mossad]] director. He led the Mossad from 1963-1968. - Prior to leading Mossad, he led the Israeli military intelligence agency [[Aman]] from 1962-63. #### Early Career - Amit's career began when he joined the [[Haganah]] at age 15 in the mid 1930s. - The Haganah was the [[Yishuv]]'s organized paramilitary and the precursor to the IDF. - Amit fought in the [[1948 Arab Israeli War]]. - During the 48' war Amit served as an aide to famous Israeli military figure [[Moshe Dayan]]. - Amit worked with Dayan to plan the campaign to take the Sinai in the [[1956 Suez War]]. - After taking a leading part in the first two Israeli wars Amit went to school at Columbia University in New York. He finished a degree in economics then returned to Israel to join the Israeli intel. #### Intel - In 1961 Amit became the head of [[Aman]], the Israeli military intelligence, shortly after returning from the US. - In 1963 Israeli Prime Minister [[David Ben-Gurion]] forced the resignation of longtime Mossad chief [[Isser Harel]]. - Meir Amit was then appointed by Ben-Gurion to lead the Mossad while still remaining Aman director. For the first nine months of his time leading Mossad, Amit also led Aman. - One of Amit's first moves as Mossad director was the merging of Aman Unit 188 with the Mossad assassinations unit [[Mifratz]]. - The merger of Mifratz and 188 formed the elite covert operations Mossad unit [[Caesarea]]. - Mifratz leader [[Yitzhak Shamir]], former [[Irgun and Lehi Zionist Paramilitary Organizations|Lehi]] Jewish terrorist leader and future Israeli PM resigned from his post at Mossad in protest of Amit becoming Mossad director. - Amit reorganized the Mossad as a highly connected modern organization. - He prioritized HUMINT which stands for human intelligence and took the form of recruiting a vast network of worldwide spies usually native to the countries they were assigned to. - Under Amit Mossad greatly expanded its connections in the Arab world and throughout Europe, Africa, and the United States. - Amit was closely connected to CIA counterintelligence chief [[James Angleton]]. - Angleton was Mossad's point man in US intelligence. - Angleton was behind the initial Mossad-CIA connection in 1951 and remained as Mossad's top asset in US intel for decades. - Angleton was among the US officials giving Amit the green light to attack Egypt in 1967. ![[THE MATRIX/images 3/image-5.png|284x398]] *Meir Amit and James Angleton -1966* - Amit was fired in 1968 by PM [[Levi Eshkol]]. #### Sayanim - Meir Amit is the founder of Mossad's [[Sayanim]] network. - Sayanim are Jewish "helpers"; they are unpaid Jews of the diaspora willing and able to assist Mossad activities abroad. - The Sayanim are the source of the Mossad's immensely effective operation. - Sayanim are all 100% Jewish. - Sayanim are in place to assist Mossad Katsas (field officers). A katsa will cultivate a local network of Jews who can be called on to provide any number of services including: - False passports - Money - Safehouses - Vehicles - Legitimate jobs for Mossad agents under cover - Monitoring mossad targets - Backdoor access to companies/tech - A front company - etc. - The thousands of active Sayanim in the US alone are the major reason Israel is able to so effectively use intelligence. #RedPill *No other country has such a network. Sayanim work for Israel for no pay for one reason, they are Jewish and Israel is the Jewish state. They live in one country but are reliably loyal to another. Should a foreign country operating such a network hostile to ours be considered an ally? * - The invisible network of Sayanim allowed Israel and specifically Mossad under Amit to steal US Nuclear secrets. This gave way to [[Israel and the Nuclear Bomb|Israel achieving the nuclear bomb]] in the late 1960s. #### Notable Operations - Operation Diamond: - In 1966, an Iraqi pilot Munir Redfa defected from Iraq with his Soviet MiG-21 fighter Jet. - An Iraqi Jew had contacted Israel in 1964 with the offer of Redfa's defection and delivery of the Jet for $1 million and the smuggling of all his extended family out of Iraq. - Israel agreed and Amit himself was present when Mossad met with Redfa in Europe. - On August 16, 1966, the Operation Diamond was executed and Israel got ahold of the MiG-21. - Israel's ability to study the strengths and weaknesses of the MiG allowed it to easily defeat Syria's MiGs in the [[1967 Six Day War]]. - Israel loaned the MiG-21 to the CIA and in return was able to acquire the US F-4 Phantom. The F-4 had previously been withheld from Israel. ![[image-82.png|565x415]] *The actual MiG-21 smuggled out of Iraq in Operation Diamond, now on display in Israel.* - Morocco operations: - From 1961-64 the Mossad's Operation Yachin brought just under 100,000 Moroccan Jews to Israel. The US group [[Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS)]] financed the operation with around $50 million. - In the fall of 1965 Morocco's King Hassan II allowed the Mossad to bug all the private rooms where Arab leaders were staying in Casablanca for the 1965 Arab Summit. - In return for Moroccan King Hassan II's covert support, he wanted Mossad to assist in killing his political opponent Mehdi Ben Barka. - Ben Barka was exiled in France. - The Mossad provided all the logistics for the Moroccans including luring Ben Barka out of Switzerland and back to France where he was killed. - After Moroccan intel killed Ben Barka, Mossad disposed of his body. - The Ben Barka killing resulted in the severing of French-Israeli relations. France had been Israel's primary benefactor until that point. This was a catalyst for increased US-Israeli relations. #### 1967 War - Amit was a major architect of the 1967 Six Day War. - Prior to the [[1967 Six Day War]] Amit's Mossad had "either a Mossad Katsa (field officer) or an informer inside every Egyptian airbase and military headquarters." - All facets of the Egyptian military were thoroughly infiltrated by Mossad by 1967. - The Mossad's Department of Psychological Warfare abbreviated as LAP, used the extreme depth of intel it received to create files on all the Egyptian pilots, commanders, officers, ground crew, etc. - They used the information to determine which Egyptians would be susceptible to blackmail. - The Mossad infiltration allowed Israel to plan the perfect pre-emptive strike taking out nearly all of Egypt's air force in its opening attack. - Days before Israel launched the war, Amit traveled to Washington DC to get the "green light" from LBJ, Sec Def Robert McNamara, and CIA director Richard Helms. #### Political Career - In the 1970s Amit formed a centrist political party Dash. - With Dash, Amit was elected to the Israeli Knesset in 1977. - When [[Menachem Begin]]'s [[Likud]] shocked Israeli politics and won the 1977 elections, Amit joined Begin's government as a cabinet Minister. - Dash broke apart in 1978 and Amit left the Begin government. - He returned to the Labor faction but retired in 1981 after his first and only Knesset term ended. #### Later Career - Amit became involved in the Israeli tech, defense, and pharmaceuticals industries. - Amit sat on the board of [[Teva Pharmaceuticals]], an Israeli company which markets drugs primarily to the United States. - Teva has been sued and has been forced to pay hundreds of millions of dollars regarding its role in the US opioid crisis. Teva has been a hostile player in the US drug market, raising prices, over prescription of opioids, improper marketing of opioids, etc. #### Recommended Reading Rise and Kill First - Ronen Bergman Gideon's Spies - Gordon Thomas #### References - Gordon Thomas, _Gideon’s Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad_, fully updated rev. and expanded ed. (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2015). - Ronen Bergman, _Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations_ (New York: Random House, 2018). - _“Meir Amit.”_ Wikipedia. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meir_Amit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meir_Amit). - Ostrovsky, Victor, and Claire Hoy. _By Way of Deception: The Making and Unmaking of a Mossad Officer_. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990. - **“Teva Pharmaceuticals.”** _Wikipedia_. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teva_Pharmaceuticals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teva_Pharmaceuticals). - “Democratic Movement for Change.” _Wikipedia_. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Movement_for_Change. - “Meir Amit, 88, Israeli Spymaster, Dies.” _New York Times_, July 19, 2009. [https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/world/middleeast/19amit.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/world/middleeast/19amit.html). - _“Major-General Meir Amit,”_ _The Telegraph_, July 22, 2009, [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/military-obituaries/army-obituaries/5888256/Major-General-Meir-Amit.html](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/military-obituaries/army-obituaries/5888256/Major-General-Meir-Amit.html). - **“Ex-Mossad Chief Meir Amit Dies at 88.”** _Haaretz_, January 1, 2009.