Rafi Eitan
For the former Israeli Defense Forces Chief of Staff and former Israeli Minister of Agriculture, see Rafael EitanRafael ('Rafi') Eitan (
Hebrew: רפי איתן) (born
November 23,
1926) is the leader of
Gil - Gimla'ey Yisrael LaKneset (pensioners of
Israel to the
Knesset)
party which has won an unexpected large number of seats in the
Israeli legislative election of 2006. In
1960, he was in-charge of the
Mossad operation that lead to the capture of
Adolf Eichmann. He served as an advisor on
terrorism to
Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and in
1981 he was appointed to head the
Bureau of Scientific Relations, then an
intelligence entity on par with
Mossad,
Aman and
Shabak. Eitan assumed responsibility for and resigned over the
Jonathan Pollard affair, and the Bureau was disbanded. From
1985 until
1993, he was head of the government's Chemicals company, which was expanded under his leadership. After 1993, he became a businessman, noted for several large scale agricultural and construction ventures in
Cuba. In
2006, he accepted the offer to head the list for Gil.
Eitan was born in the
British Mandate of Palestine on November 23,
1926, in
Kibbutz Ein Harod. His parents were
Zionist immigrants who came to the Promised Land from Russia in
1923. His father Noach Hantman was a poet and his mother Miriam Lutzansky, a housewife. They had four children, Rafi, Oded, Rina,ami and lived happily in Ramat HaSharon, a small settlement consisting of 100 families. Eitan went to a regular junior high public school, but finished his high school at the Agricultural School in Givat HaSchloshah in
1940 before going to the prestigious
London School of Economics for his BSE in Economics.
At age 12, engulfed in the prevalent Zionist sentiments of the day and to defend his settlement from Arab insurgencies, Eitan joined the
Haganah (Jewish Defense Force) from which he moved to the
Palmach, a more elite part of the Haganah, upon completion of high school in
1944. Through clandestine operations, he was to assist the illegal immigration of
Jewish refugees from
Europe, who were fleeing
Nazism, into Palestine. His most famous operation at this time was blowing up the British radar on
Mount Carmel near the port city of
Haifa. To reach it, Eitan had to crawl underground through sewers, thus earning the name 'Rafi the Smelly', which would differentiate him in later years from the other
Rafael Eitan, a well-known Israeli
Chief of Staff and politician. It was also during this time that he met
Itzhak Rabin, who would later become Israeli Prime Minister.
During the
Israeli War of Independence (1948-49), Eitan served in Army intelligence, a position which would propel him to serve in the newly established Israeli Secret Service, also known as the
Mossad. But Eitan believed he would best serve his country by moving to the Domestic Security Service, the
Shin Bet, where he served as Chief of Operations. This position would allow him the biggest triumph in a post-Holocaust Israel: the capture of
Adolf Eichmann. In a daring mission, after much intelligence research recognized Adolf Eichmann alive and well, and living in Argentina, Eitan and his team went to Argentina to kidnap and take him to Israel, where he was tried and found guilty of atrocious crimes against the Jewish people during WWII. During
1964-
1966, Eitan headed a two-year operation in which armaments sold and delivered by the Germans to the Egyptian government 'disappeared'. In those days, Israel had no peace treaty with Egypt. Eitan was also involved in the secret planning and implementation of the
attack on the
Iraqi
Osirak nuclear reactor in
June 1981, an event widely criticized at the time by many countries.
Eitan continued his work in intelligence until
1972, when he left the organization and went on to the private sector, raising tropical fish and other agricultural ventures. But in
1978, the government of
Menahem Begin, the then Prime Minister of Israel, called him back to be his advisor on terrorism, as Eitan was regarded and admired as one of the most respected experts in this field. In 1981, Eitan was named head of the Defense Ministry's
Lekem, the Bureau for Scientific Relations, where he continued work on terrorism. In
1984, Lakam was put in touch with
Jonathan Pollard, an
American citizen, who worked on anti-terrorist activities at the US Naval Investigative Services. Pollard had contacted the Israeli government with top secret information on the terrorist activities of Israel's enemies. When Jonathan Pollard was arrested in the US in
1985, Lekem was disbanded. Eitan was offered then the position as head of the state-owned
Israel Chemicals Corporation, from where he retired in
1993 at the age of 67. During his tenure, the company underwent a rapid expansion in terms of sales, development and manpower making it the largest government-held firm in the country.
According to the book
Gideon's Spies by
Gordon Thomas, during the mid 1980's the
Thatcher government in Britain developed a relationship with Eitan as an advisor to MI6 on
counterterrorism operations in
Northern Ireland. This relationship came to a head in 1985, when
Mossad agents helped track an
IRA bomb team in
Gibralter. The three member IRA team was killed by the British
SAS, under highly contoversial circumstances. It was subsequently reported in
British papers that Rafi Eitan and
Mossad had played a surveilance role in the operation, and IRA command put out orders for assassination teams in
Ireland and
Britain to find and kill Rafi Eitan. Due to this threat of Assassination, and the embarrassment of the Israeli government over Eitan's unauthorizedrelationship with the operation, Eitan left Britain and ended his relationship with Britain's intelligence services. This incident strained Israeli/British relations for several years.
In
1992, Eitan was approached by Irving Semmel, a successful Brazilian businessman, to bid on a contract for an agricultural deal in
Cuba, which involved the cultivation of the largest citrus grove cooperative on the island. After winning the bid, Eitan built a partnership with four other international entrepreneurs to run the deal. The company GBM (Grupo BM) was incorporated in Cuba, but Eitan represents the company in Israel under the name 'Reesimex'.
Due to the success of the venture and the connections acquired, GBM also won the contract to build the Trade Center in
Havana, which is currently under construction, and a
Holocaust Memorial at the center of the Old City of Habana. Recently, GBM was awarded the "Medal for Agricultural Work" by the
Cuban government.
In addition to this deal, GBM has started expanding its business deals to the rest of
Latin America. It runs various agricultural projects in the
Dominican Republic, among others.
Eitan was asked to represent the Israeli retirees in the
general elections held on
March 28, 2006. The party has gone on to win a large number of seats (7), despite predictions that it would not secure more than 2-3, at best, and would not pass the vote threshold, at worse.
Almost 80 years old, Eitan enjoys good health and claims to be nowhere near retirement. In his spare time, he is known as an avid sculptor. Over the 30 years that he has been sculpting, Eitan has produced over 100 pieces. He recently had a one man show at the offices of the high-tech company "Brown". His pieces were described by critics as 'refreshing', 'alive' and 'imaginative'.
* "
Eitan vows to focus on pensioner's issues" —
Jerusalem Post,
March 29,
2006
