an Art.” In 1975 Gil cultivated a high-ranking official in the Syrian
government as a mole, who indeed provided vital information. De-
spite his professional accomplishments and the great esteem in which
he was held, Gil became bitter toward his employers, whom he felt did
not sufficiently appreciate his talents. His ambition to be promoted to
the Mossad command was not realized.
At some unknown point in time, Gil allegedly began inventing in-
formation as if it came from his Syrian mole and pocketed payments
intended for the latter. He rejected his superiors’ suggestion to put a
second handler on the mole, submitting the fabricated reports for
nearly a decade, almost until his retirement from the Mossad in 1989.
He then went to work for the extreme-right Israeli party Moledet,
which advocated the transfer of all Arabs out of former mandatory
Palestine. However, because of his sources in Syria, he continued to
serve the Mossad as a consultant after his retirement.
In August 1996, when Syria’s 14th Division started to move on the
slopes of Mount Hermon, Gil reported to the Mossad, ostensibly
from his source, that Syria was planning a military strike to recapture
part of the Golan Heights from Israel. Suspicions started to circulate.
Due to the pluralist structure of Israeli intelligence, Gil’s reports were
cross-checked with other intelligence information. In particular, MI
demanded that the Mossad clarify what was going on, and it was
learned that there was no substance to Gil’s reports. In early 1996
Syrian leader Hafiz Assad had the opportunity to regain all of the
Golan in the framework of a peace agreement with the government
of Shimon Peres. Gil’s fabricated reports, had they been taken seri-
ously, might have triggered a war.
In November 1997 Gil was arrested when an internal Mossad in-
quiry raised suspicions about his account to his superiors of meetings
he said he had held in Europe with a top Syrian army officer, but
which never took place. The Israeli police found in Gil’s apartment
tens of thousands of dollars that the Mossad had given him to pay to
his fictive source. On 11 March 1999 Gil was convicted and sen-
tenced to five years in prison. Investigators of the Gil Affair still have
not fathomed conclusively why he acted as he did; the best guesses
are his extreme right-wing views or financial gain. He also might
have suffered from a personality disorder.98 • GIL, YEHUDA06-102 (02) A-G.qxd 3/24/06 7:23 AM Page 98