GILLON, CARMI (1950– ).Gillon was born in Jerusalem into a fam-
ily most of whom were jurists. His grandfather was the only Jewish
judge on the Supreme Court during the British Mandate. After Israeli
statehood, his father was the state attorney and his mother was the le-
gal adviser to the government.
Gillon studied political science at the Hebrew University in
Jerusalem after being demobilized from the Israel Defense Forces
(IDF). In 1972, while still a student, he joined the Israeli Security
Agency(ISA), starting as a security guard. In time he was promoted
to senior staff positions. In 1982 Gillon was appointed head of the
Jewish section of the ISA. In this position he was involved in detect-
ing the right-wing extremist Yonah Abrushmi, who in a disturbance
against a demonstration by the Peace Now movement tossed a hand
grenade that killed Emil Grinzweig, a Peace Now activist. Gillon was
also involved in detecting a Jewish underground cell that perpetrated
a series of sabotage acts against Palestinian mayors in the West Bank.
In 1987 Gillon took sabbatical leave to study for a master’s degree at
the National Security College of the IDF. On graduation he was ap-
pointed to senior posts in the ISA, including head of the northern re-
gion, directing ISA operations in Lebanon.
In March 1995, at the recommendation of his predecessor Yaakov
Peri, Gillon was made director of the ISA. His incumbency was ex-
tremely short, however, as on 4 November 1995 Prime Minister Yitzhak
Rabin was assassinated by Yigal Amir in Tel Aviv—an occurrence re-
garded as a grave failure on the part of the ISA unit for the safety of dig-
nitaries. The unit did not prevent the assassin from shooting Rabin at
point-blank range. Gillon, who at the time of Rabin’s killing was in
Paris, returned at once to Israel and submitted his resignation to Shimon
Peres, although his resignation at that time was rejected.
Gillon did resign from the ISA in February 1996, after the ISA won
a notable success in eliminating Yahya Ayash, a Palestinian terrorist
known as “the Engineer.” After retiring from the ISA, Gillon held vari-
ous executive positions and also studied business administration at Har-
vard University. In 1999 he became the director of the Peres Peace Cen-
ter. In July 2001 Gillon was appointed Israeli ambassador to Denmark,
a posting that aroused sharp public criticism in that country because of
Gillon’s so-called war crimes, namely, the interrogation of PalestinianGILLON, CARMI•9906-102 (02) A-G.qxd 3/24/06 7:23 AM Page 99