drafted into the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in 1962 and served in the
Golani infantry brigade, where he rose to the rank of lieutenant. In
the IDF reserves, he served in the Armored Corps and was promoted
to major.
During the late 1960s Horev was sent as a member of an IDF mis-
sion to train the army of Congo (later Zaire). He returned to Israel in
1969 and was recruited as a security officer at a facility of the Israel
Atomic Energy Commission in the center of the country. Then he
joined a unit known as Malmab that was so ultrasecret that even its
name can only be conjectured—probably Memuneh Al Ha’Bitahon
Be’Ma’arekhet Ha’Bitahon. It was headquartered at the Defense Min-
istry compound in Tel Aviv. From there, Horev directed the physical
protection of all Israel’s defense facilities, sites, and plants. The most
closely watched were the nuclear reactor in Dimona and the Biologi-
cal Institute at Nes Ziona, south of Tel Aviv, where, according to for-
eign reports, Israel’s nonconventional weapons (nuclear, biological,
chemical) are manufactured. The physical protection unit is in liaison
with the security officers of the plants and issues their instructions. Its
task is to oversee them and ensure that they function properly.
Horev was promoted in the ranks of the Malmab and became
deputy to its head, the director of security for the Defense Estab-
lishment(DSDE), Chaim Carmon. By the end of the 1980s, after
Carmon was appointed to a more senior position in the Defense Min-
istry, having responsibility inter alia for Malmab, Horev was ap-
pointed DSDE to direct Malmab. At about that time, Carmon took
sick leave for a heart condition, and during that short period Horev
was able to build his reputation in the Defense Ministry as the man
in charge, responsible for securing the most sensitive Israeli defense
installations. Horev convinced the Ministry’s director-general that
Carmon was in fact to blame for Mordechai Vanunu’s treachery. He
presented Carmon’s behavior as “sleeping while on guard duty.” Af-
ter returning from his sick leave, Carmon simply resigned.
Horev expanded the Malmab to a formidable dinosaur. He pursued
obsessively any Israeli writing or speaking about Israeli secrets such
as the Dimona reactor without permission from the military censor.
He even interrogated Israeli historian Avner Cohen, author of Israel
and the Bomb, on his sources.
Horev’s basic traits were devotion to duty alongside blandness,
pettiness, and acute suspiciousness, but also personal integrity and aHOREV, YEHIEL• 11706-102 (03) H-P.qxd 3/24/06 7:24 AM Page 117