Historical Dictionary of Israeli Intelligence

in units of two or three team members, disguised as Arabs. From late

1947 they made countless sorties into the villages and the main popu-

lation centers of Arab Palestine: Jaffa, Haifa, Nablus, and Hebron, and

still farther afield to Transjordan, Syria, and Lebanon, to collect polit-

ical and military information. The Arab Platoon and the Palmah un-

derground militia were disbanded after the establishment of the State

of Israel.

MIVTZA KADESH.See SINAI CAMPAIGN.

MIZRAHI, BARUCH. An Egyptian-born Israeli who served in the

Mossad. Before the 1967 Six-Day War, Mizrahi was sent by the

Mossad to Aleppo, Syria, on an espionage mission under the cover of

a teacher, but was summoned back to Israel without delay when Eli

Cohen, the Israeli spy in Syria, was arrested. Under the cover of a

Moroccan businessman, Mizrahi was then sent to North Yemen in the

early 1970s in order to monitor Palestinian activities, as well as the

activities of the Egyptian army still involved in the civil war there,

and to report on shipping movements across the Red Sea. Mizrahi

was captured in May 1972 by Yemeni authorities while taking pho-

tographs in Hodeida, and he was turned over to Egyptian intelligence.

After the 1973 Yom Kippur War, he was released in an exchange of

prisoners-of-war and spies between Israel and Egypt. One account al-

leges that the Egyptians agreed to release Mizrahi in exchange for Is-

rael’s release of two Israeli Arabs who had spied for Egyptian intelli-

gence. According to other sources, Mizrahi was released in exchange

for 26 Palestinians from the Territories who had been convicted by Is-

raeli courts of sabotage and were serving prison sentences ranging

from 10 years to life.

MOSES OPERATION/MIVTSA MOSHE.In 1974 the Ethiopian

emperor Haile Selassie I was overthrown by a Marxist regime. This

put an end to Israel’s relations with Ethiopia, which had been devel-

oped during the 1960s under the aegis of the Mossadwithin the Is-

raeli Periphery Doctrine. One result was that Ethiopian Jews suf-

fered in the postrevolution chaos of the Marxist regime.

In 1977, at the initiative of Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin,

Ethiopian Jews began arriving in Israel, continuing for the next several

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