Historical Dictionary of Israeli Intelligence

AVNI, BENNY (?–2005).In the early 1950s Lieutenant Benny Avni

served in Unit 154, the collection unit of Military Intelligence(MI),

where he met and became a close friend of Ya’acov Nimrodi. On 8

December 1954 Avni accompanied a force of five fighters dispatched

to Syria on a spying mission. Three of them were from the paratroops

and two from the infantry; among them was Uri Ilan. In the early

1960s Avni was appointed to a senior position in Unit 154 and soon

after, on loan to the Mossad, he was dispatched to Iran. There he and

Nimrodi, then the Israeli military attaché in Tehran, promoted the idea

of assisting the Kurdish rebellion in Iraq as a means of advancing Is-

rael’s Periphery Doctrine. Later Avni served the Mossad in Europe.

In 1965 Meir Amitgave Avni the task of being the contact be-

tween Israel and the Kurdish leader Mustapha Barazani. His com-

mand of Arabic and his earlier experience in commanding a special

intelligence unit were to his advantage in his obtaining this mission.

Contacts between Avni and Barazani took place in Tehran, after Nim-

rodi convinced the shah that it was also in his interest to strengthen

the Kurdish rebels in Iraq.

In 1974 Avni retired from MI and served exclusively in the Mossad

in various operations that still cannot be disclosed; it may be stated

that he was one of the team that detained Mordechai Vanunuafter

Cheryl Ben-Tovlured him to Rome in 1986. In the early 1990s Avni

retired from the Mossad and went into private business in the enter-

prises of his old comrade Nimrodi. Even then he continued to serve

the country on missions requiring intelligence experience, and he was

involved in efforts for the release of Israeli prisoners of war.

AVNI, ZE’EV (1921– ).Born Wolf Goldstein in Riga, Latvia, he grew up

in Switzerland. His Jewish parents were devout communists; Vladimir

Ilyich Lenin, seeking refuge before the Bolshevik October Revolution

of 1917, stayed with Goldstein’s parents. As a youngster Goldstein be-

came enchanted with Marxism-Leninism. Later he trained as an econo-

mist. Prior to Israel’s establishment as an independent state in 1948, a

Soviet spy recruited him in Switzerland, and Goldstein went to Moscow

for an intelligence course with the intention of being planted in the nas-

cent Israeli governing circles. His handlers from the Soviet KGB sug-

gested that he immigrate to Israel and seek employment in Israeli gov-

ernment service; there he would await further orders. For a short period

he lived at a kibbutz, but through his professional background he was

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