was caught by the Israeli Security Agencysmuggling weapons and
explosives to the Palestine Liberation Organization, of which he was
a member. He was sentenced by an Israeli court to 15 years in jail,
but was released in 1977.CARA, ELI.See NEW ZEALAND PASSPORTS.CARMON, CHAIM.Born in Poland, Carmon survived both the crush-
ing of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising as well as the concentration
camps. He served as the first director of security for the Defense
Establishment, in charge of a top secret unit in the Ministry of De-
fense known as MALMAB.
As a Holocaust survivor, Carmon was occasionally asked in the
1950s how Israel could do business with Germans. His standard re-
ply was that to prevent another holocaust he would be willing to do
business even with the devil. The business in question then was the
reparations agreement with West Germany. Carmon’s brand of think-
ing got Israel involved in a several notable situations. He was linked
to the weapons-for-hostages deal between the United States and Iran
in the 1980s known as the Irangate Affair, to the Jonathan Jay Pol-
lard affair in the 1980s, and to military cooperation with the
apartheid regime in South Africa, which eventually caused Israel se-
rious harm.
Carmon was also involved in the capture of Mordechai Vanunu,
the Israeli former technician at the Dimona nuclear reactor who re-
vealed to the Sunday Timesthe most secret information on Israel’s
nuclear weapons program. In Carmon’s view, Vanunu should never
have been allowed to go free, even if it meant that the security estab-
lishment would have to fabricate evidence to keep him in jail.
Carmon recommended that his deputy Yehiel Horevbe appointed
director of MALMAB in the mid-1980s. He quipped that he recom-
mended Horev simply because of his sycophancy. Carmon was due
to be promoted to the post of deputy director-general of the Defense
Ministry, thus overseeing MALMAB as well as other agencies.
Shortly after his appointment, Carmon went on sick leave. When he
returned, he found Horev now superior to him. During Carmon’s ab-
sence, Horev had persuaded David Ivri, the director-general of the
Defense Ministry, that Carmon had been negligent in the case of Va-56 • CARA, ELI06-102 (02) A-G.qxd 3/24/06 7:23 AM Page 56