Jews who either collaborated with the British or belonged to rival un-
derground militias. At the order of Israel’s future prime minister David
Ben-Gurion, Harel commanded the sinking of the ship Altalenacarry-
ing arms for the Irgun Zvai Leumi. He also cooperated with the British
auxiliary forces to fight the Nazis.
With the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Harel was
appointed director of the precursor to the Israeli Security Agency
(ISA), then Unit 181 in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). He held the
rank of lieutenant colonel. Harel convinced Ben-Gurion that the ISA
as an intelligence organization should not be subordinate to the IDF;
for a short period it became subordinate to the Defense Ministry, but
Harel convinced the prime minister that the ISA should be account-
able directly to the prime minister, a stance that Ben-Gurion ac-
cepted. As the ISA was a new organization, Harel could select all his
agents carefully; many were non-Jews and some did not know that
they were working for Israel. As a member of Ben-Gurion’s ruling
Israeli Workers party (Mapai), Harel also followed the activities of
political rivals, keeping under surveillance those who were sus-
pected of links with the Soviet Union.
After the resignation of Reuven Shiloahfrom the directorship of
the Mossadin 1952, Harel became the Mossad’s director, but he re-
mained a powerful figure in the ISA as well. With many new recruits
from Irgun and the Stern Group, his tasks included preventing other
Israeli intelligence organizations from recruiting his agents and en-
couraging covert Jewish immigration from Arab countries. He later
revealed that he had smuggled thousands of Moroccan Jews to Israel
by cooperating with the Franco regime in Spain and bribing local of-
ficials, making several visits there in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
As Mossad director, Harel developed a close relationship with the
U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. He had a key role in developing re-
lations with other intelligence communities, too, especially in form-
ing the well-known Trident Networkin which Israel, Iran, and
Turkey collected intelligence about Egypt.
During Harel’s tenure as director of the Mossad, he led two famous
operations. The first was Adolf Eichmann’s capturein 1960; the sec-
ond was finding the boy Yossele Schumacher, who had been ab-
ducted by his ultraorthodox grandfather from Israel to Brooklyn, New
York, in 1959.108 • HAREL, ISSER06-102 (03) H-P.qxd 3/24/06 7:24 AM Page 108