Historical Dictionary of Israeli Intelligence

German electronics engineer who had worked on the Nazi V-2 rocket

project during World War II. Harel himself joined Shamir and his hit

team in the operation, but despite the surveillance conducted on

Kleinwachter’s apartment in Germany, the assassination attempt was

foiled by a premature shot from one of the team members.

Shamir handled some other cases from Paris, including that of

Aharon Moshel, an Israeli spy in Egypt. Shamir was also involved in

sending threatening letters to the German scientists and their families

who were working on the missile program in Egypt. After Meir Amit

became director of the Mossad in 1963, Shamir still displayed loyalty

to his former boss Harel. Shamir’s career in the Mossad ended in 1965.

In 1973 Yitzhak Shamir was elected as a member of the Knesset,

and in 1977 he became its chairman. He presided over the 1977 visit

of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and the ensuing peace talks, de-

spite his reputation as a Likud hard-liner. Shamir became the Israeli

foreign minister in 1980 and led the negotiations with Egypt to nor-

malize relations in 1981–1982. He also headed the negotiations re-

sulting in the 1983 peace agreement with Lebanon, although the

Lebanese government never ratified it.

Shamir succeeded Menachem Begin as prime minister in Septem-

ber 1983, and during his term the government took part in the Madrid

peace conference. Also under his leadership as prime minister, the

Mossad successfully carried out the Solomon Operation, secretly

transporting thousands of Ethiopian Jews to Israel. Shamir’s govern-

ment fell in 1992, and he relinquished the Likud party leadership in

March 1993 to Benjamin Netanyahu.

Probably due to having been a Mossad officer in the past, as prime

minister, Shamir insisted on talking directly to the Mossad’s intelligence

sources, rather than just receiving the final assessment reports. Shamir

wanted early warning from the Israeli intelligence community on the

likelihood of war breaking out, rather than assessments of the prospects

for peace, which he used to tell intelligence analysts that he could fig-

ure out by himself.

SHARETT, MOSHE (1894–1965).Born Moshe Shertok in the Ukraine,

Sharett immigrated to Palestine as a member of Bilu. In 1931, Haim Ar-

lozorov, director of the Political Department of the Jewish Agency,

asked Sharett to serve as his assistant. After Arlozorov was murdered in

SHARETT, MOSHE• 257

06-102 (04) Q-Z.qxd 3/24/06 7:26 AM Page 257