Shiloah was a confidant of Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-
Gurion. In July 1949 Shiloah counseled the prime minister to estab-
lish a central institution for organizing and coordinating intelligence
and security services. That institution is now known as the Mossad.
Ben-Gurion appointed Shiloah as the first director of the Mossad, a
position he held from 13 December 1949 to 20 September 1952,
when he was injured in a traffic accident. The real reason for his res-
ignation was due to a collapse of an Israeli espionage network in Iraq
in September 1952. Shiloah’s friends and rivals alike believed that he
had never been suited to the task of Mossad director, describing him
as a man of vision rather than an organizer of clandestine operations.
Shiloah was replaced by Isser Harel.
Despite his short career as director of the Mossad, Shiloah is recog-
nized as the man who laid the foundations of the Israeli intelligence
community. He likewise initiated the links between Israeli intelligence
and its Western counterparts, especially in the United States. In 1959
the Israeli Oriental Society established the Reuven Shiloah Institute for
the study of the Middle East; the institute was incorporated into Tel
Aviv University in 1965. In 1983 this university established the Moshe
Dayan Center for the Middle East, which combined the Shiloah In-
stitute and documentation units dealing with the Middle East.SHILOAH INSTITUTE.See MOSHE DAYAN CENTER FOR THE
MIDDLE EAST; SHILOAH, REUVEN.SHIMONI, YA’ACOV (1915–?).Born in Berlin, Shimoni immigrated
to Palestine in 1935. He pursued Middle Eastern studies at Hebrew
University in Jerusalem. In the 1941 he joined the Information Ser-
vice. He moved to the Arab wing of the Jewish Agency’s Political
Department in 1945. After the establishment of the State of Israel in
1948, he joined the Foreign Ministry and became a senior diplomat.SHIN BET.See ISRAELI SECURITY AGENCY (ISA).SHKAKI, FATHI.On 22 January 1995 two Palestinian suicide bomb-
ings at the Bet-Lid junction near Netanya killed 21 Israelis. The Is-
lamic Jihad took responsibility for this terrorist attack. On 25 Octo-
ber 1995 the leader of the Islamic Jihad, Dr. Fathi Shkaki, was shot
and killed in Malta, allegedly by the Mossad.260 • SHILOAH INSTITUTE06-102 (04) Q-Z.qxd 3/24/06 7:26 AM Page 260