Minister Golda Meir and Defense Minister Moshe Dayan on the like-
lihood of the outbreak of war. Zamir’s assessment was different from
that of the director of the Military Intelligence. In April 1973, at a
cabinet meeting in the prime minister’s private residence, Zamir as-
sessed that the preconditions for the start of a war on the part of
Egypt were coming into being.
Following King Hussein’s warningto Meir on 25 September 1973,
Zamir again assessed that a war was imminent. He described to Meir the
situation on Israel’s front lines and stated that the IDF was unprepared
to respond if war started. On 5 October 1973 at 2:30 A.M., Zamir took a
phone call from his case officer in London: Marwan Ashraf, the Top
Source of the Mossad, wanted to meet Zamir in London in person. At
the London meeting, held on the evening of that day, Ashraf gave Za-
mir concrete warning that the war was going to start according to the
Egyptian war plans, which were known to Israeli intelligence. However,
Ashraf modified his warning and said that Egyptian president Anwar
Sadat was in a mood to wage a war.
After resigning from the Mossad, Zamir was appointed to manage
Israel Oil Refineries in 1975 and then was appointed chairman of the
board of this company. In 1990 he was made chairman of the board
of the Oil and Energy Institute. He served in this position until 2000.ZE’EVI, AHARON (1948– ).Born in Romania and also known also
as Farkash, Ze’evi immigrated to Israel in 1962 and was drafted in
1966 into the Israel Air Force as a pilot cadet; eventually he served
in the Air Intelligence Squadron. Ze’evi held various commands in
the Intelligence Corps of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in a lengthy
career. He commanded the Central Warning Unit, known as Unit
8200 (1990–1993). Thereafter he held various general staff appoint-
ments, including assistant head of the Planning and Policy Direc-
torate (1993–1996) and deputy head of the Planning and Policy Di-
rectorate (1996–1998). In 1998 Ze’evi was appointed head of the
Technology and Logistics Directorate with a promotion to major gen-
eral. He served in this position until 2001, when he was appointed di-
rector of Military Intelligence(DMI), succeeding Major General
Amos Malka. He held this position until 2005 and was followed by
Major General Amos Yadlin.
Ze’evi earned his B.A. in Middle Eastern studies (1976) and his M.A.
in the history of the Middle East (1980) from Tel Aviv University. HisZE’EVI, AHARON• 32906-102 (04) Q-Z.qxd 3/24/06 7:26 AM Page 329