Historical Dictionary of Israeli Intelligence

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adherence to a mistaken Concept, namely, that Egypt would not
attempt a war without a strong air force, which was not available
in late 1973. Additionally, the senior echelons of the IDF assumed
there would be sufficient advance warning to preclude any sur-
prise. The commission also criticized the army’s state of alertness
before the war.
In the area of organization, the Agranat Commission recom-
mended, among other things, the elimination of MI’s monopoly on
the evaluation of intelligence and the establishment of so-called
pluralism in the various types of intelligence evaluations. As a con-
sequence of the interim report’s recommendation, a small research
department was set up in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs with the
aim of producing “independent political-strategic intelligence”
evaluations, and a large research department was established in the
Mossad. The commission also reiterated a recommendation made
by the Yadin-Sherf Commission (1963) that the government
should appoint an adviser to the prime minister on intelligence af-
fairs, who with a small, highly skilled staff would be able to assess
the assessors independently. This recommendation was not imple-
mented.

AHARONI, ZVI.Born in Germany as Herman Arendt, before World
War II Aharoni immigrated to Palestine and lived in a kibbutz. Dur-
ing the war he served in the British army as interrogator of prisoners
of war captured in the Middle East, and after the end of hostilities he
served in a similar position in liberated Europe. After the establish-
ment of the State of Israel in May 1948, Aharoni joined the Israeli
Security Agency(ISA) and served as an interrogator and head of the
ISA interrogation unit (1950–1960). In 1958 he attended the Reid
School in Chicago, where he studied interrogation techniques. Dur-
ing the operation for Eichmann’s Capturein 1960, Aharoni was
seconded to the Mossadand led the operation in Argentina. He also
attempted to trace the Nazi criminal Joseph Mengele, but the latter
died peacefully in Brazil in 1985.

AHITUV, AVRAHAM (1930– ). Born in Germany, Ahituv immi-
grated with his parents to Palestine in 1935 with a massive wave of
German-Jewish immigration. Ahituv joined the Israeli Security

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