Historical Dictionary of Israeli Intelligence

rate. On the eve of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Bar-Lavi assessed cor-

rectly that King Hussein would stay out of it.

A well-known story is told about Bar-Lavi that reflects his fame as

an intelligence expert on Jordan. A few days before the start of the

Sinai Campaignin 1956, his colleagues saw him wandering miser-

ably about the corridors of Branch 3. “What’s wrong?” they asked

him. “Well,” he said, “for a few months now, the Jordanians have

been searching high and low for a case of ammunition they lost.” “So

what’s the problem?” they insisted. “The problem,” he replied, “is

that I know where the darn thing is but I’m not allowed to tell them.”

In 1974, Bar-Lavi left MI and moved to the Computer Department

of the Israel Defense Force.

BARKAN, ZE’EV WILLIAM.See NEW ZEALAND PASSPORTS.

BARNETT, RONALD.A British Jew, Ronnie Barnett worked for the

Mossad Le’Aliyah Beth, where his codename was “Boaz.” Barnett,

together with Reuven Shiloah, was asked by the Mossad Le’Aliyah

Beth in May 1951 to meet a representative of the Iraqi minister of the

interior in London and in Paris. They were then to deliver to the min-

ister bribes in the amount of £10,000 for releasing the Mossad

Le’Aliyah Beth’s agents Mordechai Ben-Poratand Yehuda Tajjar,

who had been arrested by Iraqi authorities for their activities in the il-

legal immigration of the Iraqi Jews to Israel.

BAR-SIMANTOV, YA’ACOV (?–1982).AMossadcase officer, Bar-

Simantov was shot to death on 3 April 1982 outside his home in Paris

by a group of Palestinian terrorists called the Lebanese Armed Rev-

olution. In response, the Israeli government led by Prime Minister

Menachem Begin considered launching the Pines Operation against

Palestinian terrorist bases in Lebanon. However, this operation was

not executed and instead, in June 1982, Israel initiated the Peace for

Galilee Operation.

BAR-TOV, DAVID.Bar-Tov replaced Yehuda Lapidotas director of

Nativin 1986 and was replaced in 1992 by Ya’acov Kedmi. He

served as director of Nativ when the mass Jewish immigration began

from the Soviet Union.

BAR-TOV, DAVID•35

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