Ben-Barka’s slaying but would help to set the trap for him. On 29 Oc-
tober 1965 a Mossad agent persuaded Ben-Barka to leave Geneva for
a meeting with a “film producer” in Paris. Just outside a brasserie on
the Seine’s Left Bank, three French security officers, cooperating
with the Moroccans, arrested Ben-Barka. On the evening of 30 Oc-
tober 1965 Ben-Barka was shot to death by Oufkir or one of his Mo-
roccan agents. An investigation indicated that Ben-Barka’s abductors
acted with the complicity, if not the encouragement, of top officials
of the French Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Es-
pionnage (SDECE).BEN-DAVID, MOSHE (1952– ).A former senior Mossad officer,
known by his nickname Mishka. In his national service in the Israel
Defense Forces, Ben-David served in signals intelligence with Unit
8200 at the Mount Hermon position. After demobilization, he studied
literature and philosophy, eventually earning a Ph.D. Ben-David then
joined the Mossad’s Kidon subunit and was engaged in clandestine
activities, collecting information and as a case officer of Mossad op-
eratives on secret missions to Arab countries.
In September 1997 Ben-David was based in the Jordanian capital
Amman. During the Khaled Mash’al Fiasco, he was in possession
of an antidote to the toxin with which colleagues from his unit tried
to kill Sheikh Khaled Mash’al, in case one of his colleagues was ac-
cidentally poisoned by the toxin. Following the failed attempt to kill
Mash’al and the capture of two of his colleagues by the Jordanian po-
lice, Israel was required to deliver the antidote forthwith. After hasty
contact between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and King Hus-
sein of Jordan, the Mossad director, Danny Yatom, flew to Jordan in
an attempt to appease the king. It was agreed that a Jordanian officer
would collect the antidote from Ben-David in the lobby of the latter’s
Amman hotel. Ben-David stood beside the Jordanian doctor when
she injected the antidote into Mash’al. Ben-David, who was in Jor-
dan under an assumed name, planned to return to Israel on a com-
mercial flight, but following the fiasco it was decided that he would
return in Yatom’s personal airplane.
Soon after this incident, Ben-David resigned from the Mossad and
became a writer. In an interview he maintained that clandestine assas-
sination thereafter constituted a minor part of the Mossad’s activities.BEN-DAVID, MOSHE•3906-102 (02) A-G.qxd 3/24/06 7:23 AM Page 39