Efraim Halevi
| Efraim Halevi | |
|---|---|
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| Born | 2 December 1934 London |
| Died | |
| Nationality | Israeli |
| Residence | |
| Occupation | Intelligence officer |
| Known for | Director of Mossad, 1998–2002; client-screening chair at Black Cube |
| Parents | |
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| Predecessor | |
| Website | |
Efraim Halevi (also spelled Halevy, born 2 December 1934) was Director of Mossad from 1998 to 2002. He is a nephew of Sir Isaiah Berlin. The Sunday Times called him the “cocktail man,” for long talks with foreign diplomats, and said he shrank from brutal covert operations. Ariel Sharon removed him and appointed Meir Dagan. In November 2018 he joined the board of Black Cube, to head the committee that screens clients. In 2019 he told American reporters that the firm had stopped politically directed work after Romania in 2016.[1][2]
Mossad
He was born in London and moved to Israel in 1948. He joined Mossad in 1961. From 1996 to 1998 he was ambassador to the European Union. He took the agency in 1998, a civilian appointment, in succession to Danny Yatom. Yossi Melman, writing at the time, treated the choice as a break with the operational chiefs. The Sunday Times contrast with Dagan is the one that stuck: Halevi talked, Dagan ran operations, and Sharon preferred the latter. After Mossad he was Sharon’s national security adviser for a short period, and then left government. Dagan, his successor, later became honorary president of Black Cube, and died in 2016. Halevi joined the firm two years after that.[1][3][4]
Black Cube
Ynet reported on 12 November 2018 that he would sit on the board, head the client-screening committee, and advise on operations and intelligence. The stated reason was to stop further scandals. The scandals named were the Romania arrests, an impersonation aimed at a judge in Canada, and the collection of information on former officials of the Obama administration. A source involved in the recruitment said the company regretted, after the fact, having taken Harvey Weinstein. Clients were to be sorted green, yellow and red: unproblematic, questionable, and refused. Yellow cases would go to the committee he was to chair.[2]
In a 2019 interview he defended the use of false identities. Documents, he said, were becoming less prevalent, and the evidence was in human sources. Creating “virtual” situations had to be done legally. He said the firm had worked on 300 cases since 2010, had to turn clients away, and objected to the label “private Mossad,” because the work was business rather than political espionage. He said the board now rejected clients convicted of crimes, involved in illegal practices, or asking the firm to break the law. He said the Romania job was the only time the firm had worked for a politically motivated client, and that it now expressly did not work for any government or on any politically directed case.[5]
The promise can be tested against later reporting. In 2024 Intelligence Online reported that the firm had been hired by the Huts family, owners of Katoen Natie, and had moved from a dispute with a rival terminal operator in Montevideo to recording members of Uruguay’s Broad Front ahead of the election that Yamandú Orsi won. The firm, through an English law firm, denied political investigations in Uruguay or Paraguay and cited client confidentiality. Halevy had said in 2019 that politically directed work stopped in 2016. The Uruguay account, if it stands, is eight years after that.[6]
Publications
- Iran’s Achilles’ Heel, New York Times, 7 February 2012.
- Israel needs a Gaza strategy more than war, Financial Times, 18 November 2012.
Resources
- Jasmin Ramsay, Former Mossad Chief: Nuclear Iran Not Existential Threat, Lobelog, 1 September 2012.
- Laura Rozen, Former Israeli Spymaster: We Need To Talk to Iran, Al-Monitor, 21 October 2012.
See also
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Uzi Mahnaimi, Meir Dagan: the mastermind behind Mossad's secret war, Sunday Times, 21 February 2010.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Ronen Bergman, Former Mossad chief joins Black Cube, Ynet, 12 November 2018.
- ↑ About Us – Directors, Mossad, accessed 4 August 2009.
- ↑ Yossi Melman, A Civilian Takes on the Mossad, Los Angeles Times, 8 March 1998.
- ↑ Interview with Efraim Halevy, reported June 2019, summarised at Elite Trader.
- ↑ Matt Bernardini and Michael Sweeney, Intelligence Online, 2024, on Black Cube, the Huts family and the Uruguayan election.