Tzipi Livni
Israeli Foreign Minister. The Sunday Times claimed in June 2008 that she is a former Mossad agent.
Irgun background
- Both her parents were arrested for terrorist crimes in the 1940s. Her mother Sarah, who died recently aged 85, was a leader of Irgun, the militant Zionist group that operated in Palestine at the time of the British mandate and whose exploits included train robbery.
- “I was disguised as a pregnant woman and robbed a train carrying £35,000,” she said in an interview shortly before she died. “Then we blew up another train en route from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv.”
- Livni’s father, Eitan, was sentenced to 15 years in jail for attacking a British military base. He escaped.[1]
Mossad career
- Livni joined Mossad after leaving the army with the rank of lieutenant and completing a year at law school. From her base in Paris she travelled throughout Europe in pursuit of Arab terrorists.
- “Tzipi was not an office girl,” said an acquaintance. “She was a clever woman with an IQ of 150. She blended in well in European capitals, working with male agents, most of them ex-commandos, taking out Arab terrorists.” [2]
- The frontrunner to become Israel’s next prime minister, Tzipi Livni, was a Paris agent for Mossad, Israel’s overseas intelligence agency, in the early 1980s when it ran a series of missions to kill Palestinian terrorists in European capitals, according to former colleagues.
- They say Livni, now foreign minister, was on active service when Mamoun Meraish, a senior official in the Palestine Liberation Organisation, was shot dead by a Mossad hit squad in Athens on August 21, 1983. She was not directly involved in the killing, in which two young men on a motorcycle drew alongside Meraish’s car and opened fire, but her role in Mossad remains secret.
- Shortly afterwards Livni resigned and returned to Israel to complete her law studies, citing the pressures of the job.[3]
Following the Sunday Times report, the Israeli Website Ynetnews stated: "Livni’s past as a Mossad agent is a well-known fact, but the ‘Times’ adds a few other details that have never been published."[4]
An interview published in 2009 revealed Livni had been a member of Mossad's Bayonet 'hit squad' for four years, and had travelled to Lebanon on an undercover mission during the 1982 Israeli invasion.[5]
Cancelled UK visit
in December 2009, Livni cancelled a visit to Britain after an arrest warrant was issued because of her role as Foreign Minister during Operation Cast Lead.[6]
External resources
- Ben White, A very special mission, The Staggers, new statesman.com, 8 October 2011.
- Livni: A lawyer 'against law'?, aljazeera.com, 24 January 2011.
References
- ↑ Tzipi Livni: terrorist-hunter secret of woman tipped to lead Israel, by Uzi Mahnaimi. Sunday Times, 1 June 2008.
- ↑ Tzipi Livni: terrorist-hunter secret of woman tipped to lead Israel, by Uzi Mahnaimi. Sunday Times, 1 June 2008.
- ↑ Tzipi Livni: terrorist-hunter secret of woman tipped to lead Israel, by Uzi Mahnaimi. Sunday Times, 1 June 2008.
- ↑ Agent Livni makes British headlines, Ynetnews, 1 June 2008.
- ↑ Uzi Mahnaimi, Looking for love: Livni the lonely spy, Sunday Times, 15 February 2009.
- ↑ IDF spokesperson: I traveled to UK under a false name, jpost.com, 3 January 2011.
