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| Former chief of Mossad Dani Yatom |
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Former chief of Mossad, Dani Yatom, sounds a bitter criticism of the Israeli Government, and makes quite flattering comments about the Russian-origin billionaire Arcady Gaydamak. Police file against this businessman, as many facts show, does not impress other ex-heads of Israeli special services as well...
“I performed all relevant check-ups in order to learn what kind of person he is, and got permissions from all relevant bodies, in Israel and abroad. Till this day I keep documents that confirm that this person is absolutely clean”, Dani Yatom, former head of Israeli intelligence service, told Maariv daily last weekend, speaking of precautionary steps he had taken before establishing business relations with the Russian-origin businessman Arcady Gaydamak.
On July 2, Yatom resigned from the parliamentary faction of Avoda political party, after making a statement about finishing his political career. He sounded bitter criticism towards the Government of the Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, which “turned its own survival into ideology”. Last month, the Prime Minister managed to save his coalition due to the last-minute decision of Avoda leader, Ehud Barak, not to quit it.
“I leave the Parliament voluntarily, not because of some investigation or scandal following illegal financing (of political activity), but because I came to a conclusion that I cannot be a part of the place that drifted to a political prostitution”, Yatom told Maariv explaining his decision. Indeed, during five years of his parliamentary activity Yatom was not involved in any row, and was not suspected of any illegal action. This fact distinguished him from the majority of “people’s representatives”. And the latter were often criticizing the former intelligence chief for his excessive fidelity to principles and straightforwardness that don’t fit Israeli political reality.
Yatom also differed from the majority of Israeli politicians due to the fact that he did not attack the Russian-origin billionaire, Arcady Gaydamak, who has developed a broad philanthropic activity in Israel. “We hurry to blame Gaydamak; he makes some of us angry, because he reveals the shameful deeds of our Government. But he did the thing, which wasn’t done by the authorities”, Yatom told in November 2006, in the interview to NRG on-line edition. At that period, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense accused Gaydamak of having populist motives while evacuating civilians from the southern and the northern regions of the country that were under rocket attacks.
Dani Yatom was elected to the Parliament in 2003, after 35 years of a brilliant career in defense forces and secret services. He spent almost a decade in one of the most elite units of Israeli Army - General Staff Reconnaissance Unit (Sayeret Matkal). Later on, Yatom occupied a number of posts in the Army, one of which was – chief of Israeli Army Planning Branch, and was the Commander of Israeli Central Command. In 1993-96, he filled one of the major positions in the system of State security, being a Military Secretary of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who also headed the Ministry of Defense. Yatom actually coordinated between the Prime Minister on the one hand, and the army and secret services on the other.
In 1996-97, he headed Israeli foreign intelligence Mossad. Yatom paid special attention to the technical re-equipment of this secret service. Nor lesser effort was made by him to restore Mossad’s former positions in Africa, and the most prominent success was attained in Congo and in relations with South Africa. However, just one failure was enough to end Yatom’s brilliant career. At the and of 1997, Mossad’s servicemen didn’t succeed to carry out the liquidation of one of Hamas Palestinian Islamist organization leaders, Khaled Mashal. Moreover, the men were seized by Mashal’s bodyguards and then passed to the Jordanian counterintelligence. This led to a grave crisis in relations between Amman and Jerusalem. Yatom took the whole responsibility for the incident, and resigned from his post in February 1998.
In August of the same year, former head of Mossad founded a security consulting company, Strategic Consulting Group (SCG). His main companion was Avi Dagan, former Deputy Director of Caesarea special operations unit of Mossad, and in 1993-96 – the head of Mossad’s Tzomet branch that runs agents. For one year Dagan served in the Counterterrorism Staff of the National Security Council, after which he resigned and started his business career. At the end of 1999, former officer of military intelligence and ex-commander of Jerusalem District Police, Arie Amit, was appointed SCG’s Director General.
In January 2000, Maariv mentioned that Yatom and his companions set themselves a number of very tough rules: “not to sell arms; not to consult any private bodies; to get a permission of the Ministry of Defense for any deal to-be-signed”. Citing Yatom’s confidants, Maariv wrote: “They got dozens of commercial proposals concerning arms sales, but they rejected all of them”.
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Arcady Gaydamak |
In December 2005, Yatom told Globs economic edition that before concluding a partnership contract with Gaydamak, he made all relevant inquiries in the Police, General Security Service (SHABAK), and even in Mossad. Yatom tried to find out, whether these bodies possess any information indicating Gaydamak’s links with any foreign intelligence or making him a criminal suspect. “All of them told that he was absolutely clean, giving me ‘a green light’”, Yatom told Globs. “They performed a thorough check of his past”, one of the SCG’s confidants told Maariv daily six years earlier. Moreover, the same source claimed that “Gaydamak never tried to use Yatom’s and Dagan’s ties in the highest ranks of Israeli administration”. And during the last weekend Yatom told of his former partner: “In those several months that we were working together he fulfilled all his obligations, till the last point, and I never found him out in a lie”.
In spite of the publications that are quite frequent in Israeli mass media, citing police sources that make different allegations about Gaydamak, Yatom is not the only one out of former chiefs of Israeli special services that does not hide his ties with the billionaire. For instance, ex-chief of the General Security Service (SHABAK), Amy Ayalon, now – one of the key figures in Avoda party, met with Gaydamak for several times during the last years. It was done in an absolutely open manner, usually – in the Parliament. Ex-head of the National Security Council, Major General in reserve Giora Eiland made it even further. Last month he accepted Gaydamak’s offer to head a group of experts, which is to formulate a program for his political party, Social Justice, in what concerns the issues of foreign policy and security. These examples only demonstrate that the police investigations against the billionaire, who openly declared his political aspirations, don’t really impress the former chiefs of Israeli special services.
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