Meir Dagan
Encyclopedia
Meir Dagan is a former Israel Defense Forces
Israel Defense Forces
The Israel Defense Forces , commonly known in Israel by the Hebrew acronym Tzahal , are the military forces of the State of Israel. They consist of the ground forces, air force and navy. It is the sole military wing of the Israeli security forces, and has no civilian jurisdiction within Israel...

 officer and former Director of the Mossad
Mossad
The Mossad , short for HaMossad leModi'in uleTafkidim Meyuchadim , is the national intelligence agency of Israel....

 (replaced by Tamir Pardo
Tamir Pardo
Tamir Pardo , is the current Director of the Mossad, taking over the role from Meir Dagan on 1 January 2011. The appointment was announced by Israeli prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on November 29, 2010....

 on January 1, 2011).

Biography

Dagan was born Meir Huberman to parents from Novosibirsk
Novosibirsk
Novosibirsk is the third-largest city in Russia, after Moscow and Saint Petersburg, and the largest city of Siberia, with a population of 1,473,737 . It is the administrative center of Novosibirsk Oblast as well as of the Siberian Federal District...

, USSR
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

. He was born on a train being used by the Nazis to deport Jews to concentration camps in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

. His maternal grandfather, Ber Erlich Sloshny, was killed by German soldiers during the Holocaust. On Israeli Independence Day in 2009, the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth
Yedioth Ahronoth
Yedioth Ahronoth is a daily newspaper published in Tel Aviv, Israel. Since the 1970s, it has been the most widely circulated paper in Israel. In a TGI survey comparing the last half of 2009 with the same period in 2008, Yedioth Ahronoth retained the title of most widely read newspaper in Israel...

published two photos of Nazi soldiers standing next to a kneeling Sloshny shortly before he was killed. During his term as Director of the Mossad, Dagan kept one of the photographs in hanging his office. In 1950, Meir and his family made aliyah
Aliyah
Aliyah is the immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel . It is a basic tenet of Zionist ideology. The opposite action, emigration from Israel, is referred to as yerida . The return to the Holy Land has been a Jewish aspiration since the Babylonian exile...

 to Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

.

During the 1967 Six-Day War
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War , also known as the June War, 1967 Arab-Israeli War, or Third Arab-Israeli War, was fought between June 5 and 10, 1967, by Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt , Jordan, and Syria...

, Dagan served as an officer in the Paratroopers Brigade. In the early 1970s, Dagan commanded a temporarily-formed undercover commando unit, known as Sayeret Rimon, whose task was to combat the increasing insurgent violence in the Palestinian territories
Palestinian territories
The Palestinian territories comprise the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Since the Palestinian Declaration of Independence in 1988, the region is today recognized by three-quarters of the world's countries as the State of Palestine or simply Palestine, although this status is not recognized by the...

. He received a Medal of Courage
Medal of Courage
The Medal of Courage is an Israeli military decoration. The medal is awarded for carrying out acts of gallantry at the risk of life, during combat duty. The medal was established in 1970 by act of law in the Knesset....

 for disarming a terrorist in 1971. Dagan later fought in the Yom Kippur War
Yom Kippur War
The Yom Kippur War, Ramadan War or October War , also known as the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and the Fourth Arab-Israeli War, was fought from October 6 to 25, 1973, between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria...

. During the 1982 Lebanon War
1982 Lebanon War
The 1982 Lebanon War , , called Operation Peace for Galilee by Israel, and later known in Israel as the Lebanon War and First Lebanon War, began on 6 June 1982, when the Israel Defense Forces invaded southern Lebanon...

, he commanded an armored brigade.

Dagan was appointed Director of the Mossad by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
Ariel Sharon
Ariel Sharon is an Israeli statesman and retired general, who served as Israel’s 11th Prime Minister. He has been in a permanent vegetative state since suffering a stroke on 4 January 2006....

 in August 2002, replacing outgoing Director Ephraim Halevy
Ephraim Halevy
Efraim Halevy is a lawyer and an Israeli intelligence expert. He was the ninth director of Mossad and the 4th head of the Israeli National Security Council.Above all, he is remembered for his part in bringing about the peace treaty with Jordan...

. He was reconfirmed until the end of 2008 by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
Ehud Olmert
Ehud Olmert is an Israeli politician and lawyer. He served as Prime Minister of Israel from 2006 to 2009, as a Cabinet Minister from 1988 to 1992 and from 2003 to 2006, and as Mayor of Jerusalem from 1993 to 2003....

 in February 2007, and in June 2008 Olmert again extended his tenure until the end of 2009.

In mid 2007 Dagan had a "spat with the Deputy Director N, who was thought to be a candidate for replacing Dagan in late 2008. Dagan restored his former deputy T to the post and Dagan was thought likely to recommend T as his replacement.

He was re-appointed in 2009 by Netanyahu to serve until the end of 2010. In January 2010, the Mossad allegedly assassinated
Assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh
The assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, took place on January 19, 2010, in a Dubai hotel room. Al-Mabhouh—a co-founder of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Islamist Palestinian militant group Hamas—was wanted by the Israeli government for the kidnapping and murder of two...

 Hamas
Hamas
Hamas is the Palestinian Sunni Islamic or Islamist political party that governs the Gaza Strip. Hamas also has a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades...

 commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh
Mahmoud al-Mabhouh
Mahmoud Abdel Rauf al-Mabhouh was a senior Hamas military commander and one of the founders of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military affiliate of Hamas...

 in Dubai
Dubai
Dubai is a city and emirate in the United Arab Emirates . The emirate is located south of the Persian Gulf on the Arabian Peninsula and has the largest population with the second-largest land territory by area of all the emirates, after Abu Dhabi...

. The Dubai Police
Dubai Police Force
The Dubai Police Force is the 15,000 strong police force for the city of Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. They come under the jurisdiction of the Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE , and they cover an area of 4,114 square kilometres and a population of 1,321,453 people.-History:The...

 identified it as a murder, and the culprit as the Mossad. Israel also faced international criticism for allegedly forging European passports, and a Dubai arrest warrant was issued for Dagan. In June 2010 a report from Channel 2
Channel 2 (Israel)
Channel 2 is an Israeli commercial television channel.- History :In 1990, after 13 years of deliberations, the Knesset passed a law that paved the way for the establishment of commercial television in Israel. The goal was to enhance pluralism and create competition. Channel 2 began broadcasting on...

 stated that Netanyahu had denied a request by Dagan for another year as Mossad director, though this was quickly denied by the Prime Minister's Office. In November 2010, Tamir Pardo
Tamir Pardo
Tamir Pardo , is the current Director of the Mossad, taking over the role from Meir Dagan on 1 January 2011. The appointment was announced by Israeli prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on November 29, 2010....

 was announced as his replacement.

Following his departure from his post as Director of the Mossad, Dagan made several controversial public statements concerning the prudence of an Israeli military attack on Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

's nuclear facilties. He has asserted that such an attack would be “a stupid idea...The regional challenge that Israel would face (following such an attack) would be impossible". He was quoted in the media as saying that he has decided to speak out because with his retirement, as well as with the recent retirement of both Chief of General Staff Gabi Ashkenazi
Gabi Ashkenazi
Gavriel "Gabi" Ashkenazi , was the Chief of General Staff of the Israel Defence Forces from 2007 to 2011.- Background and early life :...

 and Shin Bet Director Yuval Diskin
Yuval Diskin
Yuval Diskin was the 12th Director of Shabak .In the Israel Defense Forces, Diskin served as deputy company commander of Sayeret Shaked . In 1978, he was recruited to the Shabak and served as area coordinator for the Nablus district...

, “there is no one to stop Bibi [Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] and Barak [Defense Minister Ehud Barak].” Dagan was quoted as saying that when he was in office he, Diskin and Ashkenazi could “block any dangerous adventure." In response to these criticisms, the Prime Minister's Office revoked Dagan's diplomatic passport, which ex-officials customarily are allowed to keep up until expiration.

As of 2011, Dagan serves as the director of the Israel Ports Company. In 2011 he was also appointed chairman of Gulliver Energy Ltd. (TASE
Tel Aviv Stock Exchange
The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange in Tel Aviv is Israel's only stock exchange.The TASE is the only public market for trading securities in Israel. It plays a major role in the Israeli economy....

:GLVR), which announced that it intends to mine uranium at a license in the Dead Sea area.

Dagan is a vegetarian and an amateur painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

, who studied painting and sculpture at the Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv University is a public university located in Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel. With nearly 30,000 students, TAU is Israel's largest university.-History:...

.
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