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Rafael Eitan (; 23 November 1926 – 23 March 2019) was an Israeli politician and intelligence officer. He also led Gil and served as Minister of Senior Citizens. He was in charge of the Mossad operation that led to the arrest of Adolf Eichmann. He served as an advisor on terrorism to Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and in 1981 he was appointed to head the Lekem, then an intelligence entity on par with Mossad, Aman and Shin Bet. Eitan assumed responsibility for and resigned over the Jonathan Pollard affair, and the Bureau was disbanded. He was subject to an arrest warrant issued by the United States FBI. From 1985 until 1993, he was head of the government's Chemicals company, which was expanded under his leadership. After 1993, he became a businessman, noted for several large scale agricultural and construction ventures in Cuba. He was the chairman of the Vetek (Seniority) Association – the Senior Citizens Movement.
Eitan was an avid sculptor. Over the 30 years that he sculpted, Eitan produced over 100 pieces. He had a one-man show at the offices of the high-tech company "Brown".
Eitan died at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv on 23 March 2019, at the age of 92. His funeral took place the following day. He was buried in Netanya in a civil ceremony.
During the 1947-1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine and the 1948 Arab-Israeli War Eitan served as a soldier in the Yiftach Brigade, participating in combat operations, and was wounded in combat on the day after Israeli independence was declared. He also served as an intelligence officer.
During 1964–1966, Eitan headed a two-year operation in which armaments sold and delivered by the Germans to the Egyptian government 'disappeared'. In those days, Israel had no peace treaty with Egypt.
In 1968 Eitan, posing as an Israeli Ministry of Defense chemist, visited the U.S. Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) nuclear fuel plant. It emerged that of highly enriched uranium had disappeared from the plant, and it was alleged that the material had been diverted to Israel in an operation that became known as The Apollo Affair.Jefferson Morley, The Ghost: The Secret Life of CIA Spymaster James Jesus Angleton, St. Martin's Press, 2017 pp.192.194Jefferson Morley, Rafi Eitan, spy at center of Israel’s great uranium heist from the U.S., Mondoweiss 27 March 2019
Eitan was also involved in the planning and implementation of the Operation Opera on the Osirak in June 1981. In June 1984, Eitan was responsible for an espionage operation against the United States during which he recruited Naval Intelligence Analyst Jonathan Jay Pollard to steal American intelligence material. The operation lasted eighteen months and was shut down after the arrest of Pollard, who was convicted and served 30 years of a life sentence.Mitch Gisnburg, (November 30, 2014). Peres, Rabin knew Pollard was planted in US armed forces, handler says. The Times of Israel.
Eitan continued his work in intelligence until 1972, when he left the organization and went on to the private sector, raising tropical fish and other agricultural ventures. But in 1978, the government of Menachem Begin, the then Prime Minister of Israel, called him back to be his advisor on terrorism, as Eitan was regarded and admired as one of the most respected experts in this field. In 1981, Eitan was named head of the Defense Ministry's Lekem, the Bureau for Scientific Relations, replacing Israeli spy-master Benjamin Blumberg, where he continued work on counter-terrorism. According to the British journalist, Gordon Thomas, Eitan then participated in a partnership between Israeli and U.S. intelligence during the early 1980s in selling to foreign intelligence agencies in excess of $500 million worth of licenses to a trojan horse version of the Washington, D.C.–based, Inslaw Inc.'s people-tracking software called PROMIS, in order to spy on them. In 1984, Lekem was put in touch with Jonathan Pollard, an United States citizen, who worked on anti-terrorist activities at the US Naval Investigative Services. According to Jefferson Morley, Pollard was an agent run by Eitan. Pollard had contacted the Israeli government with top secret information on the terrorist activities of Israel's enemies. Jonathan Pollard was exposed and arrested in the US in 1985. His arrest revealed the existence of Lekem to US authorities.
Also in California, a US Aerospace Engineer, Richard Kelly Smyth, the president of a company called MILCO, was indicted in 1985 for smuggling over 800 to Israel without the required US State Department ITAR. Because of their potential for use as triggers of nuclear weapons, the export of krytrons is tightly regulated in the United States. A number of cases involving the smuggling or attempted smuggling of krytrons have been reported, as countries seeking to develop nuclear weapons have attempted to procure supplies of krytrons for igniting their weapons. Just before trial, and facing a possible 105 years in prison, Richard Kelly Smyth and his wife suddenly disappeared. Sixteen years later they were discovered and arrested while living as fugitives in Málaga, Spain, and extradited back to the United States where he was convicted in the case. The krytrons shipped by Smyth were sent to an Israeli company called Heli-Trading Ltd. owned by prominent Israeli movie producer Arnon Milchan. Before his prominent Hollywood career, Milchan had served for decades as a Lekem agent, under the direct command of Eitan's predecessor, Benjamin Blumberg. It later became clear that the company MILCO served as a Lekem front company for obtaining sensitive equipment, technologies and materials for Israeli secret defense-related programs, and in particular its nuclear program.
The Israeli government asserted that the MILCO krytron incident was a simple mistake by the "exporter" MILCO, and that the Pollard operation was an unauthorized deviation from its policy of not conducting espionage in the United States, before an admission in 1998 of Israeli responsibility. In 1987 the Israeli government set up a commission to investigate Lekem's failure, which found it would be in Israel's interest to take responsibility for the Pollard case. In 1987 following the difficult Pollard and MILCO cases, the Israeli government decided to disband Lekem, whose functions were assigned to the Director of Security of the Defense Establishment, adding technical and scientific intelligence to its responsibilities which include internal investigations of the defense ministry.
Following the disbandment of Lekem, Eitan was offered the position as head of the state-owned Israel Chemicals, from which he retired in 1993 at the age of 67. During his tenure, the company underwent a rapid expansion in terms of sales, development and manpower, making it the largest government-held firm in the country. In 1998 he appeared in the documentary special The Spy Machine, produced by Open Media and Israfilm and shown on Channel 4.
Due to the success of the venture and the connections acquired, BM also won the contract to build the world trade center in Havana, and a the Holocaust Memorial at the center of the Old City of Havana. Recently, GBM was awarded the "Medal for Agricultural Work" by the Cuban government.
In addition to this deal, BM has started expanding its business deals to the rest of Latin America. It runs various agricultural projects in the Dominican Republic, among others.
In February 2010, Eitan remarked "In principle, when there is a war on terror you conduct it without principles. You simply fight it.".
In 2018 Eitan caused surprise and shock in Israel and Germany when he publicly endorsed the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. He said: “Please understand that all of us in Israel appreciate your attitude toward Judaism. In any case, I’m sure that if you work wisely strongly and most important realistically… I’m sure that instead of ‘Alternative for Germany,’ you might become an alternative for all of Europe.” Jeremy Issacharoff, Israel’s Ambassador to Germany, wrote: “It is hard to believe how the person who captured Eichmann … is able to praise German right-wingers who so admire the Nazi past and wish on us that they become the alternative of Europe! Sad and shameful.”
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