Middle Israel: Roman Gofman's Mossad successes will be measured by Barnea's failures - opinion

The article delves into the storied history of Israel's Mossad, tracing its origins to the "Mossad (Institution) for Aliya B" established in April 1939. Initially tasked with circumventing British immigration bans to Palestine by illegally shipping prospective Jewish immigrants, the network's early operations were cut short by World War II. Despite this interruption, these formative months laid the groundwork for what would become one of the world's most renowned intelligence agencies.

Following the war, the Mossad resurfaced with a mission to rescue Holocaust survivors, airlifting and sealifting over 260,000 Jews from Europe, Yemen, and Iraq. Its focus soon shifted to hardcore espionage, penetrating enemy territories, gathering intelligence on foreign armies, and hunting down Nazi war criminals. Leveraging Israel's diverse immigrant population, the agency successfully infiltrated the Arab world and the Eastern Bloc.

The Mossad's global reach became evident in 1956 when it obtained Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's secret speech denouncing Joseph Stalin's crimes. A decade later, the agency stunned the world by capturing Adolf Eichmann in Argentina and smuggling him to Israel. The intelligence gathered by daring agents, such as Eli Cohen, significantly aided the IDF's victory in the 1967 Six Day War.

However, the Mossad's history is also marked by failures. It failed to anticipate the Yom Kippur War's outbreak in 1973 and mistakenly killed an innocent Moroccan waiter while pursuing perpetrators of the Munich Massacre. In 1997, an attempted assassination of Hamas leader Khaled Mashal was botched. The article notes that the Mossad's tasks have evolved significantly, with its primary focus in the 21st century shifting to countering Iran's nuclear program, a mission intensified under former director Meir Dagan.