Military Intelligence Directorate (Israel)


The Israeli Military Intelligence, often abbreviated to Aman, is the central, overarching military intelligence body of the Israel Defense Forces. Aman was created in 1950, when the Intelligence Department was spun off from the IDF's General Staff. The Intelligence Department was composed largely of former members of the Haganah Intelligence Service. Aman is an independent service, and not part of the ground forces, Navy or the Air Force.
It is one of the main entities and the largest component of the Israeli Intelligence Community, along with Mossad and Shin Bet. It includes the cyber warfare branch Unit 8200, the human intelligence Unit 504, the secret technology Unit 81, and the training course Havatzalot Program. Its special operations are conducted by the General Staff Reconnaissance Unit.

Roles and jurisdiction

The IDF's Intelligence Corps, abbreviated as Haman and headed by a brigadier general, has been detached from Aman since the Yom Kippur War, but remains under its jurisdiction.
In April 2000, the Combat Intelligence Collection Corps was founded. Abbreviated as Modash, it is the newest IDF corps, and the IDF's fifth land corps. It was designed to fulfill some of Aman's former combat intelligence functions, and is headed by a Brigadier General. Although it falls under the operational jurisdiction of the GOC Army Headquarters, it also falls under Aman's professional jurisdiction.

History

During the founding of the state of Israel, the Haganah military organization was primarily responsible for gathering intelligence, or one of its elite units, the Scherut Jediot, or Shai.
Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion commissioned the Shai in the late 1940s to create a secret service structure for Israel. Shai member Re’uwen Schiloach established it based on four independent services: Aman and Schin Bet, the foreign intelligence service Machleket Hacheker, and the Institute for Illegal Immigration Mossad le-Alija Bet.
In mid-1949 Shiloah created the Committee of Secret Service chiefs as a super-ordinate body. From 1963 the international secret service was officially called "Institute for Intelligence Service and Special Tasks".
An offshoot of the Department of Defense was the lesser-known Lakam technology intelligence agency, the existence of which was a state secret. It was used to obtain scientific and technological information. In the 1980s, Lakam lost much of its previous importance.
One of the biggest defeats of the Israeli secret services was caused by Aman in the 1950s. Defense Minister Pinhas Lavon had to resign amidst the outbreak of what became known as the Lavon affair. Aman-led "Operation Susannah" was intended to attack western facilities in Egypt by Israeli agents and saboteurs. The aim was to disrupt the good ties between the United States and the Egyptian head of state, Gamal Abdel Nasser. Egypt's State Security interrogated the perpetrators and were given sensitive information from the Israeli Military Intelligence.
The US was supposed to believe that the Egyptian state is powerless against religious organizations but Egypt managed to uncover the agents. Ten members were tried in January 1955, two of them sentenced to death. Lavon resigned a month later, followed by Binyamin Gibli, then Aman's director, two weeks later. Ultimately, the Head of State Ben-Gurion resigned in 1963, worn down by the ongoing controversy.

Units

Aman consists of the following subordinate and professionally subordinate units:

Staff units

The head of Aman is the senior intelligence officer in the IDF and engages in intelligence decision and policy-making at the same level as the heads of the Shabak and the Mossad: together, they form the three highest-ranking, co-equal heads of the Israeli Intelligence Community, focusing on the military, domestic, and foreign intelligence fronts respectively.
In June 2005, then-IDF's Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Dan Halutz, in a move viewed as surprising, announced that Major General Aharon Zeevi-Farkash would be replaced by Major General Amos Yadlin. Yadlin, who had been serving as the IDF's military attaché in Washington, D.C., was a combat pilot, former head of the air force's Air Intelligence Directorate, and Halutz's deputy. Yadlin was appointed as Aman Director in January 2006, with Zeevi-Farkash having served an extended term. In November 2010, Yadlin was replaced by Major General Aviv Kochavi.
★ Later promoted to General Staff (Israel)|Chief of the General Staff]