Carmi Gillon

Carmi Gillon was born in 1950 in Jerusalem, into a family of lawyers.[1] He began his military service in the armored corps before transferring to the artillery corps.[2] During the War of Attrition, he was lightly wounded by Egyptian shelling.[2] He later served in Sinai and beyond the Suez Canal during the Yom Kippur War.[3]

After leaving the army in 1971, Gillon studied political science and public administration at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, initially hoping to become a journalist.[1][3] He later recalled being approached in the university cafeteria and offered work in a secret security organization, redirecting his career.[3] He joined the Shin Bet in 1972 while still a student.[2]

Gillon joined the Israel Security Agency (ISA), commonly known as the Shin Bet, in 1972 and began his career in protective security while completing his university studies.[2][4] He subsequently advanced through operational and headquarters positions over more than two decades.

An early overseas posting placed him in Tehran in 1978, shortly before the Iranian Revolution, as a security officer for the Israeli delegation.[5] During an Ashura procession that became an angry demonstration against the Shah's regime, a crowd attacked the El Al office and smashed its reinforced glass. Gillon and the other security guards fled to the roof.[5] He later recalled: "We saw death before our eyes when the traditional Ashura procession turned into a demonstration of rage against the Shah's regime."[5]

After a security mission in Paris, Gillon was placed in charge in 1982 of a small unit dealing with attacks against mayors in the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria. The unit formed the basis of the Shin Bet's Jewish Department.[5] While leading the department, he tracked members of the Jewish Underground and helped uncover a plan to blow up five buses during rush hour on the Ramallah–Jerusalem route.[4] During the questioning of underground leader Yehuda Etzion, the department also uncovered a plan to blow up the Dome of the Rock.[4]

A defining operational success came in February 1983 with the capture of Yona Avroshemi, who had killed Peace Now activist Emil Grunzweig by throwing a grenade at a protest.[5][2] The department also exposed the broader Jewish Underground network during Gillon's tenure.[2]

Gillon left the Jewish Department in 1987 to study at the National Security College.[1] He subsequently served as head of the Training Division in 1989, head of the Northern Command responsible for ISA activity in Lebanon from 1990 to 1993, and head of the Administrative Division in 1993, overseeing human resources, finances, and logistics.[1] A separate profile likewise records his leadership of the Shin Bet's Northern District from 1990 to 1993.[2]

In 1994, while Director Yaakov Peri was on academic leave, Gillon served as acting director for four months.[6] He was formally appointed director in 1995, with Globes and Maariv placing the appointment in March and a later Mako account giving April.[6][4] His formal directorship lasted less than a year and ended in February 1996.[6]

Gillon's tenure as Shin Bet director coincided with the implementation of the Oslo Accords, Hamas terrorist attacks, and an increasingly bitter domestic political climate that included incitement against Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.[4]

Gillon has said that he recognized and acted on warnings about political violence before the assassination. He recalled meeting opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu in August 1995, with Rabin's authorization, to warn that speeches at Zion Square could be interpreted as incitement and that the Shin Bet had identified a worsening threat.[4] He also said that he raised concerns with Ariel Sharon, Yesha Council leaders, and rabbis, but that his warnings were dismissed.[7] In a 2004 interview, he described the danger as coming from people who might believe that killing a prime minister would stop a political process, and said that ideological and religious motives informed such actions.[8]

On November 4, 1995, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was shot after leaving a peace rally at Kings of Israel Plaza in Tel Aviv and died from his wounds.[9][10] The assassin was Yigal Amir, a right-wing extremist opposed to the Oslo process.[9] Gillon was in Paris on a work assignment and returned to Israel after learning that Rabin had been shot.[4]

The killing represented a catastrophic failure of the Shin Bet's responsibility to protect the prime minister.[11] Gillon appointed an internal committee immediately after the assassination; it delivered preliminary findings and conclusions within three days.[1] When he presented the findings to acting Prime Minister Shimon Peres, he also submitted his resignation and accepted responsibility for the failure.[1] Peres initially refused to accept the resignation, and Gillon remained in office until the operation against Hamas bomb-maker Yahya Ayyash was completed.[4] He formally left office in February 1996 and was replaced by Ami Ayalon.[6][11]

In a 2005 interview, Gillon said he was abroad when Rabin was murdered, hurried back, and resigned before he could be fired.[12] He said Amir "should have died that night after firing the first shot, definitely after the second," and called the guards' failure to neutralize him a security failure.[12] He argued that Amir's survival allowed him to become a symbol for the radical right.[12]

The Shamgar Commission, headed by Justice Meir Shamgar, heard 72 witnesses across 61 meetings and produced a 6,385-page report issued on March 28, 1996.[10] It criticized the Shin Bet for ignoring the threat from Jewish extremists and allowing the prime minister to be placed at risk.[9] The Commission concluded that the murder was made possible by inadequate cooperation among the security agencies responsible for public events. It specifically criticized the GSS security division's failure to assess intelligence adequately and to convey the threat posed by a Jewish assailant to bodyguards.[10]

The Commission also identified failures in the planning and inspection of the parking area where Rabin was shot.[10] Its recommendations included reassessing cooperation procedures between the Israel Police and GSS and doubling the personnel of the VIP Protection Unit. It found no basis for conspiracy arguments about the assassination.[10]

Gillon holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Public Administration from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a Master of Arts from the University of Haifa.[13] He graduated from the National Defense College and Harvard Business School's Advanced Management Program, and also took courses in management and public administration at Harvard Kennedy School.[13]

In an October 1997 interview before assuming the leadership of Avner Insurance, Gillon described himself as holding a master's degree in political science and public administration and as a graduate of Harvard Business School.[6]

After leaving the Shin Bet, Gillon moved into roles in the private sector, diplomacy, municipal government, and academia. He served as CEO of the Avner Insurance Corporation from 1997 to 2000.[13] He was selected for the position in October 1997, replacing Yehuda Wilk, and was scheduled to begin on November 15. He left his active chairmanship of Tahal Group, an international engineering concern, to take the post.[6]

From 2000 to 2001, Gillon served as CEO of the Peres Peace Center.[13] Foreign Minister Shimon Peres subsequently appointed him as Israel's ambassador to Denmark, a post he held from 2001 to 2003.[13][14] His appointment generated controversy in Denmark. Responding to a left-wing opposition party's question about the UN Convention against Torture, Denmark's justice minister said there could be no exceptions to the convention; Danish commentators interpreted the statement as suggesting that diplomatic immunity might not protect Gillon from arrest.[15] Peres defended the appointment and challenged what he described as a double standard.[15]

On returning from diplomatic service, Gillon entered municipal politics, serving as mayor of Mevasseret Zion from 2003 to 2007.[13] In 2006, while still heading the local council, he joined the Kadima party, citing its "realistic-pragmatic" political line and its social and educational platform. He said that he did not intend to stand for the Knesset.[16]

From 2007 to 2013, Gillon served as vice president for external relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.[13] In that role, he led fundraising efforts and raised hundreds of millions of dollars for research.[17] He subsequently chaired the cybersecurity startup Cytegic, which he said he joined after a chance conversation with an investor on a flight from Eilat to Tel Aviv.[17]

Gillon also served on the boards of Dankner Investments, Clal Investments, and Arab-Israel Bank, and chaired the board of Tahal Group.[13] His nonprofit and public-sector board service included Variety Israel, Friends of the Israel Firefighters, B'nai B'rith Israel, the Israel Intelligence Heritage and Commemoration Center, and the Council for Peace and Security.[13]

Gillon published a Hebrew-language memoir, Shin Bet Between the Cracks (שב״כ בין הקרעים), edited by Rami Tal and published by Mishkal in Tel Aviv in 2000 at 463 pages.[18] The book examines tensions within Israeli democracy — between right and left, religious and secular, and Jews and Arabs — and discusses the balance between security needs and a democratic, humanistic outlook.[18] Its subjects include the Jewish Underground, the Bus 300 affair, Shin Bet agent Avishai Raviv, the agency's efforts against Islamist terrorism during peace negotiations, the kidnapping of Nachshon Wachsman, and the death of Yahya Ayyash.[18]

Gillon has written articles on state and security affairs for Israeli and international media, notably The New York Times and Yediot Aharonot, and has appeared as a television and radio commentator in Israel and abroad.[13] During the peace process, he warned that Yasir Arafat's ability to keep jailing terrorists while retaining credibility among Palestinians depended on Israel delivering an agreed withdrawal. He cautioned that continued deadlock would benefit "the fanatics of Hamas."[19]

In a 2004 interview, Gillon criticized Israeli targeted-killing practices, arguing that the military's trigger finger was too quick and that less precise operations resulted in civilian deaths.[8] He contrasted what he characterized as the more restrained methods used before 2000 with later practices, and said: "I have no problem with a targeted killing, as long as it is targeted."[8]

In January 2001, Gillon and former Police Commissioner Assaf Hefetz sent Prime Minister Ehud Barak a letter warning of security threats to the Temple Mount from Jewish messianic groups. The Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs reports that they cautioned such an action could lead to catastrophic events.[20]

Gillon participated in the 2012 documentary film The Gatekeepers, which brought together six former heads of the Israeli Security Service.[13] The film was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 85th Academy Awards and received awards at other international festivals.[13]

Gillon's career traversed a broad institutional arc — from protective security officer to agency director, from ambassador to municipal mayor, and from university fundraiser to cybersecurity board chairman. His public commentary has kept him prominent in Israeli discussions of security, democracy, and the consequences of the Rabin assassination.

Within the history of the Shin Bet, Gillon is associated both with operational achievements — particularly the exposure of the Jewish Underground and the capture of Emil Grunzweig's killer — and with the security failure that ended his directorship.[2][5] His acceptance of responsibility and resignation have been cited as an example of a security chief taking public responsibility for organizational performance rather than departing over a disagreement with political superiors.[21]

His participation in The Gatekeepers brought his reflections on the agency's history and methods to an international audience.[13] The film's Academy Award nomination gave those reflections unusual reach beyond Israeli public discourse.

Through board memberships spanning the Israel Intelligence Heritage and Commemoration Center, the Council for Peace and Security, and engineering and financial institutions, Gillon remained active in Israeli civic and business life after leaving government service.[13]

Gillon's account of the warnings he gave before Rabin's assassination is based principally on his retrospective interviews. He has said that he raised concerns with Netanyahu, Sharon, Yesha Council leaders, rabbis, and media figures during the months before November 1995.[4][7] The cited reports document his account but do not independently establish every meeting or warning. His criticism that the Shamgar Commission focused too narrowly on tactical security arrangements rather than the wider context of incitement is likewise his stated assessment, not a finding adopted by the Commission.[4]

Gillon's appointment as ambassador to Denmark prompted a dispute involving the UN Convention against Torture and questions about diplomatic immunity. The available report records political statements and interpretations made during the controversy; it does not establish a judicial finding against him.[15]

Claims assigning responsibility to rabbis, political figures, or incitement for Rabin's assassination remain politically contested. Gillon's statements that religious and political incitement contributed to the murder are presented as his views rather than adjudicated findings.[7][8]