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Rafi Eitan, 79, Tuesday. (AP)
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Members of the Israeli pensioners party sit on bench in TA, Monday (AP)
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| By Associated Press March 30, 2006 |
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A 79-year-old political novice who pulled off the biggest upset in Israel's election is a former espionage chief-turned businessman who handled former U.S. naval analyst Jonathan Pollard as an Israeli spy.
Rafi Eitan, a longtime friend of Ariel Sharon, will now fight for pensioners' rights in the new parliament, but despite comments during the campaign, is not expected to push hard for Pollard's release from a U.S. prison. In the wake of the election, Eitan's failure to work for the release of the spy he handled has been harshly criticized by Pollard's wife Esther.
Eitan's Pensioners Party came out of nowhere to become the feel-good story of Tuesday's election, garnering seven seats in the 120-seat parliament, after public opinion polls barely had them sneaking past the two-seat threshold. The seniors are widely expected to be part of the next government.
The sudden political breakthrough puts the limelight on Eitan, whose friendly grandfatherly persona made him the chic protest vote of this election, particularly among trendy young adults in Tel Aviv.
But Eitan is also a veteran spook whose rich biography reveals a man of contradictions; a wealthy businessman who campaigned for poor retirees, a former secret agent who is considered a political pragmatist.
Eitan, a short man with thick, oversized eyeglasses, said Wednesday he would join any coalition that addresses his constituency's concerns, including the demands for a universal pension. The apparent prime minister-designate, Ehud Olmert, reportedly has already dispatched emissaries to Eitan to secure his cooperation in the future government.
Interviewed by Israel TV Wednesday, Eitan impishly declined to commit to Olmert, saying he was waiting for the incoming prime minister to reach out to him.
Yossi Melman, a security analyst who has covered Eitan's tumultuous career, said Eitan would likely go along with Olmert's ambitious plan to separate from Palestinians.
"He is very much like Sharon," he said of Eitan. "He is not a hardcore ideologue of believing in a Greater Israel. He is not a right-wing ideologue."
Sharon was felled by a stroke on Jan. 4 after forming the centrist Kadima Party, reacting to opposition to his unilateral Gaza pullout from his Likud Party. Sharon remains in a coma.
Eitan began his career fighting in the Palmach pre-state army, where he befriended Sharon. He was wounded in battle and became partially deaf. It was there he also earned his unlikely nickname, "Stinky Rafi," after hiding in a pit of sewage while on a mission. The moniker stuck, and Sharon continued to affectionately call him "the Stinker" for the next half century.
After the 1948 Mideast war over Israel's creation, Eitan joined the Shin Bet security service. He later joined the Mossad spy agency and was involved in many top secret operations, including the 1960 capture of Nazi Holocaust mastermind Adolf Eichmann in Argentina. "I was the commander of the operation to capture Eichmann," Eitan told an Israeli TV talk show on Wednesday.
Eitan briefly went into business until Sharon persuaded then-prime minister Menachem Begin to appoint Eitan as an adviser on combating terror.
Eitan made headlines in the 1980s as the handler of Pollard in the espionage affair that embarrassed Israel and severely tarnished its relations with the United States.
In a recent interview, he defended the risky operation, saying Pollard's information was too good to resist and would have made a great difference in the event of war with Arab countries.
"I decided that it was better to take the risk and get the information, which I never doubted for a moment was essential to the security of Israel. I understood the risk, although I did not foresee that the affair would blow up to such proportions," he told the Yediot Ahronot daily in early March in his only published remarks regarding the affair.
Pollard was arrested in 1985, sentenced to life in prison and has spent the past 20 years in a series of U.S. lockups.
Eitan on Wednesday denied Israeli media reports that he was banned from the U.S. because of his role. "As far as I know, no one is looking for me anywhere," he said.
Eitan claimed his actions were sanctioned by his superiors, but eventually he was forced resign. Then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir praised Eitan as "one of the virtuosos of our intelligence."
Asked about Pollard on Wednesday, Eitan said, "I would very much like to see this man go free."
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