Flouting Taboo, Israeli Media Reveal Name of New Intelligence Director

Israel’s new head of the Mossad intelligence agency will be Maj. Gen. Danny Yatom, Israel Radio reported Tuesday after an Israeli newspaper violated censorship rules by publishing his name.

Prime Minister Shimon Peres was said to be furious with the Hebrew daily Haaretz for reporting on Monday that Yatom had been appointed. Peres had planned to announce the decision to his Cabinet on Sunday, the radio reported.

The government was said to be considering legal action against Haaretz. Under Israeli law, anyone involved in writing and publishing an article that violates censorship regulations can be jailed for up to 15 years.

Israel has traditionally kept secret the identities of those heading Mossad, which is the equivalent of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Shin Bet, the internal security service. Newspapers and other media have been forbidden by law from publishing or airing these individuals’ names or photographs.

For years, the policy was not questioned by a press corps that is required to routinely submit to military censors any story involving national security issues. But after Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated Nov. 4 and the head of Shin Bet was forced to step down for failing to protect him, Israeli newspapers published the name and photograph of the new Shin Bet chief, Ami Ayalon.

On Tuesday, Haaretz’s editor in chief, Hanoch Marmari, defended his decision to publish Yatom’s name. “We thought that the time had come to stop playing games,” he said in a telephone interview.

Marmari said that Yatom, who was serving as Peres’ military advisor when he was appointed to head Mossad, is a well-known public figure.

“Everybody knows Mr. Yatom and knows who he is,” Marmari said. Yatom, 51, previously served as head of the Israeli army’s central command, as head of the elite Sayeret Matkel commando unit and as head of planning.

In an editorial defending its decision, Haaretz said: “It is time Israel joined the enlightened countries publicizing the identity of the secret services’ chiefs. It is the custom in democratic societies that at the top of every public organization there is a known and visible person who carries public responsibility for the organization’s actions.”

But former Mossad heads vigorously condemned the publication of Yatom’s name, arguing that publicizing his identity endangers his personal security. Unlike the head of the CIA, the head of Mossad often travels abroad to supervise important Mossad missions, the former heads argued.

“The secrecy must be maintained, so that he can move freely and deal with security matters of the utmost confidentiality without having the media chasing him around,” said Isser Harel, who was the first head of Shin Bet and served as head of Mossad from 1952 to 1963. “If it is allowed to publicize his name, then it will follow that a camera be placed opposite his home; he will be followed. . . . What is the sudden urgency to know every single one of his personal details?”

Sever Plotzker, writing Tuesday in the Hebrew daily Yediot Aharonot, noted: “The ban on publication does not protect state security. It protects the heads of the secret services from public criticism or scrutiny on a personal level.”

Israel’s censorship laws are based on 1945 emergency regulations instituted by the British Mandatory government in Palestine.