Zvi Zamir

Tzwi Zamir (Hebrew צבי זמיר; b. 1925, Poland), nicknamed Tzwika, was from 1968 to 1974 director of the Israeli secret service Mossad.

Life

Zamir came at the age of seven months with his parents to Palestine. He attended elementary school and the Balfour High School in Tel Aviv. In 1943 he joined with 17 years in the Palmach. In 1946 he was arrested by the British police and was only sent to prison and then locked into the camp Latrun how many future leaders of the State of Israel. In 1951 he was at the head of the Giv'ati Brigade. He attended the Staff College in the United Kingdom until 1954 and then increased in the successor organization Haganah and Tzahal up to major general on. He took part in the Palestine war, among others. In 1966 he held his last military commander post as head of the troops in the south of Israel. Then he was military attaché in the United Kingdom. 1968 appointed him Prime Minister Levi Eshkol as Director of the Mossad. Zamir thus entered the successor to Meir Amit.

The most important operation in Zamirs tenure was on the hostage-taking in Munich in 1972 following offensive against Palestinian terrorism. In addition, the Mossad organized under his leadership, the immigration of Jews from Syria and Iraq to Israel and support of Kurdish rebels in Iraq and Christian militias in Sudan. In the latter country he traveled several times even to monitor the operations on site.

Zamir was in Steven Spielberg's film Munich played by Ami Weinberg.

His daughter is the writer Michal Zamir.