If Mossad has a defining origin story, it is not found in its creation in 1949, but on a quiet street in Buenos Aires in May 1960, when a team of Israeli agents waited for a bus carrying one of history’s most wanted men.

Every intelligence operation answers a single question:

What is the state trying to achieve?

For decades, intelligence agencies have been evaluated by the secrets they steal, the wars they prevent, or the terrorists they eliminate. Yet in May 1960, Israel demonstrated that intelligence could achieve something far more enduring.

It could shape history.

Operation Eichmann is often remembered as one of Mossad’s greatest operational successes. That description, while accurate, is incomplete. The true significance of the mission was not the capture itself, but the political decision........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)