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Israel officials met Arab leaders disguised as women

November 25, 2020 at 11:19 am

Former head of the Israeli spy agency Mossad Danny Yatom in Cairo on 19 May 2011 [KHALED DESOUKI/AFP/Getty Images]

Danny Yatom, former chief of Israel’s external spying agency, Mossad, revealed that former Israeli prime ministers regularly met Arab leaders secretly sometimes disguised in women’s clothing, Arabi21 reported yesterday.

Speaking to a local Israeli radio station he gave examples about such meetings with Arab leaders, including the late Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, Jordan’s late King Hussein and his brother Prince Hassan.

As he was commenting on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s secret visit to Saudi Arabia and meeting with Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, Yatom said such meetings would often take place at night and away from the eyes of the world.

On one occasion, he said, late Israeli Prime Minister Ishak Rabin dispatched him and then Chief of Staff Ehud Barak to Washington to meet with Muallem and the former Syrian army Chief of Staff, Hikmat Shehabi, to discuss potential peace negotiations.

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He and Barak were disguised as women, wearing wigs and women’s clothing, and they took a commercial flight to Washington, he revealed.

Muallem, who was the Syrian ambassador to Washington at the time, pledged during that meeting, according to Yatom, that no terror attacks would be launched from Syria after signing a peace deal.

Lauding the meeting with Bin Salman, he said that Saudi Arabia, which does not have official relations with Israel but leads the Sunni camp and is the largest country in the peninsula, is strategically important for Israel.

“That is why I am happy and thankful to everyone who contributed to this,” he added.