Gilon, Carmi

Military and Shabbat

Karmi Gilon was born in 1950 in a family of Jerusalem lawyers. He began his service in the Israel Defense Forces in the armored forces, but was subsequently transferred to artillery. He was wounded during the War of Attrition , but returned to duty. He completed his military service in 1971, after which he entered the Hebrew University of Jerusalem with a degree in Political Science and Management. During his studies, in 1972, he was mobilized to serve in the General Security Service (SHABAK) and, already in the service, he also graduated from the second degree in this specialty ^[2] . The theme of Gilon's master's thesis, defended in 1990, was radicalization in the Israeli ideological camp ^[3] .

Starting his service in SHABAK with the detachment for the protection of senior officials ^[3] , since 1982 Gilon headed the Jewish department in SHABAK ^[2] . During his term in office, the so-called Jewish underground , a radical organization responsible for the preparation and conduct of a series of attacks against the Arab population of Judea and Samaria, was discovered ^[3] . Another success of the Jewish department under the leadership of Gilon was the arrest of Yona Avrushmi, who threw a grenade in 1983 in a peaceful demonstration in Jerusalem (the left activist Emil Grinzweig died in the attack) ^[4] . In 1989, he was appointed head of the ShABAK educational department, and in 1990, he was appointed Shabak director for the Northern District (also coordinating the organization’s activities in Lebanon as part of this post). Since 1993, Gilon served as the head of the administrative department of Shabak, bearing responsibility for personnel, finance and logistics . When in 1994 the director of the SHABAC, Yaakov Peri, was sent to a 4-month training course, Gilon was appointed acting director, and in 1995 took this post on an ongoing basis ^[2] . Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin for a long time could not make a choice between Gilon and Gideon Ezra, head of the Shabak Arab section, and even offered the post of director to Israeli Navy commander Ami Ayalon , but he rejected the offer, and as a result, Rabin approved Gilon’s candidacy ^[3] .

International journalist Dan Efron writes that appointing Gilon as the director of the Shabak was a symbolic gesture designed to show that henceforth, Israeli security services will pay no less attention to the internal threat (from the side of radical Jewish nationalists) than to the external (from the Palestinians). In the right-wing circles of Israel, in the light of the unfolding Israeli-Palestinian peace process, threats of the assassination of the prime minister have already sounded. But Gilon’s attempts to tighten measures to protect Rabin came up against the prime minister’s resistance: combat general Rabin refused to wear bulletproof vest in his country and ride on the luxurious armored Cadillac, purchased at the insistence of the head of the ShABAK ^[3] . As a result, Gilon’s tenure as Shabak’s director turned out to be short-lived: in early November 1995, a Jewish lone terrorist, Yigal Amir , shot dead Rabin. Gilon appointed a commission of internal investigation, which, within three days after the murder, prepared a report with conclusions and recommendations, and submitted this report to the acting Prime Minister, Shimon Peres, along with a letter of resignation. He resigned in February 1996 after a short period of transferring cases to Ami Ayalon, who was appointed as the new director of SHABAK ^[2] . On the eve of his dismissal, Gilon also managed to authorize the liquidation of the organizer of numerous attacks against the Israelis Yahya Ayash , known as the “Engineer" ^[4] : Ayash was destroyed by a charge of explosives embedded in his cell phone.

Further career

After his dismissal from Shabak, Gilon held an administrative post in a private insurance company for three years, and in 2000 he headed the ^[5] . In 2001, he was appointed Israeli Ambassador to Denmark. This appointment provoked protests both in Denmark ^[6] and in Israel itself (in particular, on the part of the human rights organization Bezel ) that the former ShABAK director was accused of encouraging the use of torture in relation to the arrested Palestinians. At least one of those arrested while Gilon was the director of Shabak died as a result of applying a “shake” to him - one of the types of physical impact ^[7] . Despite attempts to secure the arrest of Gilon in accordance with the UN Convention against Torture , the diplomatic immunity of the ambassador allowed this to be avoided ^[8] .

After the term of office as ambassador, in 2003, Gilon was elected chairman of the local council of Mevaseret Zion ; his list in local elections received 5 seats out of 13 ^[9] . In 2004, Gilon was accused of racism after stating that Ethiopian children living in Mevaseret Zion are prone to violence, including sexual, hooliganism, and vandalism. ^[10] In 2006, in connection with the accumulated debt of the local council headed by Gilon, the Israeli Ministry of Internal Affairs decided to appoint an accountant in Mevaseret Zion, directly subordinate to the ministry. Gilon, who explained the budget deficit by significant investments in education and social welfare and regarded this as a demonstration of mistrust in him personally, resigned ^[11] . After a personal request from the Minister of the Interior, Gilon agreed to continue to act as chairman of the local council, but a month later he quit as a sign of disagreement with the proposed economic recovery program of Mevaseret Zion ^[12] .

In June 2007, Hebrew University of Jerusalem announced the appointment of Gilon as vice president of foreign affairs. This appointment provoked protests again; About 30 university teachers sent a letter to his leadership stating that it contradicts the humanistic goals that the university is called upon to promote ^[13] . Nevertheless, Gilon remained the vice president of the Hebrew University until 2013. He also served on the boards of directors of several financial companies, including the Arab-Israeli Bank, and public non-profit organizations ^[5] .

• Biography (Hebrew) on the Shabak website