Tamir Pardo, a former deputy director of Israel’s foreign intelligence agency Mossad, has been tapped by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as successor to current Mossad Director Meir Dagan. Pardo has worked in the organization for much of his career.
In a statement Netanyahu praised the new director’s "decades-worth of rich experience in the Mossad”. He said: “He is the right man to usher the organization through the coming years in the face of complicated challenges". Defense Minister Ehud Barak described Pardo as “a responsible professional with the richest operational experience possible.”
Pardo was known to the public until now only as ‘T’. The 57-year-old father and grandfather served in the Israel Defense Force's élite unit Sayeret Matkal and took part in the 1976 operation to rescue the hostages on the hijacked Air France plane at Entebbe, Uganda. Yoni Netanyahu, brother of the current Israeli prime minister, was killed in the operation, and Pardo reportedly had remained a close friend of the Netanyahu family.