Yuval Diskin (; born June 11, 1956) is a former director of the Israeli internal security service

Shin Bet The Israel Security Agency (ISA; , (GSS); ), better known by the Hebrew acronyms, acronyms Shabak (; ; ) or Shin Bet (from the abbreviation of , "Security Service"), is Israel's internal Security agency, security service. Its motto is "''Magen ...

, serving as its 13th director from 2005 to 2011. He was appointed by Prime Minister

Ariel Sharon Ariel Sharon ( ; also known by his diminutive Arik, ; 26 February 192811 January 2014) was an Israeli general and politician who served as the prime minister of Israel from March 2001 until April 2006. Born in Kfar Malal in Mandatory Palestin ...

, and later served under subsequent Prime Ministers

Ehud Olmert Ehud Olmert (; , ; born 30 September 1945) is an Israeli politician and lawyer who served as the prime minister of Israel from 2006 to 2009. The son of a former Herut politician, Olmert was first elected to the Knesset for Likud in 1973, at th ...

and

Benjamin Netanyahu Benjamin Netanyahu (born 21 October 1949) is an Israeli politician who has served as the prime minister of Israel since 2022, having previously held the office from 1996 to 1999 and from 2009 to 2021. Netanyahu is the longest-serving prime min ...

Career in the secret service, 1978-2011

In 1990, he was appointed head of department in Shabak's Counter Terrorism Division, which was responsible for the collection and analysis of intelligence and carrying out operations based on information received. In 1993 he was entrusted, by Prime Minister

Yitzhak Rabin Yitzhak Rabin (; , ; 1 March 1922 – 4 November 1995) was an Israeli politician, statesman and general. He was the prime minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, 1974–1977, and from 1992 until Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, his ass ...

and then-director general of the Shabak Yaakov Peri, to establish ties with the Palestinian security forces as part of the Oslo Peace Accord. On May 15, 2005, he was appointed by Prime Minister

to replace

Avi Dichter Abraham Moshe "Avi" Dichter (, ; born 14 December 1952) is an Israeli politician currently serving as the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development. A former Minister of Internal Security and Shin Bet director, he resigned from the Knesset ...

as the Director of the Shin Bet. During his tenure as Director, Diskin led the development of the Shabak's cyber capabilities. These counter-

cyberterrorism Cyberterrorism is the use of the Internet to conduct violent acts that result in, or threaten, the loss of life or significant bodily harm, in order to achieve political or ideological gains through threat or intimidation. Emerging alongside th ...

capabilities are both offensive—preventing terrorist and suicide attacks to the point of their termination in Israel. In 2009, in an unusual act, the Israeli Prime Minister

requested Diskin to extend his service, due to his integral and unique role in maintaining the national security of Israel. On May 15, 2011, Diskin was replaced as Director by his former deputy,

Yoram Cohen Yoram Cohen (; born 1960) is a retired State of Israel, Israeli intelligence officer who served as the Director of Shin Bet, from May 15, 2011 until May 8, 2016, when he was replaced by Nadav Argaman. Biography Cohen was born in Israel to Moshe ...

. In February 2015,

Avi Primor Avraham "Avi" Primor (; born 8 April 1935 in Tel Aviv) is an Israeli publicist and former diplomat. From 1987 to 1993, he served as Ambassador to the European Union, and from 1993 to 1999 as Ambassador to Germany. After leaving the diplomatic ser ...

, ex ambassador to Germany, introduced Diskin as the head of Diskin Advanced Technologies to Ferdinand Piëch, VW-CEO "as a favor". As a result of the meeting Diskin and Piëch founded a company named Cymotive Technologies in

Herzliya Herzliya ( ; , / ) is an affluent List of Israeli cities, city in the Israeli coastal plain, central coast of Israel, at the northern part of the Tel Aviv District, known for its robust start-up and entrepreneurial culture. In it had a populatio ...

, with 40% ownership through VW´s AutoVision, and 60% by Diskin Advanced Technologies, to close cybersecurity gaps of linked cars. Primor told Piëch about the impending dieselgate.

Views and opinions

In January 2013, prior to Israel's parliamentary elections, Diskin harshly criticized Binyamin Netanyahu´s leadership. Diskin, along with former Mossad Director

Meir Dagan Aluf Meir Dagan (; 30 January 1945 – 17 March 2016) was an Israel Defense Forces Major General (reserve) and Director of the Mossad. Personal life and education Meir Huberman (later Dagan) was born on a train on the outskirts of Kherson, b ...

and former IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, have been highly critical of the diplomatic positions of Prime Minister Netanyahu's coalition; since his retirement from the Shabak, he has spoken on a number of occasions on his view of the need for diplomatic progress vis-à-vis the Palestinian Authority and the wider Arab world.

Honors

In 2012, Diskin was selected by ''

Foreign Policy Foreign policy, also known as external policy, is the set of strategies and actions a State (polity), state employs in its interactions with other states, unions, and international entities. It encompasses a wide range of objectives, includ ...

'' magazine as one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers for his standout contribution to the intellectual debate of foreign policy. In 2012, Diskin, along with the other living former directors of the Shabak, was featured in a documentary film, '' The Gatekeepers'' in which he discussed some of the main events of his tenure in the Shin Bet and identified as a fluent speaker of

Palestinian Arabic Palestinian Arabic (also known as simply Palestinian) is part of a dialect continuum comprising various mutually intelligible varieties of Levantine Arabic spoken by Palestinians in Palestine, which includes the State of Palestine, Israel, and t ...

.''The Gatekeepers'' (2012)

References

External links

Yuval Diskin
Official

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page
Yuval Diskin
Shabak website.
Yuval Diskin
The Gatekeepers website.
Ex-Israeli Security Chief Diskin: 'All the Conditions Are There for an Explosion'

Der Spiegel (, , stylized in all caps) is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of about 724,000 copies in 2022, it is one of the largest such publications in Europe. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...

, July 24, 2014.
Yuval Diskin Speech to Geneva Initiative 10 Year Conference
December 4, 2013.
Diskin's speech in HLA International Conference
2012.
Foreign Policy magazine: Top 100 Global Thinkers list for 2012 full of Israelis

IPRED III Keynote Lecture Yuval Diskin

The Gatekeepers (2012) - People Expect A Decision
{{DEFAULTSORT:Diskin, Yuval Directors of the Shin Bet People from Givatayim University of Haifa alumni Bar-Ilan University alumni 1956 births Living people