Eli Zeira

Zeira's parents were born in Poland. His father was an electrical engineer and his mother was a housekeeper. Zeira was born in Haifa on April 4, 1928, where he received elementary and high school education at the Hebrew Reali School. In 1946, when he was 18, he joined the Yiftach Brigade, then part of the Palmach. He fought for the brigade during the 1948 Palestine War, serving as both a company and platoon commander for its 1st Battalion. During the war, he fought against the Arab Liberation Army (ALA) in the Galilee, the Arab Legion at Latrun, and the Egyptian Army in the Negev. He also participated in repelling an offensive by the ALA in kibbutz Tirat Zvi. Between 1949 and 1950, he led the Southern Command's squad leaders' school. He then enrolled in the United States Army's company commander's school for a year, becoming the first IDF officer to do so, where he learned to fly. When he returned to Israel, he attended the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, graduating with a bachelor's in economics and statistics. In 1951, he became an instructor at a battalion commander's school in Tzrifin. == Rise in the military ranks ==

Between 1953 and 1954, he commanded the Planning Department of the General Staff. Between 1954 and 1955, he headed IDF chief of staff Moshe Dayan's office, where he was present at weekly meetings with Dayan, then-Defense Minister David Ben-Gurion, and then-director general of the ministry Shimon Peres. In April 1973, Egyptian spy Ashraf Marwan warned the Mossad that Egypt and Syria would attack Israel in May. Zeira did not believe his warning, and he also doubted Arab military capabilities, stating: "A logical analysis of the situation will show that the Egyptians would make a mistake if they went to war". When no attack occurred, Zeira suspected that Marwan was a double agent attempting to sabotage Israel. A day after a secret meeting by King Hussein of Jordan to the Mossad guesthouse north of Tel Aviv on September 25, 1973, in which he warned of an imminent war, defense minister Dayan held a meeting with Zeira and his deputy, Aryeh Shalev, where they dismissed his warning as too vague. After Egypt conducted a large military drill on the Suez Canal on October 1, he dismissed the threat of war as "very low". On October 6, Egypt and Syria began a coordinated attack on Israel in the first stage of the Yom Kippur War, catching Israel off guard and leading to heavy losses. Zeira did not activate these means despite requests from his own staff and Elazar because he was convinced that Egypt would not attack Israel, and believed that activating the means would risk exposing them. Zeira called the findings baseless, and wrote in his autobiography that "thus the entire blame was placed on those in uniform, and the political leadership came out clean". He argued that the Mossad was responsible for Israel's shortcomings by listening to Marwan, who he claimed was a "double agent" who misguided Israel. The commission did not directly call for Zeira's dismissal, but he left Israel to study at Stanford University and resigned from the IDF anyway, at the age of 47. == Later life ==

State Prosecutor's Office probe In 2004, former Mossad head Zvi Zamir accused Zeira of leaking the identity of Ashraf Marwan, an Egyptian billionaire and senior advisor to president Anwar Sadat who covertly provided Israel with valuable intelligence, including a warning of Egypt's 1973 attack. Zeira said that he had relied on news publications that had already named Marwan, and filed a libel lawsuit against Zamir in April 2005. A criminal probe into Zeira was conducted by the State Prosecutor's Office. Retired judge Theodore Orr declared in 2007 that Zeira had leaked Marwan's identity and ordered him to pay compensation. The Attorney General closed the case with no charges in 2012, due to Zeira's age and his contributions to Israel’s security. ==References==