Women! The Mossad wants you!
Agency launches its first-ever female-centered recruitment drive
The Mossad has launched its first female-targeted recruitment campaign since the intelligence agency was established in 1949.
In ads published in Israeli newspapers and on its website, the Mossad said it was recruiting “case officers with special character traits,” and that those interested were invited to apply for positions in the agency’s intelligence, staff and technology departments.
“Wanted: Powerful women needed,” the ads announce in words splashed across a woman’s face, whose features are half-obscured in the dark.
“We don’t care what you’ve done, we care about who you are!”
A woman played a central role in the success of a mission that was one of the Mossad’s most notable operations.
In 1986, an agent known as “Cindy,” seduced Mordechai Vanunu in London. Vanunu was a technician at the Dimona nuclear plant who sold state secrets. “Cindy” lured him to Rome, delivering him into the hands of Mossad agents, who drugged him and smuggled him aboard a ship to Israel to face trial.
Since then, women have continued to play a significant role in the agency.
The Mossad is composed of about 40% women, with 24% in key, top-level positions. And while women rarely fill prominent positions in Israel’s intelligence and security organizations, the Mossad has had three women who headed divisions, including Aliza Magen, who served as the agency’s deputy director.
Last week, President Reuven Rivlin, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Mossad Director Yossi Cohen awarded certificates of excellence to 12 Mossad employees, half of whom were women.
In rare, on-the-record comments in 2012, then-Mossad director Tamir Pardo praised female Mossad agents as having “a distinct advantage in secret warfare because of their ability to multi-task,” and the ability to “suppress their ego in order to attain goals. Contrary to stereotypes, you see that women’s abilities are superior to men in terms of understanding the territory, reading situations, spatial awareness. When they’re good, they’re very good.”