Former Mossad Lieutenant Colonel Avner Avraham grew up dreaming he’d become Israel’s 007. He learned Arabic from his Iraqi grandparents and spoke Hebrew, French, English, and a bit of Turkish - handy languages for an aspiring Bond.

By the age of 19, Avraham was already on his first undercover mission in Lebanon. It was 1984 and he was working in civilian clothes as the liaison between the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and the Beirut HQ of the Mossad, the Israeli Secret Intelligence Service. “It was one of the best times of my life,” Avraham said. “It was a really crazy place. It was so dangerous.”

Despite people shooting each other on the streets of Beirut, Avraham was hooked. He had a thirst for the adrenaline-fuelled lifestyle and returned to Israel to train as an IDF officer.

Avner Avraham: from Mossad to Hollywood

Two days after completing his military service, Avraham joined Mossad as a fully-fledged spy. It was an espionage career that would span 28 years, involve operations in 40 countries, and lead to consulting on the blockbuster Hollywood film Operation Finale (2018) about Mossad’s capture of Holocaust mastermind Adolf Eichmann (portrayed by Ben Kingsley). 

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Avner Avraham: the nuclear decades‍

Born in 1965, Avraham came of age during the decades-long Israeli-Palestine conflict, the Cold War between Moscow and Washington, and the threat of nuclear war.

Home computers weren’t common when Avraham joined Mossad, so there was still a bit of old-school tradecraft used by some operators. “You could communicate with laundry,” he recalled. “You can hang a yellow T-shirt and someone [will] know the yellow T-shirt means this, and the red T-shirt means that.” 

On one of his early missions, Avraham flew to a Muslim country with a sealed envelope for delivery to Mossad officers. Anxious to make a good impression, he dressed in a suit, bought a new briefcase, and guarded the envelope with his life. When Avraham arrived at the rendezvous point, the officers asked about the original bag that Mossad had given him, now replaced by his briefcase.

“I said, ‘Oh, they gave me an old-fashioned, used leather bag.’ I came with a very nice James Bond leather bag.” That’s when the officers explained the original bag secretly hid $50,000, and that the envelope wasn’t actually important at all. Mossad, worried Avraham might make a mistake at airport customs, didn’t tell him he was supposed to be flying in with cash. The next day, a second Mossad officer made the same trip - this time bringing the money.
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It was a lesson Avraham never forgot as he later surveyed the world as an elite officer. His travels took him from Africa to Jordan and far beyond, though he’s coy about sharing operational details. What he has revealed, however, is that he spent the latter part of his career traveling with prime ministers, and took part in the 2000 US summit between Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak at Camp David.

Mossad's Q emerges

While Avraham is a man of action, he also dreamed about owning his own computer. He would speed-read technical guides and devoured WWII history books about the Enigma machines used by Bletchley Park codebreakers, eventually training himself to become a Mossad computer engineer.

“I was something similar to Q in James Bond,” Avraham said, describing his evolving espionage role as “thinking about creative ways to hide stuff” and dreaming up technical solutions to as-yet-unidentified problems.

“We used to watch all of the James Bond movies - and all the spy movies - and take ideas from them,” he added.

Bond’s car phone in From Russia with Love (1963) inspired Avraham to create Israel’s first mobile cellular phone with a twist - a voice could be encrypted for the first time. 

He softly closes the door on his version of Q’s workshop when asked for more details about his favorite invention. “Well… let’s say that it… it belongs to secret communications. The fact that you can communicate and send information from point A to point B - and no one knows you are sending something.” 

Mossad's capture of Adolf Eichmann‍

During almost three decades at Mossad, Avraham noticed that the agency would archive documents, but did not always preserve the guns, cameras, or fake passports used in missions: “So I decided for 28 years to build a huge spy collection.”

In the process, he became Mossad’s resident historian, able to reel off operational details about missions that predated his career, including the raid on Entebbe, an IDF hostage-rescue mission involving passengers of an Air France jet diverted to Entebbe Airport in Uganda in 1976. 

Avraham also curated special exhibitions for Mossad’s spy museum, traveling and sharing the collection outside of Israel. His Adolf Eichmann exhibit and historical knowledge caught the attention of Hollywood director Chris Weitz, who hired Avraham as a consultant on Operation Finale.

Avner Avraham: Mossad meets the movies

Avraham’s job was to ensure the film’s details were authentic. In one scene, Avraham knew a team of Mossad agents wouldn’t arrive in Argentina on the same flight, at the same time, with their luggage all tagged by Air France without arousing suspicion or blowing their cover stories. He advised that they would have needed to scatter their arrivals and spread out rather than travel as a pack.

“It doesn’t make sense,” he said. “If you arrested me, I couldn’t give you any information about the other spies. I don’t know their names. That’s the whole idea.”

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So, after 28 years in the shadows, jetting around with prime ministers and rubbing shoulders with Hollywood stars, does Avraham have any advice for aspiring secret agents? 

“The most important weapons for a spy? Languages, small details, and reverse thinking.”

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Avraham is a sought-after guest speaker and entertainment consultant. Request his services for your next event or project at SPYEX.com.