Ari Ben-Menashe
| Ari Ben-Menashe | |
|---|---|
| Born |
4 December 1951 Tehran, Iran |
| Residence | Montreal, Quebec, Canada |
| Occupation | businessman, security consultant and author |
Ari Ben-Menashe (Hebrew: ארי בן מנשה; born Tehran, 4 December 1951) is an Iranian-born Israeli businessman, security consultant and author. He was previously an employee of Israel's Military Intelligence Directorate from 1977 to 1987 and an arms dealer. He now lives in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and runs an international commodity exporting firm, Traeger Resources and Logistics Inc.
Ben-Menashe was born in Tehran, Iran in 1951, emigrating to Israel as a teenager. His parents were Iraqi Jews who settled in Tehran in 1945. From 1974 to 1977 he served in the Israel Defense Forces, in Signals Intelligence.
In 1977 Ben-Menashe joined Israel's Military Intelligence Directorate. He later said "I happened to be the right guy at the right time. I spoke Persian, Arabic, English. I knew the United States." In his book Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network Ben-Menashe said that following the 1979 Iranian Revolution his Iranian background provided useful connections, with some of his school friends playing roles in the new government. These connections, Ben-Menashe said, led to his playing an intermediary role in the Israeli effort to sell arms to Iran, and close to the Israeli government decision to back the Reagan campaign's "October Surprise" efforts to ensure Iranian hostages were released on a timetable that strengthened Ronald Reagan and not the incumbent President Carter.
Ben-Menashe served in the Military Intelligence Directorate until 1987, at one time under Moshe Hebroni, the deputy to the Directorate's Director, General Yehoshua Saguy. Hebroni told Craig Unger in 1992 that "Ben-Menashe served directly under me. … He had access to very, very sensitive material."
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