From Associated Press
JERUSALEM - Israel's normally secretive Mossad spy agency came in from the cold this week, launching a Web site aimed at recruiting staff ranging from computer security specialists to English-speaking waiters and agents for "special tasks."
The site, which is available in both Hebrew and English, has a main page featuring a shadowy figure standing next to an Israeli flag and a link to a letter from Mossad Director Meir Dagan inviting "the best and most suitable to join us."
The new Web site, which replaces a rudimentary single-page site, includes a short history of the agency, a mission statement and an online employment application form. The Hebrew side of the site has a long list of jobs available with Israel's external intelligence agency, including psychologists, teachers, translators, typists, construction engineers and security guards.
According to the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, more than 1,500 people applied for jobs on Monday, the site's first day in operation.
One feature of the site proves Mossad is still as interested in gathering intelligence as it is in hiring new people: the "Contact Us" page invites users to submit "information that could be useful" to the agency and promises to protect the tipsters' anonymity.
In 2000, Mossad launched a recruitment drive in the Israeli press under the slogan, "Mossad is opening up."
Israeli security officials said that the Shin Bet, Israel's internal security agency, is considering launching a similar site.
Mossad, whose name means "Institute" in Hebrew, built its reputation on operations such as the 1960 kidnapping of Nazi Adolf Eichmann, who was snatched in Argentina and spirited to Israel to stand trial for the murder of millions of Jews. He was convicted and hanged.
Between October 1972 and August 1973, Mossad agents assassinated 12 Palestinians connected with the group Black September, which had killed 11 athletes at the Munich Olympics.
But recent years have seen a string of embarrassing and well-publicized failures.
In 1997, Mossad agents injected Khaled Mashaal, a leader of the militant Islamic group Hamas, with poison in Jordan. But they were caught and Israel was forced to save Mashaal with an antidote and to free Hamas' founder and 20 other Arab prisoners to bring the agents back home.
In 1998, a retired agent was indicted on charges of fabricating reports that Syria was preparing for war.
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