---
alias:
- Michael Harari
- Michael Harare
born: 1927-02-18
category: Intelligence & Government
created: 2026-09-22
died: 2014-09-21
location: Tel Aviv, Israel
summary: Mossad operations chief who led the Lillehammer team in 1973, then ran arms,
  and by the testimony of Noriega's former consul drugs, through Panama in the 1980s
  as Noriega's associate, and whom Ari Ben-Menashe names as Pesach Ben-Or's partner
  in the Guatemalan PROMIS sale.
tags:
- Person
- MikeHarari
- Mossad
- Panama
- Noriega
- Contras
- PROMIS
- Israel
updated: 2026-09-22
---

Mike Harari (February 18, 1927, Tel Aviv, to September 21, 2014) was the [Mossad](/organizations/mossad/) officer who ran its special operations section in the years after the Munich massacre and who led the team that killed Ahmed Bouchiki, a Moroccan waiter mistaken for the Black September planner Ali Hassan Salameh, at Lillehammer, Norway, in July 1973. [Ari Ben-Menashe](/people/ari-ben-menashe/) writes that Harari "had just left Israel because of his failure in the 'Moroccan Waiter Affair'" when he joined the private arms network that [Ariel Sharon](/people/ariel-sharon/) ran in Central America from the late 1970s, and that he "was a close associate of Panama's military intelligence chief, [Manuel Noriega](/people/manuel-noriega/)." By 1981, in Ben-Menashe's account, "Sharon and Harari were running what Harari described as more of a CIA network than an Israeli operation," supplying the [Contras](/organizations/contras/) and financing itself, "according to Harari," by "transporting cocaine from South America to the United States via Central America," with Noriega "a major player."[^1]

### Panama

In February 1988 Jose Blandon, Noriega's former consul general in New York, told the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations under Senator [John Kerry](/people/john-kerry/) that "Michael Harare" had "close contacts with Noriega and was Panama's honorary consul in Tel Aviv," and that his network did "business with Noriega in Panama for a series of companies for arms contraband, smuggling to supply arms to Central America and to the counterrevolution, the Nicaragua counterrevolution." Asked by Kerry what "other things" the network handled, Blandon answered, "Drugs," and confirmed "a direct linkage" between "the Harare network and these airstrips, in which guns would go in one shipment and drugs would come out in another." "The Harare network is a network that was established with Israeli citizens, Panamanians and U.S. citizens for arms supply purposes," he said. The Israeli embassy spokesman Yosef Gal replied that Harari was "acting as a private citizen" and that Israel "had no knowledge of his activities." Harari was not named in the Miami and Tampa indictments of Noriega that month, left [Panama](/places/panama/) at the time of the American invasion of December 1989 and returned to [Israel](/places/israel/).[^2][^3]

### PROMIS

Ben-Menashe's account of the sale of a modified [PROMIS](/programs/promis/) to [Guatemala](/places/guatemala/) states that "the price Israel had to pay for this agreement was that the [Eagle](/organizations/eagle/) company, run by [Pesach Ben-Or](/people/pesach-ben-or/) in Guatemala and his associate Mike Harari in Panama, and overseen by Ariel Sharon, would continue selling weapons to the Guatemalan government." The special counsel [Nicholas J. Bua](/people/nicholas-j-bua/) found Ben-Menashe's PROMIS affidavits contradicted by his later testimony, and no official inquiry examined Harari's part. He received the Mossad chief's medal of distinction in 2007 and was the subject of a 2014 Hebrew biography by Aaron J. Klein.[^1][^3]

[^1]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network,* Sheridan Square, 1992, chs. "The First Billion" and "Promis." https://archive.org/details/profits-of-war-1992-ari-ben-menashe
[^2]: "Ex-agent of the Mossad Implicated in Drug Deals with Panamanian," *Jewish Telegraphic Agency,* February 1988. https://www.jta.org/archive/ex-agent-of-the-mossad-implicated-in-drug-deals-with-panamanian The subcommittee's printed report, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy,* December 1988, does not mention Harari; Blandon's testimony on him is in the hearing record of February 9, 1988, not examined. https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras
[^3]: U.S. Department of Justice, *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua,* March 1993. Harari's birth and death dates, the Lillehammer role, his absence from the 1988 Noriega indictments, his departure from Panama in December 1989, the 2007 medal and the Klein biography are as given in obituary and press summaries not examined in full.