Shabtai Shavit, the Israeli spymaster who was credited with advancing Israel’s historic peace treaty with Jordan during his term as director of the Mossad intelligence agency, died Tuesday in Italy at 84.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Shavit died while on vacation in Italy, without specifying a cause of death. The statement quoted Mossad chief, David Barnea, praising Shavit as “a pillar of the world of operations, intelligence, security and strategy of the state of Israel.”Shavit led the Mossad from 1989 to 1996, guiding the agency through a critical juncture in Middle East history.
He oversaw Israeli operations on foreign soil during the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War and the first Gulf War in 1991. Over more than three decades in the service, he spent some two years in an intelligence post in Iran, before the Islamic Revolution that transformed Iran from an Israeli ally to its strongest foe. 
