Yariv (Rabinovich) Aharon (1920, Riga, – 1994, Tel Aviv), Israeli military and political figure. In 1935 his family moved to Eretz Israel. He studied at an agricultural school in Pardes Hanna. In 1938 he joined the Haganah. From the start of the Second World War he served in the British Army and completed officer training courses. He served in the Palestinian unit of the British Army, and after the creation of the Jewish Brigade in September 1944 was an officer and participated in combat operations. Shortly after the start of the War of Independence he was appointed deputy commander of the Alexandroni Brigade, then commanded the Carmeli Brigade. In the early 1950s he led the Israel Defense Forces' retaliatory operations against Arab terrorists. In 1954–56 he headed the then newly established General Staff Academy; in 1964–72 — the military intelligence of the Israel Defense Forces, which played an outstanding role in gathering information on Arab armies before the Six-Day War. Y. Rabin, then Chief of the General Staff, in assessing the role of military intelligence in that war, called it “one of the central components of our victory.”

In 1972–73 Yariv served as advisor on counter-terrorism to Prime Minister Golda Meir. He was one of the heads of the operation to locate and eliminate the leaders of the Palestinian terrorists who organized the killing of Israeli athletes in Munich during the Olympic Games in September 1972.

At the start of the Yom Kippur War he was called up and appointed assistant to the Chief of the General Staff. In January 1974 Yariv headed the Israeli delegation at negotiations with the Egyptians on the Cairo–Suez highway regarding the separation of Israeli and Egyptian forces. He was elected to the 8th Knesset (1973) on the Labor Party list. In March 1974 he received the communications portfolio in Golda Meir's government; in June 1974 he received the information portfolio in Y. Rabin's government, but resigned in January 1975. In 1977 under his leadership the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies was established at Tel Aviv University, which Yariv headed until the last days of his life.