Watch the full interview (Photograph: Asher Roth | Editing: Yedidia Cohen | Production: Itzik Ohana)
For over 40 years, Yossi Cohen was a part of the Israeli Mossad, in various positions, from the operational field to the head of the Mossad, over the years he won the Israel Security Awards, was considered one of the most aggressive heads of the Mossad and who commanded quite a few significant operations, and during his tenure as the head of the Mossad he managed political moves and operatives against the Iranian nuclear project.
In a comprehensive and special holiday interview for the Shabbat Square, he talks about everything; The moment he realized the magnitude of Hamas’s surprise attack on the southern settlements, the conduct of the war, the elimination of senior Hamas officials, the issue of the hostages, the Iranian attack, the prospect of an agreement with Saudi Arabia, the points he commanded in the organization and the draft law storm. Watch the full interview.
Excerpts from the interview
We return, at the beginning of the interview, to the morning of Simchat Torah: “We wake up to a horror and a shocking surprise that I was not prepared for. With the arrival of the images of the terrorists walking around in our cities, in the State of Israel, the police car passing the terrorists on Sderot. Within minutes we understand the The size of this event.”
Former Mossad head Yossi Cohen in an interview with Yishi Cohen
Cohen clarifies: “We should have been prepared for such an event, of course we were not prepared. The fault of the intelligence services and the army is the fact that this attack did not find the army standing against it and defending the State of Israel, this is something that is unacceptable to anyone. We fell badly into a mistake of the collapse of the defense lines, the intelligence defense line and the military defense line, this is a line that must not be crossed.”
Regarding the conspiracy against Hamas, the former head of the Mossad explains: “The mistake was that in a very short period we tried to improve the economy of the citizens of Gaza, for 30 years we have had an economic dialogue with the Gaza Strip, it has been intensified in a way that is unacceptable to me after the disengagement. The disengagement means that we are actually leaving the Strip , but it’s not really, we continued to supply trucks, fuel and electricity. We did the disconnection in the wrong way, my recommendation was a complete disconnection, don’t supply them anything.”
Cohen does not spare criticism of the conduct of the war: “Like riding a bicycle, when you don’t pedal – you fall. We took the pedal off. As soon as we make announcements that we don’t really stand behind, that ‘there is no force that will stop us from entering Rafah’, or ‘absolute victory’ – By the way, these are genres that are stolen from other leaders – I’m in favor of completing the victory, I’m in favor of eliminating the control of Hamas, but it’s not happening in my opinion. Hamas is still there. I have no explanation for this, I think that international pressure has taken away a significant part of our ability to complete the campaign”.
Yossi Cohen as head of the Mossad with Prime Minister Netanyahu (Photo: Miriam Elster/Flash90)
We move on to deal with the issue of the release of the hostages and the claims that Prime Minister Netanyahu is preventing a hostage deal for political reasons: “I am putting in my world of beliefs because I don’t really know, I want to believe that no, I want to believe that there cannot be a situation where the Israeli government does not want a hostage deal for political reasons, I I don’t want to assume that this is the case, I don’t know if these claims are substantiated.”
As for the deal itself, the former head of the Mossad says: “Hamas is currently, as far as I understand, raising the bar of demands to a level that the State of Israel probably cannot accept. One of the main demands – an end to the war and the return of Hamas rule in the Gaza Strip, as I understand Hamas is asking for, is something that is forbidden Agreeing with him, it is forbidden to agree, is much more than victory, it will not allow us to prevent the next attack from here on out.”
Yossi Cohen refers to the assassination of Hassan Mahdavi, a senior member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, who, according to foreign publications, was killed by Israel, which led to the Iranian attack on Israel and the incorrect assessment by AMN and the Mossad of the Iranian response: “Did they tell the Israeli government that there would be a response of 60 tons of explosives About Israel? It seems to me, as someone who knows the entire war cabinet, that the assessment was probably much more minor than the Iranian response regarding what was actually received.”
Former head of the Mossad, Yossi Cohen, in an interview with the Shabbat Square
When Cohen is mentioned about Iran, he is quick to emphasize: “We alone cannot deal with Iran, we could not do it alone on the Iranian nuclear issue, that is why we held talks – I did this for two years – regarding the nuclear agreement, in order to improve the agreement in our favor.”
Before we move on to the issue of the conscription law, we mentioned to Cohen Saudi Arabia, the country with which Israel wants to reach a peace agreement, and Yossi Cohen may have been the man who broke the ground in contacts with one of the most important countries in the Arab world.
“I believe it will happen,” declares Cohen: “I invested quite a bit in it, it will happen.” When we asked if he had visited Saudi Arabia, he replied with a smile: “According to foreign publications, so they say, I do not approve. It is a country that should not be defined as an enemy country, we have made several moves against it.”
Yossi Cohen as head of the Mossad with Herzi Halevi (Photo: Miriam Elster/Flash90)
Towards the end of the interview, we move on to deal with the burning issue in the political system, the conscription law and regulating the status of yeshiva students.
“I think we need to come first and that is equality in the burden, we need to come out in line with the ultra-Orthodox society that she wants to be part of, that she wants to be part of the burden but not voluntarily,” Cohen began his words.
According to him: “I am convinced that after Shiva in October – the entire ultra-Orthodox society should do a home inspection. Whatever happens, there cannot be a dividing line between those who will sacrifice their lives for the benefit of everyone and those who will not. I know it is a very long distance to do.
“My family is ultra-Orthodox, not all of them. And I hear, including rabbis and rebbes I meet, and they tell me that we need our leadership to behave differently in this matter.”
Cohen clarifies: “I want to study the Torah, I am very attached to the study of the Torah, I myself was a yeshiva student, we do not exist because of this, but this cannot be the general public.”
At the end of the interview, we asked Cohen when he would enter politics: “Not yet, I still haven’t decided that it is the right thing for me to do at this time. There are all kinds of considerations from different considerations.”
Watch the full interview
