Eliahu Cohen

Eliyahu Ben-Shaul Cohen (Hebrew: אֱלִיָּהוּ בֵּןשָׁאוּל כֹּהֵן‎, Arabic: إيلي كوهين‎‎; 6 December 1924 – 18 May 1965), commonly known as Eli Cohen, was an Israeli spy. He is best known for his espionage work in 1961–1965 in Syria, where it was alleged he developed close relationships with the Syrian political and military hierarchy and became the chief adviser to the Minister of Defense.

Syrian counterintelligence eventually uncovered the spy conspiracy and convicted Cohen under pre-war martial law, sentencing him to death and hanginghim publicly in 1965.

Cohen was born in 1924 in Alexandria, Egypt to a devout Jewish and Zionist family. His father had moved there from Aleppo in 1914. He studied at Cairo Farouk University.

In January 1947, Eli enlisted in the Egyptian Army as an alternative to paying the prescribed sum that all young Jews were obliged to pay, but he was declared ineligible on grounds of questionable loyalty. Later that year, he left university and began studying at home after facing harassment by the Muslim Brotherhood.

His parents and three brothers left for Israel in 1949, but he remained to finish a degree in electronics and to coordinate Jewish and Zionist activities. The government initiated an anti-Zionist campaign in 1951, following a military coup, and Cohen was arrested and interrogated over his Zionist activities. He took part in various Israeli covert operations in the country during the 1950s, although the Egyptian government could never provide proof of his involvement in Operation Goshen, an Israeli operation to smuggle Egyptian Jews out of the country and resettle them in Israel due to increasing hostility in Egypt.

Israel's secret police recruited a sabotage unit of Jewish Egyptian citizens in 1955 which attempted to undermine Egypt's relationships with western powers in the "Lavon Affair". The unit bombed unoccupied American and British installations, expecting that this would be considered the work of Egyptians. Egyptian authorities uncovered the spy ring and sentenced two of the members to death. Cohen had aided the unit and was implicated, but they found no link between him and the perpetrators.

The Egyptian government increased their persecution of Jews and expelled many of them, and Cohen was forced to leave the country in December 1956. He emigrated to Israel with the assistance of the Jewish Agency. The Israel Defense Forces recruited him in 1957 and placed him in military intelligence, where he became a counter-intelligence analyst. His work bored him and he attempted to join the Mossad, but he was offended when the Mossad rejected him, and he resigned from military counter-intelligence. For the next two years, he worked as a filing clerk in a Tel Aviv insurance office.

In 1959, he married Nadia Majald, an Iraqi-Jewish immigrant and the sister of author Sami Michael. They had three children—Sophie, Irit, and Shai—and the family settled in Bat Yam.

The Mossad recruited Cohen after Director-General Meir Amit, looking for a special agent to infiltrate the Syrian government, came across his name while looking through the agency's files of rejected candidates, after none of the current candidates seemed suitable for the job. For two weeks Cohen was put under surveillance, and was judged suitable for recruitment and training. Cohen was then informed that the Mossad had decided to recruit him and underwent an intensive six-month course at the Mossad training school. His graduate report stated that he had all the qualities needed to become a katsa, or field agent.

He was then given a false identity as a Syrian businessman who was returning to the country after living in Argentina. To establish his cover, Cohen moved to Buenos Aires in 1961. In Buenos Aires he moved among the Arab community, letting it be known he had large amounts of money to put at the disposal of the Syrian Ba'ath Party. At this time the Ba'ath Party was illegal in Syria but the Party seized power in 1963.

Cohen (in the middle) at the Golan Heights

Cohen moved to Damascus in February 1962 under the alias Kamel Amin Thaabet (Arabic: كامل أمين ثابت‎). Mossad had carefully planned the tactics that he was to use in building relationships with high-ranking Syrian politicians, military officials, influential public figures and the diplomatic community.

According to himself or Mossad, Cohen continued his social life as he had in Argentina, spending time in cafes listening to political gossip. He also held parties at his home which turned into orgies for high-placed Syrian ministers, businessmen, and others. At these parties, highly placed officials would openly discuss their work and army plans. Cohen would pretend to be drunk to encourage such conversations, to which he paid close attention. He would also lend money to government officials, and many came to him for advice.

Intelligence collected

Cohen provided an extensive amount and wide range of intelligence data to the Israeli Army between 1961 and 1965. He sent intelligence to Israel by radio, secret letters, and occasionally in person; he secretly traveled to Israel three times. His most famous achievement was the tour of the Golan Heights in which he collected intelligence on the Syrian fortifications there. He feigned sympathy for the soldiers exposed to the sun and had trees planted at every position, ostensibly placed to provide shade. The Israel Defense Forces used the trees as targeting markers during the Six-Day War, which enabled Israel to capture the Golan Heights in two days.

Cohen made repeated visits to the southern frontier zone, providing photographs and sketches of Syrian positions. He also learned of a secret plan to create three successive lines of bunkers and mortars; the Israel Defense Forces would otherwise have expected to encounter only a single line. Cohen was able to find out that the Syrians planned to divert the Jordan River headwaters in an attempt to deprive Israel of water resources, providing information to the Israeli military to destroy the equipment prepared for the task.

It is claimed that the intelligence that Cohen gathered before his arrest was an important factor in Israel's success in the Six-Day War, however others have pointed out that the Syrian defences were completely changed after the 1966 Syrian coup, and that the 1967 results came from Israel's Western military and financial support.

Uncovered

Newly appointed Syrian Intelligence Colonel Ahmed Su'edani trusted no one and disliked Cohen. Cohen expressed fear of discovery to the Mossad on his last secret visit to Israel in November 1964, and he stated that he wished to terminate his assignment in Syria. The purposes of that visit were to pass on intelligence and to enable him to witness the birth of his third child. Despite this, however, Israeli intelligence asked him to return to Syria one more time. Before leaving, Cohen assured his wife it would be his last trip before he returned permanently.

In January 1965, Syrian officials increased their efforts to find a high-level spy using Soviet-made tracking equipment and assisted by Soviet experts. They observed a period of radio silence, and they hoped that any illegal transmissions could be identified. They detected large amounts of radio interference and traced them to their source. Syrian security services broke into Cohen's apartment on January 24 and caught him in the middle of a transmission to Israel.

Eli Cohen, publicly hanged in the Marjeh Square, Damascus on 18 May 1965

Cohen was found guilty of espionage by a military tribunal and sentenced to death under martial law. He had been repeatedly interrogated and tortured.

Israel staged an international campaign for clemency, hoping to persuade the Syrians not to execute him. Israeli Foreign Minister Golda Meir led a campaign urging Damascus to consider the consequences of hanging him. Diplomats, prime ministers, and Pope Paul VI tried to intercede. Meir even appealed to the Soviet Union. The governments of Belgium, Canada, and France tried to persuade the Syrian government to commute the death sentence, but the Syrians refused. Cohen wrote in his final letter on May 15, 1965:

I am begging you my dear Nadia not to spend your time in weeping about some thing already passed. Concentrate on yourself, looking forward for a better future!

Cohen was hanged in the Marjeh Square in Damascus on May 18, 1965. On the day of his execution, his last wish to see a rabbi was respected by the prison authorities, and Nissim Indibo accompanied him in the truck. He was the elderly Chief Rabbi of Syria.

Memorial stone reading Eliahu (Eli) Cohen, in the "Garden of the Missing Soldiers" on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.

Syria refused to return Cohen's body to his family in Israel, and his wife Nadia sent a letter to Amin al-Hafiz in November 1965 asking his forgiveness for Cohen's actions and requesting his remains. In February 2007, the Turkish government offered to act as a mediator for their return.

Monthir Maosily was al-Assad's bureau chief, and he said in August 2008 that the Syrians had buried him three times to stop the remains from being brought back to Israel via a special operation. Syrian authorities have repeatedly denied family requests for the remains. Cohen's brothers Abraham and Maurice led a campaign to return his remains; Maurice died in 2006, and Nadia now leads it.

A Syrian group calling itself "Syrian art treasures" posted a video on Facebook showing Cohen's body after his execution. No video was previously known to exist of the execution. The press announced on July 5, 2018 that Cohen's wristwatch had been retrieved from Syria. His widow mentioned that the watch was up for sale months earlier, and the Mossad managed to capture it. Mossad director Yossi Cohen presented it to Cohen's family in a ceremony, and it is currently on display at Mossad headquarters.

Cohen has become a national hero in Israel, and many streets and neighborhoods have been named for him. Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Defense Minister Ezer Weizmann, Chief of Staff Mordechai Gur, and several Mossad operatives all attended his son's Bar Mitzvah in 1977. A memorial stone has been erected to Cohen in the Garden of the Missing Soldiers in Mount Herzl, Jerusalem.

John Shea played Cohen in the television film The Impossible Spy (1987), and Sacha Baron Cohen played him in the Netflix miniseries The Spy (2019).