Recently the TV program “Uvda” (“Fact”) held an interview with Yossi Cohen, the head of the Israeli intelligence service “Mossad”, who retired last month. This interview revealed very interesting details about the methods of Mossad’s work in general, and also brought up a lot of interesting facts about its massive operations against Iran, in particular.
Cohen’s revelations were so insightful that even some high-ranking defense officials suggested that the former head of Mossad should be held responsible for their declassification. It is impossible to deny that this outspoken criticism was part of a political delegitimation of Cohen, who is seen by many as Netanyahu’s potential successor and the future leader of the right-wing camp.
Below I have summarized what I consider to be the most interesting and significant facts uncovered by the former head of “Mossad”. I will also comment on some of them. My comments are given in square brackets.
1. Diversions on Iranian nuclear facilities with embedded equipment (such as the special table that exploded in Natanz). According to the former head of the Mossad, all these operations took place because the Israeli secret services became “part of the supply chain to Iran”.
[As I have written before, Israel made very extensive arrangements for “supplying” Iran with large quantities of equipment. And it was not just the already mentioned exploded table. This included components for electrical systems, electronic and mechanical equipment, etc.].
2. Israel considers nuclear scientists and other specialists working for the Iranian military project as a threat, and therefore, according to the former head of the Mossad, the intelligence service directly or indirectly approached some of the Iranian scientists, “suggesting” that they change their occupation and activities. Some of them decided to follow such suggestions, realizing that this was the most perspective option for them, while any other solution could be very harmful for them...There were, however, some who refused to undertake “professional re-training”....
[Israel, according to foreign publications, has indeed eliminated a number of specialists involved in the development of long-range missiles and nuclear weapons, as well as senior commanders who were developing strategic weapons for the Iranian regime and its satellites like Hamas.]
3. According to Yossi Cohen, Iran is as far from possessing nuclear weapons today as it was at the time when, as head of the Mossad, he began to act against the Iranian military program, using the full range of capabilities available to the foreign intelligence service of the State of Israel. In other words, thanks to the efforts of the Mossad, Iran has essentially failed to make any significant progress in its nuclear program since Cohen became the head of the organization about five and a half years ago.
[In my humble opinion, this is a very impressive and important statement. It is very clear today that Iran is enriching uranium to the level of 60%. The Iranian authorities directly admit this. What is more important, that this fact has been confirmed by the experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency. Nevertheless, the head of Mossad claims that Iran today is no closer to the invention of nuclear bomb than it was before. This means that, although Iran has made progress in enriching uranium, it is still “stuck” in other areas. As far as I know, this is also the official assessment of the Directorate General of Military Intelligence of the Israel Defense Forces (AMAN), which is absolutely confident that, despite extensive enrichment in recent weeks, Iran is at least a year away from having a ready nuclear bomb.
There is a number of objective reasons for this, including the fact that Iran is still far from obtaining a significant amount of uranium enriched to 93%. The U.S. Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), a non-governmental institution that informs the public about “science and policy issues affecting international security,” including the studies, that focus on monitoring the Iranian nuclear project. This organization has published a study according to which, based on the current uranium enrichment level, which is now 60%, Iran will accumulate the amount of material needed for a single bomb in about 1.3 years. According to the same study, by doubling the number of high-speed IR-6 centrifuges Iran would reduce the time required to accumulate the required amount of uranium to 8 months.
However, it is worth reminding that Israel has severely damaged the Natanz enrichment facility and destroyed a significant number of centrifuges at this facility. Moreover, in another operation about 10 months ago, also carried out by the Mossad, according to foreign publications, the centrifuge plant at Natanz was destroyed. Photographs of the destroyed facility were published online.
In my humble opinion, besides that, a number of other facts should also be taken into account. After obtaining such centrifuge-enriched uranium, it must be converted back from UF-6 gas to “metallic uranium”. The fact is that the bomb’s core is not made from centrifuge-enriched gas, but from metal. Turning gas into metal is a long process. These “metal pieces” must be shaped into perfect hemispheres, which is also a time-consuming process. Then it is necessary to install the uranium hemispheres inside a military system (a nuclear warhead or something similar). And finally, to put the entire warhead into a missile or bomb.
It is possible that the Mossad’s extended network has penetrated very deeply into all of the aforementioned processes and facilities that are involved in the aforementioned stages of the bomb’s development. One way or another, Iran is still a long way from making a nuclear weapon.
At the time Cohen took office, Iran was under the the nuclear deal restrictions and at that time it was already estimated that if the regime in Tehran wanted a nuclear weapon, it would require at least a year to do so.
So, in short, there are good reasons to trust the Mossad’s former head statements that Iran is no closer to a bomb today than it was before].
4. The former head of the Mossad said that during his years of service he had managed to recruit “hundreds of people”, in other words, agents. He has also personally used hundreds of passports ... Among other things, Cohen revealed that he had recruited a high-ranking member of Hizbullah, someone at the very top of the organization, details of which, of course, he did not reveal, in order not to endanger his life.
This high-ranking agent, according to Cohen, was very useful to Israel and was recruited after a long period of contacts and meetings during which the former head of Mossad managed to build a personal relationship with him and gain his absolute trust.
[Since we are talking about a time when Yossi Cohen was not yet the head of the Mossad, but only an officer who recruited agents and collaborators, and this evidently happened even before he became the commander of the “Tsomet” unit (responsible for recruiting agents), it is likely that the events are at least 20 years old. In other words, it is not certain that this top Hizbullah member is still in office. This is why Cohen appears to be able to mention this fact].
5. In his interview, the former head of the Mossad also revealed for the first time some details of the amazing operation of delivering the entire Iranian nuclear archive to Israel.
[This archive, which contained all the information about Iran’s nuclear developments over many years, was extracted from the center of Tehran in an unprecedented covert operation about three and a half years ago. As a result, after reviewing the material Israel was able to extract, Trump ended U.S. participation in the nuclear deal and imposed harsh economic sanctions on Iran that remain today in force].
Among the details revealed in the current interview, is that two years before the operation, the head of the Mossad had given orders to trace the archive and prepare for its delivery to Israel. The head of the Mossad and senior Mossad officials personally monitored the operation in real time from Mossad headquarters and actually saw and heard the entire process of breaking in and receiving the archive.
In addition, Cohen told in an interview another curious detail of the operation, previously unknown to the general public. At the very moment when the team arrived on the scene to retrieve the archive, a serious problem arose. It turned out that despite the constant surveillance of the location, the Iranians had managed to change something there, literally on the very last day. The details of the changes were not clear, and there was no intelligence about them. After a meeting to decide whether to continue the operation as planned, or to change it and even postpone it completely [because of fears that the Iranians might have taken additional and unknown precautions or hidden some traps there], the Mossad decided to continue, despite the possible risks.
Finally, after the head of the Mossad gave the order, the assault team stormed in and started burning through the metal vault walls, a process that took a long time.
[From here, by the way, the extent of the Almighty’s mercy and miracles becomes clear. Despite the fact that the Mossad was watching the archive location, the observers missed the last minute changes made by the Iranians. This could have been a serious error that would have ruined the whole operation, such as an unknown restructuring of the archive, the removal of important materials, the introduction of new security measures or the alarms installation that could have revealed the Mossad agents who had entered and put their lives in immediate danger. Nevertheless, by the grace and miracles of the Almighty, none of this happened].
According to Cohen, seven hours were granted to complete the operation, from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. (by that time the area around was already alive and it became impossible to continue the operation). After the “enormous” safes were opened the agents began to send photos and documents to the operational headquarters in Israel. The former head of Mossad spoke about the great excitement he and everyone around him felt when they saw that the agents were in fact holding the Iranian nuclear program.
6. Following the break-in and confiscation [We were talking about half a ton of documents and disks]. The next morning the Iranians discovered the break-in and immediately realized what had happened. Immediately a chase was launched. All Iranian border crossings (sea, land and air) were immediately blocked.
The manhunt also began inside Tehran, where, according to Cohen, “a general alarm was raised”.
Cohen said that at this point the Mossad engaged in an enormous distraction process, the whole purpose of which was to confuse the Iranian secret services by forcing them to catch the intruders in the wrong place and continuously feeding the Iranians with false information which led the chasers down the wrong trail. The agents, meanwhile, with all their documents, by the grace of the Almighty, managed to escape.
Right in the process of their escape, the agents continued to copy the most important part of the information, sending it immediately to Israel, to ensure that in case of failure and capture, at least part of the archive would be in the hands of the Mossad.
[According to foreign publications, about 12,000 soldiers and policemen were chasing Mossad agents that day! But by the grace and miracles of the Almighty, all the dozen participants of the operation managed to escape without casualties.]
7. Cohen also revealed that he played a significant role in reaching peace agreements with the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Sudan and Bahrain, which happened only because of his hard backstage work over the years, including personal visits and meetings with top government and defense officials in those countries.
8. Cohen admitted in an interview that the money transfer from Qatar to Hamas was a mistake. He said that he sincerely believed that the money coming from Qatar [about $1 billion has been transferred so far] would improve the lives of the Palestinian Arabs and reduce their motivation for war. But he openly admitted that he was wrong, and the Qatari money has not improved the situation.
9. Yossi Cohen was a member of the youthful religious-Zionist “Bnei Akiva” movement, studied at the yeshiva of one of the leading rabbis of the religious-Zionist movement, R. Druckman, and prays regularly at a synagogue in the city of Modi’in, where he was actively involved in raising funds for its construction. He received the news that he had been appointed the head of the Mossad when he was in his parents’ house wearing a kippah after lighting Hanukkah candles with his Torah-observant parents. And one of his nicknames in the Mossad was “Yossi-Dosi” (“dosi”, “dos” — from the word “dati” — religious in Hebrew, pronounced in an Ashkenazic manner)...
In general, this interview was a convincing illustration of the fact that the Mossad, as well as the other security services in Israel, fight for the security of our people with desperate dedication, day and night, far from the borders of Israel.
And this struggle is extremely successful, thanks to the many miracles that occur along the way, which look as if they are “natural”, but are the evidence of the Almighty`s help, which emerges in almost every operation. As the Lubavitcher Rebbe King Moshiach SHLITA repeated several times, this is explained in the lines of Psalm 121 of David: In general, this interview was a convincing illustration of the fact that the Mossad, as well as the other security services in Israel, fight for the security of our people with desperate dedication, day and night, far from the borders of Israel.
And this struggle is extremely successful, thanks to the many miracles that occur along the way, which look as if they are “natural”, but are the evidence of the Almighty`s help, which emerges in almost every operation. As the Lubavitcher Rebbe King Moshiach SHLITA repeated several times, this is explained in the lines of Psalm 121 of David: “Will not slumber and will not sleep the Guard of Israel.” Specifically, this applies to the residents of the Holy Land, which, according to the Rebbe, is "the safest place in the world.