Has Yossi Cohen’s legacy— as the derring-do, swashbuckling master spy who’s credited with snatching the Iranian nuclear archives— been irreparably tarnished by the war’s massive security failure?
As all factions are feeling their way forward in the post-October 7 environment, waiting for the dust to settle and see where they all land, Cohen hopes not.
For years, Yossi Cohen — a seventh-generation Yerushalmi and former talmid of Yeshivat Or Etzion and Rav Chaim Drukman a”h who has said that his faith in Am Yisrael, Torat Yisrael, and Eretz Yisrael are the values that have guided and protected him in operations all over the world — held the Mossad position of ketzin isuf, an officer in charge of recruiting, engaging, and handling agents. Smart as a whip, fearless, highly-intuitive, and speaking perfect English, French, and several dialects of Arabic, he rose in the ranks and was involved in many missions to Western Europe, where he lived for several years with his wife and children. During those years, he was known simply as “Y” (until the late 1990s everyone in the organization, even the director of the Mossad, was only known by his initial, but that’s changed in the politically correct 21st century).
In 2008, Cohen was appointed by then-Mossad chief Meir Dagan to tackle the Iranian nuclear program, and that meant a historical shift: cooperating with foreign government agencies once considered enemies — everyone loathed Iran’s support of Hezbollah, and nobody wanted Tehran to have a nuclear bomb.
After Dagan completed his tenure in 2011, Cohen was appointed as a deputy director under new Mossad head Tamir Pardo, but their operation style and vision clashed, and Cohen left the agency to become Netanyahu’s National Security Adviser — and his closest confidant.
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