Olmert’s conviction and the Israeli spy who never came home

Only in the dizzying complexities of Middle East politics and diplomacy can the recent conviction of a former Israeli prime minister on bribery charges have a connection to an espionage story that happened when he was only a teenager. 

   Forty nine years ago this week, on May 18 1965, at 2:45 am, a prominent and well-connected “Syrian businessman” named Kamel Amin Thaabet was hanged in a central square in Damascus. But that was not his real name…and he was not Syrian.  His name was Eli Cohen, and he was an Israeli Mossad field officer. To this day Eli Cohen is considered the best Mossad officer operating in an Arab country Israel has ever had.
   Eli Cohen was born in in 1924 in Alexandria, Egypt to a Zionist family originally from Aleppo, Syria.  In 1949, despite harassment by the Muslim Brotherhood, he stayed in Egypt to complete his degree in electronics and coordinate Jewish and Zionist activities, even though his parents and three brothers had immigrated to Israel. 
   In 1951, he was arrested and interrogated over his Zionist activities. Though he took part in various Israeli covert operations during the 1950s, the Egyptians could never prove anything. 
    Following the 1956 Suez Campaign, the Egyptian government stepped up persecution of Jews and expelled many of them. Forced to leave Egypt, Cohen joined his family in Israel. 
    In 1957, he was recruited by the IDF, serving as a counterintelligence analyst. After his military service he attempted to join the Mossad, but was initially rejected.
    For the next few years, he worked as a filing clerk in a Tel Aviv insurance office and in 1959 married Nadia Majald, an Iraqi-Jewish immigrant. They had three children, Sophie, Irit and Shai.
     The Mossad finally recruited Cohen in 1960 when they needed a special agent to infiltrate the Syrian government. He underwent an intensive six-month course at the Mossad training school.
   The Mossad gave him a false identity as a Syrian businessman who was returning to the country after living in Argentina. To establish his cover, he moved to Argentina in 1961.
   Having made friends with senior Syrian military attaches and diplomats in Argentina, Cohen moved to Damascus in February 1962 under the alias Kamel Amin Thaabet.
   His tactics to cultivate relations with Syrian high-ranked politicians, military officers, influential public figures and foreign diplomats were carefully crafted and masterminded by the Mossad. He continued his lavish social life as in Argentina, spending time in cafes listening to political gossip. 
   He also held parties at his home, which often turned into extravagant orgies for high-placed Syrian ministers, businessmen, and others. They used Cohen's apartment for trysts with various women, including Defense Ministry secretaries, airline flight attendants, and Syrian movie and pop stars.
   At these parties the highly placed officials would talk freely of their work and army plans. Cohen, who would feign intoxication, remained sober and listened carefully. 
  With Mossad money he provided loans to government officials, who intoxicated by the alcohol he freely provided, frequently asked for his advice on top secret security issues. 
   In Argentina he cultivated a friendship with Amin al-Hafiz, who became President of Syria in 1963, and seriously considered Cohen (AKA Kamel Amin Thaabet), the Israeli spy, for the position of Syrian Deputy Minister of Defense.
  From 1961-1965 Eli Cohen provided an incredible amount of intelligence data to the IDF. He transmitted it by radio, secret letters, and occasionally in person. He secretly traveled to Israel three times, and often met his handlers (and occasionally his wife and children), during “business trips” to Europe. 
   His most significant achievement was when he toured the Golan Heights, collecting intelligence on the Syrian fortifications there. Feigning sympathy for the soldiers exposed to the sun, Cohen, as advisor to the Syrian commander on the Golan, had trees planted at every position. These trees were used in 1967 as target markers by the IDF during the Six-Day War, enabling Israel to destroy the positions and take the Golan Heights in two days. 
    In 1964 a newly appointed Syrian Intelligence officer, Colonel Ahmed Su'edani trusted no-one and disliked Cohen. During his last secret visit to Israel in November 1964 to pass intelligence, and for the birth of his third child, Cohen expressed his fear and requested to terminate his assignment in Syria. He was asked to return to Syria one more time. Before leaving, Cohen assured his wife that there would only be one more trip before he returned permanently.  
   In January 1965, Syrian efforts to find a high-level mole were stepped up. Using Soviet-made tracking equipment and assisted by Soviet experts, a period of radio silence was observed, hoping that any illegal transmissions could be identified. Numerous radio signals were detected and traced to their source. On January 24 Syrian security officers broke into Cohen's apartment catching him in the middle of a transmission to Israel. Cohen was arrested, repeatedly interrogated and tortured.
   After a short trial before a military tribunal, without a defense attorney, he was convicted of espionage and sentenced to death.
   On May 18, 1965, Eli Cohen was publicly hanged in the Marjeh Square in Damascus. To add insult, his body was left hanging on display for over nine hours, during which time it was broadcast on Syrian television
   Following the execution, Eli Cohen was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Damascus. His body has never been returned to Israel for burial. At first it was assumed that the Syrians did not want Israel to know the extent of his torture. As the years went by numerous Israeli and international requests, including a recent personal letter by Nadia Cohen to Basher al-Assad, were ignored.
   This brings me to the connection with Ehud Olmert’s conviction. 
   In 1988, just as the police were investigating then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on suspicion of pocketing envelopes full of cash as bribes from developers when he was mayor of Jerusalem, a breaking story came out that Israel and Syria were negotiating a comprehensive peace deal with the help of the Turkish government. The details were explicit, and included a deal regarding the return of the Golan Heights to Syria and the repatriation of Eli Cohen’s remains to Israel.
   Olmert went as far as publically informing Nadia Cohen that her husband’s remains will soon be brought to burial.
   Because of the explosive criminal investigation against the prime minister – few took the “peace talks” seriously.  The media was downright nasty, saying “the depth of the talks is as the depth of the envelopes”, and that Olmert was cynically using the Cohen family’s pain to distract from the investigation.
   We know how it ended – the talks went nowhere, and Olmert, convicted of soliciting and accepting bribes, was sentenced to six years in jail. As for Eli Cohen’s remains, the Syrians issued two contradicting statements at the time:
1. That over the years Eli Cohen’s body was reburied several times to deter an Israeli commando recovery operation, and that no-one alive today knows exactly where it is.
2. That buildings and a park were built on the location of his grave so that it will never be found.
   I don’t believe either statement. Eli Cohen’s remains are much too valuable a negotiation asset to just “lose”. We know that on May 18th, 1965 he was given a proper Jewish burial in the cemetery in Damascus, presided by the rabbi of Damascus, Rabbi Nissim Andvo. 
Hopefully, when the dust settles in Syria, whoever eventually controls Damascus will figure out a way to benefit from repatriating Eli Cohen for burial in Israel, ending the long saga of frustration of his family.
   Agree or disagree, that’s my opinion.

DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed above the writer’s, and do not represent SWJC directors, officers or members