Heavy scandal Details of an affair that led the Mossad chief to reveal state secrets

The former head of the Israeli Mossad is accused of revealing state secrets in front of a woman with whom he had a suspicious affair, in a scandal that is added to other cases of corruption, bribery and abuse of power, drawing the features of a black record for one of the most important organs of the occupying state.

A suspicious affair with a married flight attendant led the former head of the Israeli "Mossad", Yossi Cohen, to fall under the taboo of disclosing state secrets. This is what was revealed by a report broadcast on Tuesday by the Israeli Channel 13, noting that Cohen was bragging to the flight attendant and her husband about his intelligence achievements, the details of which were disclosed and were supposed to remain secret.

This scandal is added to the long record of the head of the occupation intelligence, who is close to Netanyahu, which includes previous accusations of bribery and abuse of the influence of his position for personal purposes. On the other hand, Cohen has always pursued a political career after leaving the security position, which prompts observers to question whether he still had a political future or had he miscarried before his birth?

"Gossip" Cohen

The revelation of the story of the affair suspected of having disclosed the secrets of the occupying state dates back to last June. Channel 13 spoke of suspicions of an affair between Cohen and a flight attendant, and that the legal advisor to the government, Avichai Mandelblit, was looking into a complaint in this regard that had been submitted to the Ministry of Justice.

The channel reconfirmed this in its latest program, which included a testimony of the ex-wife of Yossi Cohen's lover, Guy Sheker, a well-known figure in the Israeli financial markets. Sheker said that the intelligence chief on his visits to their home was "telling a lot of stories, including about the Mossad." He added that he was "talkative" and gave the couple details of his management of the Israeli intelligence service.

Among these details, which Cohen revealed to his lover and husband, was that "the Mossad had a relationship with a doctor of a well-known Arab leader (without mentioning his name)." He claimed that "When I was appointed head of the Mossad (..) within 10 days, I fired 6 high-ranking officials because they were not loyal to the system. They were not good. They thought I was their best friend when we were equals. The moment I was appointed I fired them without mercy," according to what was reported by the ex-girlfriend.

While it is not the first time that a scandal has been raised against Cohen about his "gossip" about issues sensitive to the security of the occupying state. Shortly before this, the former Mossad chief faced criticism for hinting in a press interview that the Mossad was responsible for the bombing of Iran's Natanz nuclear facility.

He also previously provided, during that interview, an accurate description of the process of stealing the Iranian nuclear archive from safes in a warehouse in Tehran in 2018. He stressed that the assassinated Iranian nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, had been under Mossad surveillance for years. All of this information is supposed to be sensitive and not disclosed to the public.

The love of the Mossad chief

The flight attendant's ex-wife told about the exposure of his wife's relationship with the former Mossad chief, that he had found letters to his wife in which Cohen described her with terms such as "my princess" and "my beautiful". Then Sheker confronted him and said, "You love my wife, and she loves you, you're destroying a family now." In return, Cohen denied his connection to the flight attendant, saying in a television interview, "There is no flight attendant, and there is no close relationship."

Sheker's ex-wife also denied the existence of a relationship between her and Cohen, and denied through her lawyer that "the Mossad chief did not reveal secrets to her and her husband, and she also denied that she had an affair with the former Mossad chief."

The Channel 13 report said that Cohen illegally used his powers in an attempt to obtain information and data about the lover's husband. Through this, it was found that Sheker had previously tried to join the Israeli Mossad, and the Mossad chief had agreed to his request to appoint a secretary to him in the Mossad branch, and she was later appointed in the Thai capital, Bangkok.

It was also not the first accusation of Cohen using his position to advance personal interests, as it was previously exposed that his daughter was employed in a high position in an Emirati company owned by the National Security Adviser in Abu Dhabi, Tahnoun bin Zayed, shortly after the two countries signed the normalization agreement between them.

Last August, the Israeli police opened a criminal investigation against the Mossad chief for illegally receiving $20,000 as a gift. Cohen later admitted that he got that sum from Australian billionaire James Packer when he invited him to attend his daughter's wedding, and said that he accepted the money after consulting with the Mossad's legal counsel, and that he was committed to returning it.

Waiting for a political career?

Yossi Cohen is one of the close personalities of the former Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, as he was the one who appointed him in 2016 to head the Israeli intelligence service, and before that he was his security advisor during the period between 2013 and 2016. With the departure of the two men from their position in 2021, Cohen became a self-aware of succeeding Netanyahu at the head of the "Likud" party and perhaps heading one of the next governments.

Tamouh has returned to be the subject of questions, with the exposure of the case of his suspicious affair and allegations that he disclosed sensitive secrets of the state. As this matter sparked a wave of great criticism from politicians and former Mossad officers, threatening that this scandal would remain a black stain on the man's career that threatens any future intention for him to assume high political positions.

In this context, retired Mossad colonel Yossi Langotsky commented that "Cohen became a major leaker for the intelligence service" and turned out to be "an uncontrollable, power-crazed person who allows himself to say things that would bring any lower-ranking official to prison." ". Ram Ben Barak, a former deputy chief of Mossad and current deputy of the centrist Yesh Atid coalition that heads the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, told Army Radio that "it seems that there are things [in the Channel 13 report] that are really worrying." He attributed any movement in it to the completion of the picture after the broadcast of the press investigation part.

It seems that Yossi Cohen still maintains some of his popularity within Israeli right-wing circles, as a number of social media activists sympathetic to that trend rejected the allegations about the former intelligence chief, and supported him in the same way that they supported Netanyahu when his corruption was exposed.