Eli Cohen was an Egyptian-born Israeli spy who infiltrated the highest ranks of the Syrian military and government by posing as a Syrian businessman. Between 1961 and 1965 Cohen passed Syrian secrets to the Israeli government in what is remembered as one of the most daring and productive intelligence-gathering operations in Israeli history.
The recruitment of Eli Cohen to Unit 188, a military intelligence unit dedicated top operations beyond Israel’s borders, happened by coincidence. In September 1959, Cohen sent a Rosh Hashana greeting to Shlomo Millett, the interviewer who had previously disqualified him from serving as a spy. As a result of this greeting card, the question of Cohen’s candidacy was raised again. This time, as there was an immediate demand, Cohen was allowed to begin the recruitment process with two other candidates.
Cohen underwent nine months of basic training, which also included photography and film development and instruction in the use of encryption and a Morse code transmitter. Finally, Cohen’s instructors decided that the time had come to craft him a cover story. Cohen became Kamel Amin Thaabet, a businessman whose parents were of Syrian origin, but had immigrated to Lebanon. According to the story, his parents had died one after the other and he was summoned to work with his uncle, a businessman in Argentina.
On January 10, 1962, “Kamel Amin Thaabet” boarded a tourist ship that set out from the city of Genoa, Italy and, eventually, reached the port of Beirut. On the ship, Eli Cohen met Majeed Sheikh al-Ard – a figure who would accompany him during his three years in Damascus. Majeed Sheikh al-Ard explained to Cohen that he had a number of friends who could arrange a smooth crossing of the border for a few hundred Syrian pounds. Majeed Sheikh al-Ard called his friend, a Syrian security man waiting for them at the border crossing, while loaning a sum of 400 Syrian pounds from Cohen, a loan that would never be returned. Kamel Amin Thaabet (Eli Cohen) sat, drinking coffee at the border crossing as Majeed Sheikh al-Ard’s friends took care of the paperwork and transferred the bags containing the spy equipment that Cohen had brought with him from Israel. When the junior customs officers tried to open the suitcases, their boss scolded them loudly, “They’ve already been checked!” lied the supervisor. This was how Eli Cohen arrived in Damascus without so much as a search of his personal effects.
Cohen’s espionage work took on even greater importance when a Baʿthist junta that included several of his associates from Argentina seized power in Syria in 1963. The coup’s leader, Amin al-Hafez, continued to favour Cohen, and he reportedly considered appointing him deputy minister of defense. Cohen received classified military briefings and was taken on tours of the Syrian fortifications in the Golan Heights.
Despite Cohen’s considerable talent for espionage, he displayed a tendency for carelessness, ignoring his Israeli handlers’ warnings against sending radio transmissions too frequently or always at the same time of day. That proved to be his downfall. In January 1965 Syrian counterintelligence identified his radio signal and apprehended him in the act of sending a transmission. Cohen was interrogated, convicted in a military trial, and publicly hanged in May 1965.
Эли Коэн был израильским шпионом египетского происхождения, который проник в высшие эшелоны сирийской армии и правительства, выдавая себя за сирийского бизнесмена. Между 1961 и 1965 годами Коэн передавал сирийские секреты израильскому правительству в ходе одной из самых отважных и продуктивных разведывательных операций в истории Израиля.
Вербовка Эли Коэна в подразделение 188, подразделение военной разведки, предназначенное для проведения важнейших операций за пределами Израиля, произошла по чистой случайности. В сентябре 1959 года Коэн послал приветствие Рош-Ха-Шана Шломо Миллету, интервьюеру, который ранее лишил его права служить шпионом. Вопрос о кандидатуре Коэна вновь был поднят благодаря этой поздравительной открытке. На этот раз, Коэну разрешили начать процесс вербовки с двумя другими кандидатами, поскольку требовалась срочная помощь.
Коэн прошел девятимесячную базовую подготовку, которая также включала в себя разработку фотографий и пленок, а также обучение использованию шифра и передатчика азбуки Морзе. В конце концов, инструкторы Коэна решили, что пришло время придумать ему легенду для прикрытия. Коэн стал Камелем Амином Таабетом, бизнесменом, чьи родители были сирийского происхождения, но эмигрировали в Ливан. Согласно этой истории, его родители умерли один за другим, и он был вызван на работу к своему дяде, бизнесмену из Аргентины.
