In the spring of 1960, Eli Cohen was working as an accountant, living a stable life with his new wife —until he received a knock on his office door. The man at the door said he was an intelligence officer with Israel’s Ministry of Defense. He offered Eli a job that involved traveling to Europe and Arab countries.
Initially, Eli wasn’t interested. He preferred to spend time with Nadia, who was pregnant with their first child, and even the offer of doubling his salary wasn’t enough to sway him. However, about a month later, Eli learned he was being laid off due to cutbacks, with only 10 days’ notice.
When the mysterious man from the Ministry of Defense reappeared, offering the job again, Eli reconsidered. He trained for months where his memory and composure were rigorously tested, like glancing at a table of objects and recalling them in detail. Eli had a phenomenal memory; he could identify a car’s make, model, and year with a glance.
He learned how to spot a tail discreetly by glancing at reflections in shop windows to monitor those behind him without turning around. His trainer advised him that if anyone recognized him, he should simply say that they were mistaken. During one exercise, he was stripped naked and forced into a freezing bathtub to test his resilience and ability to maintain an alias Mossad had given him.
As author Eli Ben-hanan of “Our Man in Damascus” describes, “For six minutes his teeth chattered convulsively. His body turned blue and his eyes rolled in their sockets. ” After successfully completing his grueling training, Eli was ready for his first mission.
Nadia only knew he had a job with the Ministry of Defense and that it required frequent travel and long periods abroad. She didn’t know that Eli was now Kamel Amin Tabet, a wealthy Muslim Arab businessman born in Beirut who grew up in Egypt. Eli’s true background aided his cover: he had been born in Alexandria, Egypt, to a Jewish family from Syria.
He had been involved in Zionist causes in Egypt after WWII and briefly trained in Israel. But in 1956, after the Suez Crisis, when the Egyptians seized control of the Suez Canal, leading Israel, the UK, and France to invade, Eli and many other Jews were expelled and he moved to Israel. In 1961, Eli’s first mission as an Israeli spy took him to Buenos Aires, Argentina, home to a large Syrian community.
He immediately began learning Spanish with a private instructor to make his back story of spending years doing business in Argentina convincing. He became a regular member of an Arab social club, where he mingled with members of the Arab Muslim elite. Eli knew how to charm them.
He knew how to make people feel important, a skill that worked to his advantage. Author Ben-hanan describes how he charmed the manager of a large trading company by listening attentively to a long, dull discussion about cattle. When he heard that the manager exported meat to Israel but not Syria, Eli cleverly said, “You mean to say you sell meat to the Zionists, and not to the Fatherland?
” Aligning himself with Arab nationalist sentiments made his cover more convincing. Through a connection with the trading company manager, Eli was invited to a birthday celebration at the Syrian embassy, where he was introduced to General Amin el-Hafez, the military attaché at the embassy. General el-Hafez was one of the leaders of the Ba’ath Party in Syria working against Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser.
Although Nasser promoted Arab unity, Ba’athists felt he was prioritizing Egypt’s interests and sidelining Syria’s. They also viewed him as too accommodating to the West. Eli sensed the General’s ambition and flattered him, saying: “Why, General, everyone’s saying you’re one of the leaders of the party that’ll put an end to Syria’s inferiority…” The remark had the desired effect.
Author Ben-hanan described how: “El-Hafez’ face lit up. ” Impressed, the general invited him to his office, sharing hints of his political plans, that his party would soon come to power. Israel was wary of the Ba’ath party’s rise due to its strong Arab nationalist and anti-Israel stance.
Eli listened carefully to every detail and reported back to Tel Aviv each morning. He translated his intelligence reports into numerical codes using a codebook written in invisible ink. Each coded message was recorded on tape, and he used a transistor radio with a hidden transmitter to broadcast the message over a secure frequency.
To maintain secrecy, he used a chemical mixture to destroy the codebook after each use. In January 1962, Eli was re-assigned to Damascus, Syria, under the guise of a wealthy businessman eager to invest in his beloved homeland. He rented a luxurious villa not far from Syrian Army headquarters.
Eli gained unparalleled access to Syria’s military elite, thanks to the parties he was invited to and the ones he threw. He befriended George Salem Saif, an announcer and director of Radio Damascus, the official broadcasting service of the Syrian government. Through George, he met Colonel Salim Khatoum who revealed that the Ba’ath party planned a military takeover.
Page 66 Colonel Khatoum shared sensitive information with Eli about the vulnerabilities along the border between Syria and Israel. He described a hidden network of underground passageways, secretly occupied by hundreds of Syrian soldiers, ready to launch attacks from concealed positions. He even invited Eli on a tour!
On the tour, led by Lieutenant Ma’azi Zaher a-Din, Eli saw how the Syrians held a strategic advantage from their elevated positions in the Golan Heights, giving them a clear view of Israeli territory below. The lieutenant even showed him a map detailing where fortifications would be built in the area. Though Eli couldn’t photograph the map, his remarkable memory enabled him to retain every detail.
And he transmitted all that he learned to Tel Aviv the next morning. But even the best spies have close calls. One morning, as Eli was transmitting, the lieutenant appeared in his apartment.
Eli allowed him to come and go as he pleased, a calculated move to build rapport and trust. The lieutenant noticed his code book and questioned him, but Eli quickly responded that he was working on a crossword puzzle - a close call that saved his cover. While mingling with the Syrian military elite, he also took on another mission: tracking down former Nazis.
Tel Aviv assigned him to find Franz Rademacher, a Nazi war criminal hiding under an alias somewhere in Buenos Aires. Rademacher feared Mossad would do to him what it had done to Adolf Eichmann, one of the architects of the Holocaust, whom Mossad had abducted in Argentina and sentenced to death. Eli turned to his well-connected friend, Majd Sheikh Al-Ard who knew everyone in town and he had charmed with thoughtful gifts, like Cuban cigars.
Sheikh Al-Ard ultimately introduced him to Rademacher as noted in a declassified CIA document. Rademacher was eventually arrested in Syria on spying charges and in poor health, later returned to Germany, where he was taken into custody. On March 8, 1963, the Ba’ath Party overthrew the government, and General El-Hafez became Syria’s president.
Eli now had direct access to Syria’s most powerful figure. To celebrate, Eli threw the new president an extravagant party at his villa. At the party, Eli met an engineer involved in the Jordan River diversion project - a plan to cut off Israel’s water supply.
Ibn-Ladan The engineer boasted that their dams were built to withstand Israeli bombs. Eli relayed it all to Tel Aviv, enabling Israel to map Syria’s defenses precisely. On November 13, 1964, when Syrian forces fired on Israeli tractors near the border, Israel’s Air Force launched precision airstrikes on Syria’s Jordan River diversion equipment, temporarily halting Syria’s plans.
Later, during the Six-Day War in 1967, Eli’s detailed reports on Syrian fortifications in the Golan Heights proved instrumental, enabling Israel to capture the strategic territory quickly. President el-Hafez had become increasingly suspicious of a leak. After returning from an urgent kidney operation in Paris, he noticed that Israeli radio broadcasts detailed every aspect of his trip.
To confirm his suspicions, he held a secret meeting with top officials, forbidding them from sharing details with anyone. Soon after, he tuned in to Israel’s Arabic broadcast and was shocked to hear the details. He realized the leak was likely through radio transmissions since the information was broadcast so quickly.
Around this time, Eli returned to Israel on leave. He told his Syrian friends that he was on a business trip abroad. He reunited with Nadia, his two young daughters, and a son who was born during his visit.
But it wasn’t long before he had to get back to work. Eli promised his wife he’d soon be home for good when his contract with the Ministry of Defence ended in May 1965. But that day would never come.
On January 24, 1965, security agents burst into Eli’s apartment as he was broadcasting to Tel Aviv. According to Israel, his transmissions had been intercepted and traced by Syrian intelligence. The security agents forced Eli to send false information to Israel: “The Syrian army is in a state of alert.
” But Eli transmitted the message at slower speeds so Tel Aviv would understand that he had been captured. President el-Hafez staged a show trial, with the outcome already determined. On May 8, 1965, Eli Cohen was sentenced to death for espionage.
Nadia listened to the radio as Eli’s sentencing was broadcast. Author Ben-hanan describes her reaction: “With the last of her strength, Nadia Cohn pounded the radio in front of her. Her fists smashed the glass and hurled the radio to the ground.
Then, with a hysterical scream, she rushed at the windows and smashed all the window panes one after the other. ” Elie’s brother rushed to her side to comfort her. Syria rejected Israel’s offer to exchange him for 10 Syrian spies and millions in aid and supplies.
Eli’s plight garnered sympathy and support across the Western world. Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker begged the Syrian president to reconsider. The Pope sent a personal note to President el-Hafez.
Yet, nothing would change his mind. He felt betrayed by a man whom he considered a close friend. El-Hafez personally interrogated Eli and was shocked to discover Eli wasn’t Muslim; he had trouble reciting the opening chapter of the Qu’ran, one of the most important verses in Islam.
He was stunned to realize Eli was Jewish. Before his public execution, Eli was permitted to write a letter to his wife and children: "To my dear Nadia and my dear family, I am writing you these last words… My beloved Nadia, take care of yourself and our children. Look after them, care for them, and give them the best education possible.
… You are free to remarry, to give our children a father. I am begging you not to mourn for the past but to look to the future. I am sending you my last kisses…and to the rest of my family, especially my mother… Please pray for my soul.
” He was permitted to pray with a Jewish Rabbi. Eli’s execution was broadcast live on Syrian television. Martyrs’ Square of Damascus I’ve blurred the image out of respect and consideration for viewers.
Despite decades of appeals from Eli’s family, Syria has refused to return his body and has not disclosed where Israel’s most celebrated spy is buried. Eli Cohen’s work reminds us of the importance of safeguarding what matters most—whether it’s a nation or, on a personal level, your privacy and security. Every piece of information floating around online about you is a potential risk.
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Thanks for watching. For Newsthink, I’m Cindy Pom.
