The Israelite spy's remarkable story of how he had deceived all Arab states

Eli Cohen was born into an eight - member family in the Egyptian Middleland coastal city of Alexandria on December 6, 1924. He had been admitted to a primary school in the Jewish community, Eli never considered himself a patriot of Egypt, where he was born.

After completing his primary schooling, he enrolled at the University of Alexandria, where he studies electrical engineering. During this time, as a young man organized student protests against Egypt's occupation of Egypt.

“He was loyal to his country, Egypt”, says his brother Albert Abraham Cohen. “He was also loyal to Jewish people and Zion's idea, where their purpose was to establish a Jewish state on the land of Israel. ”

Under the leadership of Alexandria's chief rabbi, Cohen became part of the Zionist movement, where Israel declared independence in 1949, in which his family had already moved to the new land.

Eli stayed in Egypt to conduct his studies, and is thought to have been involved in the Lavon case, a 1954 Conspiracy made by Israeli military intelligence designed to use the false Egyptian, American and British flag as an attack on civilians to convince London in the continuation of the Suez Canal occupation.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin will later impose him as an Egyptian activist involved in the Jewish repatriation to Israel.

In 1954, Cohen's family learned that he had been arrested by Egyptian authorities because he had been involved in a terrorist organization. While the others involved were imprisoned and executed, Eli managed his prison sentence because of lack of evidence. Very soon after the crisis that the Suez Canal in October 1956, it was deported to Israel along with other Egyptian Jews.

Cohen arrived in Israel on February 8, 1957. Five days later, he was interviewed by the military, where they asked him to write his story. Cohen described his life in Egypt under eight pages of text.

Among other things, Eli spoke fluent Arabic, French, English, Italian, and Hebrew. It also dominated the Arabic, Egyptian, Syrian and Lebanese dialect. At the end of his biography, Cohen signed the signing signal that he was willing to go to some Arab country for Israeli intelligence interests.

“He wasn't looking for adventure”, Albert said. He was just a patriot. He was fully aware of what lay ahead, and voluntarily expressed a desire to save people from a second Holocaust. I don't think he had a dream of living his whole life like a house. He was simply a patriot of Egypt and a Zionist; thus, these two concepts are not in conflict with each other”.

Israel saw it as a threat in 1958, the unification of Egypt and Syria within the United Arab Republic. The new nation's intelligence services needed spy specialists who could receive information behind enemy lines and transmit information about an internal attack.

Argentinian adventure

By the early year of 1961, Eli had been sent to Argentina, presenting himself as a wealthy Syrian businessman. Eli stayed in this country for eight months, where he was documented by Natalio Steiner, co-director of the Argentine-Hebrew newspaper, which was managed by Israel's intelligence. Steiner spoke of his stay in Latin America.

Cohen already had a new identity, with new documents called Kamel Amin Thaabeth.

“He had left Israel in 1961, Cohen travels to Zurich, from where he will even cross to Chile, and eventually settles in Argentina. A few days later he meets his contact in Buenos Aires, where he was given a false passport, and was advised to learn Spanish as soon as possible. Three months later Cohen spoke Spanish freely, and he had already established a reputation in Argentina's capital,”, says Steiner.

Cohen's mission was to infiltrate the Arab diaspora in Buenos Aires. According to Steiner, Eli's efforts proved a remarkable success, allowing him to reach quite close to the elite of the Syrian Argentine diaspora, and through them, to important contacts in Syria.

After Argentina, via a secret trip, Cohen addressed Zurich, where he met his family and then studied in Syria, reports “Sputnik International” Transmission Periscope.

He returns to Israel for three weeks because his father had died”, Albert said. “After a period of mourning, he leaves Israel to Italy, where he will then travel through a boat in Alexandria. From there he continues his journey to Beirut, Lebanon”.

According to Cohen's brother, Eli was accompanied by a local agent.

Eli in Syria's capital had settled in 1962, where contacts acquired in Argentina had benefited him.

First and foremost was communication with General Amin Hafiz, who saw himself leading Syria in 1963.

“El had an extraordinary memory, and that is what allowed him to deceive his enemies and perform an entertainment that he saw by misleading Syria's top leadership”, Eli's brother said.

Eli's brother describes his testimony in court when he was arrested, where according to what he had said he confirms his skill in deep intervention in the Syrian policy agenda.

I managed to infiltrate ministerial servants and government agencies. Among these have been Defence, Economy, Information, Foreign Relations, Central Bank etc.”, Eli's testimony said during hearing in a Syrian court.

Israeli intelligence he had provided information on the political, economic, and military situation in the early 1960 ' s. Especially did his information cover military co-operation between the Syrian and Iraqi armies, classified information about weapons supply from the Soviet Union, including military artillery located on May Golan (now under Israel's territory).

Cohen was also able to send Syrian plans to Israel through the Jordan River at an invisible speed.

These plans included data, images, military maps, and other documents of strategic importance.

Levi Eshcol, who had served as Israel's prime minister between 1963 and 1969, had thanked Cohen for his work, saying “ai protected the lives of many Israeli soldiers, while information he had provided helped to win the six-day war”.

The six - day battle had begun on June 5, 1967, where Israel's military planes had attacked Egypt, Egypt had later joined the Egyptian forces of Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon, but all had failed in the face of the superiority of Israeli intelligence. The war ended when Israel occupied the West Coast, the Gaza Belt, and the May of Golan, which lies at the entrance of the Sinai Peninsula, in which Egypt would win the fight of Yom Kippur in 1973.

Cohen was banned from Syrian intelligence in his apartment in January 1965. A month later the spy was tried and sentenced to death. He was hanged on May 18, 1965, in a square in Damascus, his body left after six hours.

On the basis of Israeli investigations, Cohen had made some mistakes that would later result in his arrest and then hanging. According to Cohen's brother, there are three reasons which have led to the arrest of Cohen by the Syrian government.

First, the Indian Embassy in Damascus complained about interference in radio communication in New Delhi. This culminated in the use of sophisticated Soviet radios, where the Syrian intelligence service later provided several discussions by Cohen from his apartment.

On the other hand, Egyptian intelligence claims that Cohen was the first to appear in a photo at a meeting with Egypt's General Staff in the May of Golan, who would later identify him as Israel's spy.

And the third reason, and the most detailed version that was presented by Ahmad Suwaidani, former Syrian intelligence chief. According to the spy master, in the early 1960s, Syrian counterintelligence became aware of two Syrians believed to have worked for the CIA and secretly planned to smuggle missiles Damascus had seized from the USSR in Cyprus. After seven months of investigation, the special service had marked several allegations concerning his apartment. According to Tahsin Halab, Cohen's mission was to destroy Syria.

“Since 1949, the US has tried many times to intervene in Syria, but all efforts have failed”, the political analyst says. The “Americans were not satisfied with the Syrian government, which had built good relations with the Soviet Union. In the midst of her failure, the CIA delegated to him the task of destroying the Syrian state. So Eli Cohen was sent to Syria”. /Periscopi/