Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
An insight into the character, personality and passion of the leading figures in the Investigation and Intelligence industry who have shaped the way we gather, analyse and utilise information and intelligence.
In any kind of operation, there are 3 levels of discussions that you have to
do before approving the operation. One is, is the target
worthwhile doing it? Is it good? I mean, is it
like a valuable target? I mean, to do something with it. Number 2, can
we do it? I mean, come home safely? I mean, which is a
very important thing. That's operation. I mean, the factor that counts.
And number 3 is what's going to be the outcome? I mean, what's going to
be the retaliation? Of a, whatever, a country, an organization
that we operated against. You have to know two important things
when you're an intelligence officer. One thing, that you don't know everything,
okay? You have to be very humble. I mean, say, okay, we have a lot
of information, but probably there is something that we don't see. And the other
one, which is super important too, is that you don't know what you don't know.
And the enemy is, is not only brutal, can be
smart as you are. Hello
and
welcome to the Intelligence Advantage Podcast, where we talk to the
movers and shapers in the investigation and intelligence space.
My name is Gary Miller. I've been an investigative lawyer for nearly
half a century, and I'm also the chairman of the IFG, a
network of international investigative and asset recovery
lawyers. Welcome everyone to the recent
session of the Intelligence Advantage Podcast,
where I, Gary Miller, from the IFG get
a unique opportunity to talk to the great and the good in the intelligence and
investigation space. And today, I have to
say, is super exciting because I am
speaking to Yossi Cohen, without doubt,
certainly in the last 50 years, one of the most talented
and well-known Mossad investigators
that I think I certainly have heard of. So welcome, Yossi, and
thank you so much for taking time to join me. No, thank you very much
for me. It's a pleasure and an honor. And I think that you have
exaggerated, I mean, in your introduction, but I'd live with
it. You can live with it. I know you can. So
I'm just going to— I've done, as you could imagine, a
little bit of work because who wouldn't? And I want to start off
with a bit of the personal background.
I know you have made no secret, and why would you,
that you come from an Orthodox Jewish family
background. And I wanted to know
to what extent that kind of background had an impact
on the decision that you made to join the
Mossad and indeed other decisions you've made maybe
during the course of your career. How does that affect you? Right. I mean,
the research was right. And, um, yes, I
was born into a religious, ultra-orthodox religious family in
Jerusalem in 1961. That was like, what did I time ago,
and I was raised as a religious guy. Most of my years,
I practiced my studies in religious
schools and then in what do you call it, kind of a yeshiva high school
in Israel, of course, until the age of 18. I mean, yes, the level of
education that you do get when you are a religious
Zionist is unquestionable. I mean, it's
like you don't really have many. You do have many question marks about life, about
your future, about Everything that you do, the only one thing that you're sure about
is that the state of Israel must exist and that we are surrounded by
a lot of terrible enemies. I mean, at the time, I mean, '61,
'67, '73, I mean, teenager already.
And I've realized, I mean, that we are facing a terrible war,
which was designated, I mean, sometime in the future as an
existential war. I mean, '73, I mean, the state of Israel was under
an existential threat. And a few years later, But let me pause you
for a second because ultra-orthodoxy
and belief and commitment to
Zionism are not necessarily mutually compatible.
If I'm not mistaken, there is still, or am I out of date, there are
still laws in Israel that enable—
Allows them to escape from— Allows them to escape from service.
So how is that and how does that sit with the
duty to protect the state of Israel? But that was not the case
when I was a kid. I grew up in a family when my grandfather,
who was a practical ultra-Orthodox,
he was like, wore, I mean, the ultra-Orthodox,
as we call the uniform, super black. You mean the Polish hat
and the whole deal? The Polish hat and the whole— it was not Polish. It
was like a Misnaget, what we call the other part. But yes, I mean, yes,
there were part of the Eastern Europe or the Western Europe countries
coming over to Israel to establish their religious establishment, but
he was born in Israel. And I mean, from my grandfather's side,
on my mother's side, I'm the 7th generation in Israel. And from my mother's side,
my father's side, I'm the 9th. So. Wow. But he
served in the Israeli security services. He
served first. I mean, prior to the establishment of the State
of Israel, he served as a,
let's say, let's put it that way, as a fighter in the underground. I mean,
fighting the British, so to say. The Irgun? He had a gun. I
have the gun that he had, by the way. No, no, have I pronounced it
correctly? The Irgun, your father was— The Irgun was my
father's one. I mean, it was the other one, Haganah. Oh, that was your
granddad, was it? That was my grandfather from my mother's side. And he
was eventually the head of the Haganah troops
inside the Old City of Jerusalem prior to the establishment of
the State of Israel. So for him, fighting for the
country was a kind of an essential thing. That was part of my education as
well, because when I have firstly met him, And I am a
little kid and the state of Israel was already
there. He continued serving at the
Israeli police as a volunteer. So this is not
the case today. How does your grandfather's
commitment or participation in Haganah compare
to your dad in Irgun, which instinctively
feels more aggressive and a
slightly different philosophy, or are they identical in your
view? I mean, I think that there were a few things that were
identical, a few things that were countering each other. And,
you know, and we're faced in the beginning of the days when these kind of
undergrounds were established, there was a kind of a period of time which we call
the saison, like the period in which they used
to fight each other brutally. I mean,
not only brutally, they used to hand over operatives
from one side to the other, to the Brits, to get rid of them. So
it was not so easy in between us, the Jews, or the Jewish people inside
the state of Israel before the establishment of the country. But then I
believe Ben-Gurion just merged all this into one nation,
one gun, one national anthem. And
then that was eventually completed by the formation of
IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces, our army. And
I would imagine that most people, their journey into
the Mossad was similar to yours. People mostly join the
IDF and then move into Mossad, or is there another route
for recruitment? Oh, there are many routes for recruitment. I mean, the world was
kind of open, I mean, for what we call a lot of waves
of Aliyah. I mean, people, immigrants have been coming into the state of Israel
eventually when it was now or is
established, and many have fled into the country from all
over the world, from East Europe, from Europe, from South— I'm sorry,
from North Africa and from the Middle East and from the USA. I mean, many
came. And the creation of the country was a kind of— now, I mean, we
have many people and that have served and partially they have not, but
they had been part of our, let's say, new
establishment. And yes, most of my generation, you're
absolutely right, was recruited or is recruited to the Mossad.
After serving in our security services,
either the IDF or different kind of services, but mostly
IDF. And then we join the Mossad after
serving the country for a few years. And how
has recruitment changed and what are the
attributes that the Mossad now looks for? I imagine there is
a much greater emphasis on technology, but obviously
the physical strength, the stamina, those other things,
the commitment, the patriotism, How would you say
recruitment today differs from that when you joined? Right. I think
that the major differences between my time and today is
that in my time, I mean, I think that we took obvious, I mean,
everything that is balance, how do you call that? I mean,
work-life balance. That was never mentioned.
I mean, if you volunteer to the Mossad, the Mossad recruits you.
So you are with them 100%. And of course, technology was
or is still a kind of a very important aspect in who
we are. But majorly, I think that we are in
line with the same methods and needs
for the Mossad to recruit his, let's
put it that way, I mean, his operatives, because it goes all the way
down to your capabilities, stamina, as you said,
Zionism, which is an important thing, and character. I mean, many
want to, I think that only few can.
Is there a percentage that people like to talk about? For
example, if you speak to people about the SAS
and Green Berets, they say that only like
1% of the applicants get in. Is there a figure for the Mossad
that they are prepared, or at least people talk about?
I mean, in my time, I think that we were trying to get better. I
mean, our very low percentage, which is not even 1%, it's 1
of 1,000 that would have entered the course or the
operational course, better saying. We receive at the Mossad, I mean, currently,
I believe something between 50,000 to 60,000
CVs a year. Wow. Yeah. I mean,
internationally and mainly nationally. I mean, many Israelis would love to work at the Mossad.
I mean, it's a kind of a prestigious work. I mean, it's a big brand
logo. People love espionage without
even knowing what is it. And these that do
fit in, would be very few. So we have to kind of
squeeze a lot of CVs into a very big
machine. And the recruitment department,
which to my view is actually one
of the most important departments at the Mossad, because if they do
not do their job correctly, I mean, we will end up without having the
right people, but not only operatives. Of course, operatives is super hard
and sometimes Unfortunately, I mean, we have
so many difficulties to recruit these guys, not because they don't want to, but
they don't fit. I mean, they don't have the either, as
you've mentioned correctly, I mean, the stamina, the habit,
the strength, the character, I mean, to do this kind of
a risky job that we end up with very, very, very thin
courses. And the extreme was that I, in my
time, We have certified one,
okay, one operative in one of the courses, only one.
And believe, I mean, it's a huge machine. Like, I mean, many people have been
poured into the system, CVs. Now do you digest them?
You take, let's say— How long does it take, Yossi? How many months does it
take to go through that recruitment process? The recruitment process, I mean,
we're trying to make it a little bit shorter than it was in the past,
but it can take you a few months to a year. Depends
on where you are and depends if you have to do some
stuff before you enter, or do we have to go deeper
and deeper studies? Because you have to pass not only the
character part of who you are and what you do, but
you have to pass the security check as well. And we have to check who
you are, your background, your family, your neighbors. I mean, everything that we know about
you that has to be checked by our FBI, by the Shin Bet. And
then you have to go through a polygraph test as well. So it's not Not
easy. And some that are having the character to do that, they
may fit into that process, fall in the security, which
is super dramatic, right? So tell me a bit
about polygraph. I tell you why, because when I started
my career in 1977 in Hong Kong,
believe it or not, one of the major banks in those days, of
course, nobody knowingly admits to doing it now. When we had a fraud
investigation, they flew in their polygraph
experts and I was blown away. And of course, I was
22 years old. Not away by them thinking
that you should go through these kind of tests? No, not me. That they wanted
to, and they did, they put through every single member of the bank that they
thought was involved through this. And of course, we all watch
the wonderful TV programs. How good is the
polygraph? I mean, I'm assuming anything can be beaten with enough training,
right?
Well, depends on your level of values because polygraph
actually is what they would ask you, um, this kind
of deep questions that are going all or touching all
your deepest value nerves. I mean, who you
are and what do you do? I mean, did you ever gone through
a kind of a, if you, are you a criminal? Are you a drug
addict? Are you, uh, an abuser? Are you this and
this and this and that? Are you working for? Other services. I mean, there are
a few questions that some of them are super tough. Super
tough because you get excited when you are, and I've done 8
tests, I believe, I mean, in my career. It's not that at the Mossad we
don't believe each other, want each other, but it has to be tested again and
again and again. And every time, I mean, in between grades, in between, like,
you've been promoted, I mean, you have to go through a polygraph test again. I
mean, I've done even when being super high ranked at
the Mossad, I mean, head of a division, which is kind of a general, full
general, and before being deputy director of the out, I had to go through another
one. I mean, to make sure that I'm okay. And of course I'm okay,
but the organization officially has to know that. So
I don't think that you can defeat completely the
polygraph. I mean, some can. These that are
carrying a very low level of values, I mean,
can probably defeat it for them. I can go very
extreme if they were criminals or they were like, I mean,
other let's say, other directions of things that we,
in our values, would consider don't do. For them, it is
normality, and they will do that. And if you will ask them,
are you a criminal, or have you ever committed a crime, they would say no,
and they had. It's hard, really hard to find them.
Okay. Let me ask you this. Looking at diversity,
one of the things that— of course, a real authority on all of
these things are our respective wives, right? My wife could be,
she says, an amazing spy because she is a about the
nosiest person that I know. So when you look
at the demographics of the Mossad when you
joined and now, are there now, as you
would expect, a lot more women in the Mossad?
And how is that affecting the organization? First,
yes. I think that we got to the point
that we had our deputy director
as a woman. Her name was, I mean, she just passed away, Aliza
Magen, and she was number 2 at the organizations, who is very tough operative.
But we did not duplicate that. I mean, in my time, I have
gone through a very deep process with all women
commanders at the Mossad to try to investigate
why is it that we do not have enough women. Because if referring
to our previous talk about how do you enter the
Mossad, so a woman and a man can enter
under the same conditions at the Mossad. A woman can be, and I know it
for sure, brave, smart,
capable, huge character, strong.
Ruthless? Can they be as ruthless as a man?
I'm not sure that we are ruthless. I think that we are like
reasonable people that are— I wasn't saying Mossad, but I
say everyone's idea of a spy is that, yeah, if I've got to take
out somebody, maybe a Does a woman have a different
humanitarian perspective, do you think, or not at all?
I don't think so. And in fact, what I have achieved, and I'm very
proud of doing it, is that close to 50% of these that have
entered the gates to the Mossad were women. Wow. We
have a problem later on in their career because they enter fairly young, let's
say before the age of 30, but then they got married for good. And then
they have a kid or two or three. I mean, the average in Israel is
above three or close to three, three, four.
And then the burden starts to not allowing
them in a way, I mean, to flourish and to be best
commanders. And we were dealing with it and we had to deal with it.
I mean, to make sure that they will not leave us and they will stay
longer in the organization, even though they have to pass through this period of time
between, let's say, 30, 32 to 40, when they build the house
and where their husbands, all right, are not always there because
he's busy with his career and the world is not like forgiving his
career because of hers. And it goes like into a very important
debate. But I think that we've gained a lot of strength
into the organization because of expressing it out
loud that women are capable as much as we are,
the men, and they can do a lot. And by the way,
I've faced and I've met and I've worked with
wonderful women commanders, boots on the ground. I mean, all over
conducting operations beautifully. And they're tough. I mean, I
don't want to call them ruthless, but they can do what they need to do.
They definitely do what they need to do all over. And when, how long
will it be before you, we get a
woman head of the Mossad? That's my dream. I think that, that
I don't see one there on the line. I mean, I know what's happening right
now with the Mossad as well. I don't see, I mean, there are a few
head of divisions, which is the closest to be the deputy
director of the Mossad. I mean, this is the closest, but I don't, I don't
see any of them women that is now
capable of doing it because they were not operatives. And we would not have a
deputy director which was not an operative. You have to be on the field, I
mean, you have to be commander on the field, I mean, you have to run
all the way up through these lines of command.
So even though you've got all these different, obviously, you've
got these different areas, in order to gravitate through to
the leadership, you have to have been out in the field, you have to be
an operative. Yeah, I think that the sensitivity of what
we do, I mean, the dedication of
that part, if you want to approve operations, you have to
be, I believe, in the field prior to that. It's true that
Mossad had for many years commanders that were not coming from the Mossad itself,
like the one that was just recently nominated. The Prime Minister of Israel,
Benjamin Netanyahu, has just nominated an army general
that was never either in special ops, nor in—
neither in special ops nor in any of
these secret services, and he believes that he can do it. The last time
that I can say it worked was Meir Dagan, and he was my
commander. He came from the army, was a very good head of Mossad without knowing—
I mean, without knowing spy, espionage at all. So it
depends. But if you do have a choice, I believe since it is
a profession, I truly, honestly believe that it
should be coming from the Mossad itself.
And how do— I mean, you mentioned a couple of minutes ago
this question of work-life balance. I mean, I can't
believe that— or maybe I'm wrong— I can't believe people join the
Mossad and would even have the chutzpah to say,
and I'd like to, you know, I'd like to go home at 6:30 and make
dinner for the kids, Yossi, or whoever. I know. I mean, how does that
work? It's tough. And eventually it's tougher today than it was
in the past. I mean, first, I mean, you're right. I think that the assumption
that someone even sends his
CV to the Mossad means that probably he's not going to be
home by 5 o'clock, I mean, or by 3, I mean, to get
their kids from the kindergarten, to take them home, right? I mean, to give them
lunch or dinner, whatever. Yeah. Nevertheless, we are facing
a different era and there is a new generation here that cares about that.
And this probably will complete my answer. When
you recruit someone today, You recruit the
family. You really have to engage with either his
husband, I mean, because we do have gay couples too,
or her, her whatever, wife.
And then, and you have to bring the couples in and to talk about it
with them both. Definitely when they are
operational or operatives, but not necessarily that. I
mean, if they go I mean, even if they are
intelligence officers or in the
tech division, which is huge, probably the biggest in the Mossad. So,
I mean, you have to know that you have to crack the mission so the
enemy is not waiting. I mean, are you willing as a couple, as a family
to endorse that? Can you support that as a couple? And
yes, if the answer is not good, I mean, they will not enter. And by
the way, I faced some crisis that the family said, or the family
said, yes, we can. But then we sent them
abroad and a few months afterwards, I mean, someone
raises a red flag and they said the family or his family or hers
does not stand the burden. I mean, it's, which is eventually super
hard. Can I ask you a bit of a personal
question? It must have had huge impact
psychologically on your wife and your kids.
How did it impact you? 20-something years and—
30-something. 30-something. And your wife on many occasions,
you know, forget about the phone call saying, where are you, darling? Are you
at the pub? Are you out? I mean, you have no—
No, forget about that even. Exactly. So she can't really call you.
And you don't have pubs in Iran. But nevertheless, I mean—
That's what's wrong with the country. They need pubs. Terrible thing.
Imagine they did. Imagine, right? I mean, it's
maybe one day. One day. Let's give this a chance. But how do you cope?
How does your wife, do you have just to find exceptional people? I think
that the level of Zionism and the understanding that we're
doing something which is bigger than us, serving the country
abroad, that is the point that serves the cause,
that you will be eventually allowed to work quietly
and been operating for so many years as I was. And
I salute my wife, and I salute my kids. I think that they have
facing a lot of troubles. I mean, the birthdays, the parties that I was not
there, the turbulent nights with 4 kids. Some
were sick, some were not. What about the fear that they might be
the subject of some kind of personal attack because
they knew who you were? Or is the whole key, obviously, nobody knew that you
were there? Nobody knew. I mean, until very late. I mean,
nobody knew. I mean, before we were arrested, for being the head of the
National Security Council and the national security advisor to the prime
minister, I was in the dark. So no fear
on that sense. But yes, I mean, when they grew up, these kind of
discussions came and they were asking me, are we any
kind of a risk because of you? And they may be, they may
be because the enemy is terrible and filthy, but we're making the best we can
to make sure that It will not be the case, of course. But nevertheless,
it's a different family life. Yeah, for sure.
And I mean, just as a matter of interest, you go out for dinner with
your friends, you can't talk about anything. Your wife can't talk
about anything you're doing. So, I mean, you've
clearly got to talk about, you know, the Talmud or something, right?
You've got to find something. Right. I mean, when they are telling me, I
mean, how's life in real estate or in the bank or in high tech?
I had to be a little bit more intellectual and discuss other stuff
that cannot be eventually discussed. Besides them knowing kind of a
small title is that he's working with the shushu, as we call it. The
shushu? Yeah, the shushu, they say. He's working with the security
forces, but not knowing who I am and what I do. And yeah,
nevertheless, I have very good friends that understood, I mean, along the
way that this is what I do and they respect it. Yeah, it's
a different life for sure. I mean, when you enter the Mossad, an early stage
like mine. I mean, we were 22 when I started the courses,
right? I mean, to be— I mean, 2 and a half years later, I was
certified, and that's it. Life changes. I mean, first,
I mean, you're never there. And number 2, you risk your life again and
again and again, or your freedom again and again and again on every travel that
you do. And number 3, I mean, yes, I mean, your entire
mentality now is different than the others because you don't really live normal life that
you can tell about to the others. And that's kind of a—
For you personally, what was the toughest aspect
of being a spy or being part of the
Mossad? Was it the psychological side? Was it not seeing
the family? What was the toughest consistent issue that you used
to come across or bang your head against and think, "This
is really tough, not doing this or doing
this"? I mean, eventually, I mean, we're not balanced, right? I
never kept work-life balance as I hope
normal people do. But we do have to remember that
even today, I mean, the work-life balance is nothing that was
invented for Mossad agents or for Mossad operatives. This
is something that the world has gone through. I mean, to make sure that we
do care about what's happening in the family itself. On the other hand, yes,
it was hard because we do have I mean, 4 kids,
thank God. And one of them is a kid with special needs.
Yeah, I'm friends with Jonathan. Right, exactly. Jonathan is a kid with special
needs. And not being with my wife and the
helpers that we have around him probably was
a tough or the toughest point. But I
remember me and my wife, I mean, having this kind
of discussion precisely about him. And I offered her
a kind of a junction to choose. I mean,
Can I proceed doing what I'm doing amid
to the very specific situation that
we're in, or should I cease what I do? And she said, go ahead, you
have the green light. I will manage. And she did, and we did,
and we have survived, right? I mean, long days of service
without being at home. But yes, when you
are home, it's very special as well, because now you cross the
threshold of the door, the footstep of the
door, and now you're in. And who are you? I mean, are you an
advisor? Are you kind of a consultant? Great question.
How do you go back into, you know, putting a
different hat on, Yossi? And suddenly you're the loving— I mean,
when someone drops a plate in the kitchen, do you turn around and draw your
gun? I mean, how does it work? I mean, you become
a father immediately when you cross the door. And you stay
there as much as you can within, even though Even though your head is
full of your cover stories of the things that has happened. I mean, you have
so important and not regular life. I mean, on
the other hand, I mean, if you go backwards, I mean, in 3 hours, I
mean, look at where I was and what I did and my cover stories
and the risks that I faced. I mean, it's hard. And it goes back and
forth again and again and again. Sometimes it's a month in between.
Sometimes it could be weekly. And you have to take off the shield and put
it back and to take off the shield and put it back. It's like an
actor on stage, right? Right. So we act outside,
but we are who we are back home. Do you need,
you know, the Americans, and I think it's gaining traction here,
therapy for everyone. I always say to my friends, my best Christmas present
or Hanukkah present is I want to buy you a therapist. But do you need
constant kind of
reaffirmation and time with a therapist to get rid of that
stuff? Well, personally, we never had, and I think that was not
tangible at the time. I mean, I think that the world has been changed today.
The psychology department at the Mossad itself, I mean, to support this
kind of operative is huge. Operatives and their families,
as we've mentioned, is a big department. And yes, we have
to have a very close look at who they are, what they do, and if
they are facing these kind of difficulties, we're there to help because it's not normal.
You're absolutely right. So was there ever a time when you're in
deep cover and you suddenly start
your character bleeds into another deep cover that you
had, or are you able to be that multi-personality
swapper? I mean, did you ever have that problem, or not you personally?
No, I mean, that's not professional. I mean, to have this kind of problem. So
I was trying to be super professional, and— Okay. Yeah, you do. You do. I
mean, sometimes you have two cover stories at the same day because you operate in
different neighborhoods with different targets in the same city. It is
dangerous, but it has to be like well
controlled by your commanders, by yourself. And it happened to me, I mean, for
more than once. But I mean, one cover story was never
toppling the other one or never disturbed the other one. And yes, you
are all the time keeping yourself in
a very super high conscience. I mean, you know who you are and where you
go to and what is it that you're doing. You know, we're not playing it,
I mean, for the sake of playing it. We're not acting for the sake of
action. I mean, we are doing what we do, I mean, to get a target
done or accomplished. And it needs a lot of preparations,
training, understanding, commanding it,
talking to your counterparts, I mean, to your, I mean, people that are
around you, I mean, to colleagues, I mean, from the same situation,
I mean, to know how is it like. I mean, you grow into this environment.
So, if you know how to monitor that or to
mentor that in the grown-up time,
I mean, you are now a commander. And when you are a commander, you have
to look back to the youngsters and say, "That's the way it works. It's hard
in the beginning, but then you get used to it." Is there kind of a
buddy system in the Mossad? Does somebody always take
responsibility for a junior member, or does it just
happen, as it were? No, but I think that we train our
commanders in a very specific way, telling them, I mean, first, I mean, How
do you achieve your target, which is, of course, number one of importance, but
make sure that you have your troops, right,
ready for the mission. And you are the— either, since there are
women commanders, you are the mother or the father of this group, which
is a great demand, but the super important one. Okay.
Now, everybody wants to know, and I'm included in them, is
there this sort of unwritten, code
between spies? I mean, are there things that you do when you walk
past each other and you know who each other are, but you're on different jobs
and so you don't— From the same organization? No, of
different organizations. Is there kind of a gentlemanly
code, or it doesn't exist? It doesn't exist. I mean, I don't think
that there is. I mean, inside the organization, of course, we know each other and
we can recognize, and we do not engage if we see another
operation. I mean, the same— the same country or the same airport
that is crossing ours. With our organization, I mean, normally, I
mean, they do not know that we are spies. I mean, you don't like carry
this kind of like, you know, neon light head and
the newspaper, right? I mean, you're not holding a paper in the lobby of a
hotel saying, I'm a spy, I'm looking through a different hole. No,
you don't do that. So I don't see that there are any
codes. There are a certain language
that I've met only being now the deputy director of the Mossad,
when you are cooperating with other services
like MI6, CIA, and others,
even KGB or FSB. And
when you enter these rooms and you know that there are
people that have done your job, there is a kind of, I
would say, a mutual respect. I mean, we know what we can
do, right? It's like Whatever it's like, I don't know, fighter pilots,
I mean, from different air forces, I mean, meeting in one lobby
or in one meeting. There's a kind of mutual respect,
and they start to maneuver.
So every agency pretty much in the world has an
assassination unit. And funnily enough, I've been
doing a little bit of reading and listening on the
comparative success rate, the impact that that might
have. And I know in Israel, and I'm sure the same exists
in every other agency, the argument between different factions as
to does taking out an individual or
individuals have the desired impact of
delaying or eradicating the problem? But I
think an issue, being a lawyer, I kind of have to ask this question,
is there any international law that should
and does, or even domestic law that
regulates the way that spies work? Let's not just
concentrate on Mossad. Let's be general about it. I don't think there
is. Okay. I'm sure— because it's hard to do because what
do you do? I mean, how do you write a law? Yeah. If you want
to operate outside of the country, I mean, what kind of law applies, I
mean, to your work? I mean, behind the enemy lines. I mean, what can you
say about the local law? I mean, do I respect the local law? I mean,
it's not only about, you know, let's say, superoperatives
or operational things that you have mentioned, like
whatever, using some tough materials. But let's say
that we spy only for the sake of intelligence, which is not
harming anyone, right? Right. Is that, would this be endorsed or
accepted by Iran, Lebanon, or any
Western countries? Of course not. So how can you protect me
if I'm an operative in the same, under the
Israeli flag, or if you are under the American flag or the British flag?
Coming, let's say, across countries. I mean, would that be acceptable?
That you are spying for the sake of the USA because the USA
law allows you to spy? No. I'm not aware
of any other laws,
not like the local laws that are guarding super
tightly our own FBI, the Shin Bet. Right. There
is a very thick and tough law that says what can they do
inside the country because they're touching us citizens. Right.
It goes, I mean, to hacking our cell phones or
internet or following us. I mean, there are very tough rules and
law that guards them,
organization, from doing whatever they want to do
because they're in connection with the citizens themselves. But me
traveling abroad, I mean, being whatever, anywhere that you can
suggest, Ukraine or Indonesia, I mean, who can
guard me? I mean, by which law? They would say these are the
limitations that he can do and these are that he cannot do. If I'm
there, and God forbid, caught into the mission,
the Israeli law is not going to help me at all, or any
international regulations. I mean, it doesn't happen. And what about,
I mean, this greater law of humanity in terms of
if somebody is sent to take out a target and the
wife or the child or whatever is there, how do people make
those decisions, Yossi? I'm not asking you if If
you did it, I don't care. What I'm saying is, how does a human being
make those decisions? Is one trained to
minimize collateral damage? How does it work? Absolutely. It's not
only trained, I mean, it's part of our system. It is part of our values.
I mean, when you have to do something, you know what, it's easier to do
it when you discuss the army, or let's say again, the Air Force, or the
Israeli Air Force or the American Air Force in Afghanistan. When
you have to take a risk away or you have to get rid of some
terrorists, And you know that in that specific building, I mean, there are
some elements that are not eventually terrorists. What do you do? There are always
these kind of discussions that goes back to our values and saying, I
mean, is this allowed according to humanitarian aspects,
I mean, to act or not? And somehow we don't because of that.
And we're trying to find another way how to do that. Sometimes we'll
say, I mean, the risk is too high for the country and there will be
And we'll try to minimize it as much as we can, collateral damage.
But we hope to have it the lowest possible, of course.
But yes, it's a very tough discussion because, you know, in an
operation, in any kind of operation, there are 3 levels of discussions that you have
to do before approving the operation. One is,
is the target worthwhile doing it? Is it good? I mean, is
it like a valuable target? I mean, to do something with it.
Number 2, can we do it? I mean, come home safely, I mean, which is
a very important thing. That's operationally, I mean, the factor that
counts. And number 3 is what's going to be the outcome? I mean, what's going
to be the retaliation of a, whatever, a country or an organization
that we've operated against? And probably this is the hardest
because there on chapter number 3 of this kind of
discussions, I mean, you go to the collateral damage too. They said, okay, now if
we did that and that's going to be the damage that we
caused. I mean, what's going to be the outcome? And
sometimes, not so few, we give up
operations because of the collateral damage. And collateral damage could be
a diplomatic political damage too. I mean, the country will go
bananas if we did something that will be eventually connected to the
Mossad or to the state of Israel, like disengagement,
return of ambassadors,
different or difficult negative resolutions at the
Security Council. I mean, it goes all the way. And international
public opinion. Correct. Oh yeah, that too, of course.
And something that I think you've mentioned in
other podcasts that I've seen when you
have been in there, and this whole question for
a Jew living overseas, which is what I am, is
at some stage over the last X number of
years, it appears, and that's all I can say is appears, that
Israel gave up on the PR war,
gave up on stating the position. Totally agree with you.
Totally agree with you. And what was behind, was that a conscious decision
you see or what? I know it's whatever, it's a reckless thing.
And I I've asked, yeah, you're right. I've asked often about how come we've lost
the war. I said we didn't lose it. I mean, we didn't even enter the
battlefield of the Israeli PR. It doesn't exist. I mean, beside the
prime minister himself, and he's doing it because he likes it, no one really
explained the state of Israel and its moves. And that's why it's so hard to
be either an Israeli or Jewish or even a supporter of the state of Israel
these days, because you're not there. I mean, we're not there. I mean, there is
a huge smartness in between us that we're not using and
huge lobbies that we're not using. And there is a kind of a
machine that should be working, I mean, to explain the country's cause or
action. And the state of Israel, unfortunately, is absolutely not
there. And we all know that the world now is
driven by 3 or 4, or let's say 7 or 8
large language modules and social media.
Absolutely. And that's all people ever look at. And
apart from disinformation and trying to
use it as a counterintelligence tool, it just seems
completely counterintuitive that Israel isn't all over it.
Right. Israel is being butchered. I mean, recently.
Yeah. I mean, butchered, yes, not physically, of course, but in social media.
Amidst the difficulties that we have faced after October
7th. And nevertheless, I mean, the country didn't wake up. I mean, for
a different kind of activity or action to make sure that the
Israeli cause and the just war that we have conducted will
be promoted widely. I mean, in length, I mean, it doesn't, in
depth, I mean, it has to be very wide explanation. And it's
a machine that should have been working, I mean, daily, at least daily. I
mean, I think it is one, an hour after the hour, a minute after minute.
I mean, it's not even daily. Yeah. And even checking things like the BBC.
And I mean, for me, there are certain news services that have
a a prejudiced and jaundiced
lens on the so-called facts. And I agree.
And it needs to be corrected. Anyway, you and I are not going to cure
that. Let me ask you this. You've moved in— I've tried, though. I've tried.
I did. You've moved into the private sector. Yes, sir.
And into the obvious for me anyway, looking at your
career, into something that is so connected with
security and protection. What do
you miss most about being in the Mossad? What is it that you wake up
in the morning and sometimes you stop and say, oh, I wish I could do
that? Well, I think
that probably the one thing that I wanted to return and to be
there is on June
2025, when we have attacked together with the USA,
Iran. That was, I mean, for me,
it was the thing that I've expecting, I mean, for so many years, the thing
that we have prepared for so many years, the things that we have
been knowing exactly who's going to be and who's going to do what
inside the country and outside of the country. And these were the days that I
felt, on one hand, super proud
on the level of achievements that we have achieved, I mean, together with USA, of
course. And on the other hand, I felt like, oh my God, I should have
been there too at the same day. So what do I miss?
I miss the people. I miss the excitement. I miss
commanding operations. I loved it really. I,
you know, I mean, when I now, as you correctly said, I'm an
investor, I work for SoftBank in Israel and I cover Israeli high
tech. There is a kind of an excitement, but my heartbeat is
not going too high.
When my, let's say, investments were approved, I mean,
by my IC investment committee, it is nice, but
yeah, you have to know that you have to exchange, I mean, or you have
to move forward. But yeah, I loved every minute of it, I
have to admit. I mean, I really am, and I got— That's a really important
thing that you've mentioned. Certainly for me, I'm a good few years older than you,
and I had to— you have to come to that realization that
you've got to give up at some stage, but you don't want to.
I don't know whether you did or you didn't, but did you see yourself being
in the Mossad until you're 85 and you got a walking stick or not?
Of course, of course not. And not only that, I mean, And
I think that what I cherish the most is that there are many, many, many
ways to leave an organization. And I had many, many, many colleagues
that have left before me or after me, these that have served
even longer than me, because I was not
nominated for anything else. I mean, besides being— after being director of the
Mossad, that's the end of my career. It was like an end. And by the
way, the prime minister offered me more, and I said, no, enough is enough. And
I think that close to 6 years as director is
and close to the age of 60 is good enough for me, more
than good enough. And my very close chief of staff, I mean,
on my very last minute, not on the last day,
I was sitting on my chair and she took a video of me and I
speak to the camera and I have it and I said, thank you very much
for everything I've done. I loved every minute of it
till this very moment. I mean, that was the last time
the last very second that I was directing the massage. So looking
backwards is super important. I'm very satisfied with what I did. Right.
Yes. I mean, there is a lot to look back at to be satisfied about
or with. Looking forward is that I have to—
there are other missions that I would love to achieve. I mean, not only
for my personal family or my
well-being, but to my country, to my nation,
to the Jewish diaspora, Jewish communities. I mean, they're—
and for these that are of a need of ours. And
a lot of people that have come out of the Mossad and other
secret services, I say a lot, some of them I know have grouped
together and are now operating in the commercial and the private sector.
Is that something that ever— I mean, and I know you're in security, but is
that something, you know, to set up a a
crawl, an Israeli crawl of that quality? I'm a little
bit different. I mean, there are so many forums that have been
gathered and still gathering after being whatever. I mean, all these
veterans. Some of them are protesting together.
Some of them are supporting together. I'm not part of any of
these. I think that being an individual with my own opinion is
much more powerful than being a part of a big
group that is either supporting something or countering it. And I
have never joined any of this kind of whatever national
or international movements. And it doesn't sound from what you've said that
that is your career path at the moment, that's for sure. Absolutely not.
And let me ask you this.
You're in the cybersecurity business, which is super important. And I've
looked at the websites of Clarity and of
the other companies. Yeah. And I see the
obvious connection with protecting industrial
commercial operations, particularly those that are super sensitive. But the
one thing that I wanted to ask you about personally is
particularly with the, these, the
normal human being resorts now to a ChatGPT
or to a Perplexity for their truth in the world.
And a lot of us are deeply
scared about the ability to sow
disinformation and to,
not just for espionage or for spying, but for people's
mental wellbeing and for elections. How do
we stop people monopolizing what they say
is the truth in these things? How do we disassemble
that lie? It's not easy. I mean, I think it is very close to being
impossible to do because now we got used to
people doing it. I mean, now we'll have to get used to machines doing it
because you can feed anything. I mean, if you create your agent at
ChatGPT or Gemini and these agents will work for you, I
mean, they create whatever you want for them and they will be like
writing your blogs and doing your podcasts. I mean, without a person
being involved in in it. And this is something very risky. I think that
it is a kind of a national or international burden. I mean, to
try to understand, I mean, how do you stop it? And is, I mean, a
big question. Do we really have a mean? I mean, any kind
of capabilities. I mean, stopping disinformation. I don't think that we
can, unfortunately, but I do think that the one, the individual
could probably do some more before he
either digests this kind of intelligence and
echo it with like, or with kind of a very
positive resonance saying, look at what has happened for these that are
receiving vaccinations, right? I mean, probably it's not
true and it's going to kill some other people on the other line of the
world because they will now stop seizing, receiving any
vaccinations because someone said wrongly, a kind of a
misconducting disinformation blog.
And it's super hard, but it goes all the way down to our personal
responsibility because nations cannot do that. Unfortunately, even if you control
whatever as much as you want, the TikTok or
WhatsApps or Instagram or Telegram and
all that, I mean, you cannot really control the truth. Does that mean
that we as politicians
and governments totally missed a beat
in not making sure that there were regulations in
place so that you can't You can't just print
Israel attacked an innocent family and
butchered 6 people. That's complete
BS. And how can you— Who would do it? And
let's say just for the sake of the argument, I mean, let's say
that the guy that have published it is kind of an
Indonesian guy, I mean, living in whatever, in Jakarta, and he says this
kind of foolishness. I mean, who will— Who will counter him? Who will,
I mean, come to judge him? I mean, it's impossible to do.
And I think that like us in the Western countries and these countries that
are modern and liberal, like UAE,
like other countries that I cherish in the Middle East, I mean, these countries
can help, of course, I mean, this kind of
stoppage, I mean, for this kind of disinformation, but it's a
I may, unfortunately, I think it's a global disease now. I mean, people are
pouring any kind, I mean, I agree with you
with quantities that are unbearable. I mean,
you can't really stop it. Now, it would be
negligent of me to leave. We've got a few minutes left.
Gotta deal with October 7th and the
profound impact that that has had on the
world and on Duri. And I've been
reading some interesting articles about the quality of
Hamas's intelligence network. And one of
the views posited was what happened on
October 7th was not just a
failure and a complacency on behalf of the
Mossad or the Shin Bet, whoever was responsible, or the
IDF, but it was an awakening and a
and a coming to age of the
Hamas intelligence and counterintelligence network
that also has been overlooked by the Mossad.
What's your sense of that? All right. I mean, first of all,
it has to be said Mossad has no responsibility on Hamas in Judea and
Samaria and the West Bank, as we call it, or in Gaza. I mean,
unfortunately, we're not involved Why do I say that it is
unfortunate? Because I volunteered as director of the Mossad to help them,
the Shin Bet and the IDF intelligence. But I was rejected. I
mean, it's partially in my book. So you can read
and learn more about this effort of mine. I mean, being part of this. Yeah,
yeah, no, I read it. So whose responsibility was it then, Yossi?
Majorly, I think it was the responsibility of the Shin Bet and the military
intelligence. But not only that, because on the national security
level, which I was a national security advisor, there are two lines of defense
that I referred in the past. I mean, the first line of defense is the
intelligence. You have to know what the enemy is planning for you. I have to
know, I mean, Mossad, I must know what is Iran
planning for me. How many missiles do they have? Where do they go? What are
they heading? What's in their warhead? I have to know what's the
scale of their nuclear program. I mean,
this is what I have to know. I have to know Hezbollah, but this is
outside of the state of Israel. This is my jurisdiction. This
is my absolute responsibility. And because Gaza is, strictly speaking, and is part of
Israel, that wasn't part of your job. Oh, absolutely right. And more than
that, so when the intelligence line has collapsed, and this is the
first line of defense, you have to know two important
things when you're an intelligence officer. One thing that you don't know everything.
Okay. You have to be very humble. I mean, you say, okay, we have a
lot of information, but probably there is something that we don't see. And the other
one, Which is super important too, is that you don't know what you don't know.
And the enemy is not only brutal,
can be smart as you are. And by the way, they are,
because they're not giving us the intel or the intelligence as we really,
just because we want it. I mean, they're hiding this filthy
planning from us, unfortunately, at October
7th or till October 7th successfully. So
this line of defense collapsed. I mean, the intelligence line of defense that has to
go all the way up to the leaders or to the chief of the army
and say they're coming or they're planning to come. They didn't see that. All
right. Or they didn't see it enough. Number 2 is, since
you know that you don't know everything and since you don't know what
you don't know, I mean, the second line of defense has to be
firmly closed. And this is the physical
army that has to stand on our borders, making sure
that no one will Not important if that's a
big plan, a small plan, they have a plan, they don't have a plan. If
you are a terrorist on the other side of the border and you want to
come over to kill and to butcher our babies, to
rape our women, you cannot do that because the IDF is
there. And that line of defense collapsed as
well. And this is a huge, huge failure. And was
that also because that border was not seen in the same
way as the Lebanon-Israel border? The guns are— You know what
I mean? I don't think that the Lebanon border was even challenged like that,
but I, God forbid, I mean, imagine that they had challenged
the Lebanese border. I mean, would we have seen like
Lebanese or Hezbollah terrorists running
their Toyotas into the northern part of the state of Israel? Probably yes.
I think that the army was not ready for that,
unfortunately, and they are responsible
absolutely for, that failure.
And we and you can only hope that those lessons will be
learned and that the— Absolutely. The, the big thing that came out of reading your
book, reading around this subject
is the, there needs to be an increased focus on human intelligence. At the
end of the day, surveillance can only take you so far. You've gotta
have people on the ground, right? So right. You're so right.
I mean, the, the thing that you have to know is that there are many
layers of intelligence. If you do not recruit the right people at the right time,
do not rely only on signal intelligence, as we call them, the SIGINT. This
is okay, it's one layer, but it's not enough. And it's
one thing to be brilliant with technology,
but you've got to, as you say, you've got to accept that
your enemy may not be as smart as you, but you've at least got
to game it as if they are smarter than you. So you've got to be
in there. Absolutely. Because we can't lose. You
can't afford to lose. Yossi, I can see we're a minute away,
so I'm not going to take you up to the line, as they say. I'm
going to say toda raba. Thank you so
much. Toda raba lecha. Thank you. Thank you so much for your time and
your insight, and it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you, sir.
Mine. Absolutely mine. And thank you very much. It's a great honor being with you.
Thank you, my friend. Bye-bye now. Bye-bye.
Thank you for listening, and if you enjoyed this podcast, please Click
and subscribe to the Intelligence Advantage Podcast on
Spotify and other platforms.