Syria and Israel History

A very sad period, which had focused on an extraordinary Israeli, a spy, “Our Man in Damascus”, Elie Cohen, is our subject. The book was authored by Eli Ben-Hanan, and the period, 1961 to 1965. Cohen is best known for his espionage work in Syria between 1961 and 1965, where he developed close relationships with the Syrian political and military hierarchy.

Though he was initially successful, Cohen’s activity became increasingly risky and he expressed a sense of impending danger to Mossad in 1964. A year later, his true allegiance was uncovered by Syrian intelligence and he was convicted by the Syrian government under pre-war martial law.

Cohen is said to have aided Egyptian Jews, who were taking part in what would become known as the Lavon Affair, by which Israel sought to sabotage Egypt’s relationship with the Western world. Two members of the spy ring were caught and sentenced to death but the Egyptian government was unable to find a link between Cohen and the perpetrators.

The Israel Defense Forces recruited him in 1957 and placed him in military intelligence, where he became a counter-intelligence analyst and a translator. His work bored him and he attempted to join the Mossad, but he was offended when the Mossad rejected him, and he resigned from military couter-intelligence. For the next 2 years, he worked as a filing clerk in a Tel Aviv insurance office.

For 2 weeks Cohen was put under surveillance and was judged suitable fot recruitment and training. He was then informed that the Mossad had decided to recruit him and underwent an intensive 6 month course at the Mossad training school. His graduate report stated that he had all the qualities needed to become a katsa, or field agent.

Espionage in Syria. Cohen was then given a false identity as a Syrian businessman who was returning to the country after living in Argentina. To establish his cover, Cohen moved to Buenos Aires in 1961. From there he moved among the Arab community, letting it be known he had large amounts of money to put at the disposal of the Syrian Ba’th Party. At this time the Ba’th Party was illegal in Syria but the party seized power in 1963.

Cohen continued his social life as he had in Argentina, spending time in cafes listening to political gossip. He also held parties at his home for high-placed Syrian ministers, businessmen, and others. At these parties, Cohen “dispensed free-flowing liquor and prostitutes and highly-placed officials would openly discuss their work and army plans.

Cohen was so ingrained in the Syrian elite that he was on the short list for deputy minister of defense right before his arrest. His most famous achievement was the tour of the Golan Heights in which he collected intelligence on the Syrian fortifications there. He made repeated visits to the southern frontier zone, providing photographs and sketches of Syrian positions. He also learned of a secret plan to create 3 successive lines of bunkers and mortars; the IDF would otherwise have expected to encounter only a single line.

A 2018 article published in Newsweek by Ronen Bergman excerpted from Bergman’s book “Rise and Kill 1st” says that Eli Cohen located Alois Brunner, a former Nazi official and Holocaust perpetrator suspected of living in Syria, and relayed the information to an Israeli intelligence until that subsequently sent letter bombs to Brunner, causing him to to lose an eye in 1961 and the fingers of his left hand in 1980 when the parcels blew up in his hands.

In January 1965, Syrian officials, who used Soviet-made tracking equipment and were assisted by Soviet experts, increased their efforts to find a high-level spy. They observed a period of radio silence, in the hope that any illegal transmissions could be identified. They successfully detected radio trans missions and were able to triangulate the transmitter.

Syrian security services led by Samdani broke into Cohen’s apartment on 24 January and claimed to have caught him in the middle of a transmission to Israel.

Cohen was found guilty of espionage by a military tribunal and sentenced to death under martial law. He had been repeatedly interrogated and tortured. Israel staged an international campaign for clemency, hoping to persuade Syria not to execute him. Israeli foreign minister Golda Meir led a campaign urging Damascus to consider the consequences of hanging him. Diplomats, prime ministers, parliamentarians
and Pope Paul VI tried to intercede. Meir even appealed to the Soviet Union.

The governments of Belgium, Canada, and France tried to persuade the Syrian government to commute the death sentence, but the Syrians refused. His wife Nadia Cohen attempted to appeal for clemency at the Syrian Embassy in Paris but was turned away

Eli Cohen was publicly hanged in the Marjah Square in Damascus on 18 May 1965. The execution was recorded on 35 mm film. On the day of his execution, his last wish to see a rabbi was respected by the prison authorities, and Nissim Indaba, the Chief Rabbi of Syria, accompanied him in the truck. He was also allowed to write a final letter to his wife.

After being sentenced to death, he was publicly hanged in Damascus on May 1965. The incident contributed to the sharp escalation of hostilities between Israel and Syria just before the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. Cohen is highly regarded in Israel, with several streets and roads being named after him.

Ironically, had he not made the the last trip to Syria, he would have survived. He gave up his life so that others could live.

Israel-Syria relations refer to the bilateral ties between the State of Israel and the Syrian Arab Republic, The two countries have been locked in a perpetual war since the establishment of Israel in 1948 with their most significant and direct armed engagements being in the 1st Arab-Israeli War in 1948-1949, the Third Arab-Israeli War in 1967, and the 4th Arab-Israeli in 1973.

Additionally, Israeli and Syrian forces also saw relatively extensive combat against each other during the Lebanese Civil War, as well as the War of Attrition. Both states have at times signed and held armitice agreements, although all efforts to achieve complete peace have been without effect success.

Syria has never recognized as a legitimate state and does not accept Israeli Passports as legally valid for entry into Syrian territory; Israel likewise regards Syria as a hostile state and generally prohibits its citizens from travelling there, with some exceptions and special accommodations being made by both countries for Druze people residing in Syria

Israel and Syria remain in an official state of war with no diplomatic relations, though the landscape has shifted into complex, parallel dynamics. While conducting direct talks on security arrangements, Damascus formally condemns Israel’s indefinite occupation of the Golan Heights and its military buffer zones in southern Syria.

Since the fall of the Assad regime on 8 December 20024, Israel has actively expanded its military presence into the UN-monitored demilitarized zone and southern Syria. The capture of Syria’s capital, Damascus, marked the end of the Assad family’s rule, which had governed Syria as a totalitarian hereditary dictatorship since Hafez al-Assad assumed power in 1971 after a successful coup d’état.