The Six Day War and Eli Cohen

Today, marks 52 years since the outbreak of the Six Day War and 54 years since Eli Cohen was hanged in Damascus.  The Six Day War should be known as the “Three Hour War,” for that is how long it took the Israeli Air Force to neutralise almost the entire combined enemy air forces and leave Israel with air superiority. Almost just as amazing was that the entire Golan Heights, considered by many to be almost impregnable, was taken in just one day. one of the reason for Israel’s overwhelming victory, which resulted in Israel expanding three times its pre -war size was its superior intelligence.  One of Israel’s consummate intelligence gathering undercover spies was Eli Cohen.

The Israeli public will forever remember Cohen as an honest and serious man who was devoted to his people and his country, and who operated with a deep conviction that he was serving his nation despite enormous but necessary risks.  The image of his body dangling from a rope is etched in the hearts of many Israelis, and his name is spoken with reverence. Speaking in an interview with a Syrian reporter 24 hours before his execution, Eli Cohen said,

I went to Syria on a mission from the Israeli intelligence to secure a future for my wife, my children and my family.

Many times I have sat in the Golan with a group I’m guiding in a former Syrian bunker and looked down on the view the Syrian military had of Israel until the Six Day War. The scenery is so tranquil and peaceful it is difficult to comprehend that for the first 19 years of our State’s existence life under the shadow of the Syrian gun emplacement on the Golan was extremely difficult. An entire generation slept in the bomb shelters at night and farmed in armour-plated tractors. All that changed with the Israeli capture of the Golan Heights in the Six Day War.

Tuvia guiding a Birthright group in a former Syrian bunker on the Golan Heights. Photo (c) T. Book, 2019

Eli managed to infiltrate the highest echelons of the Syrian government and military. Israel’s, seemingly miraculous victory of the Six Day War, specifically the capture in just one day of the seemingly impregnable Golan Heights owes a lot to the spectacular intelligence provided by Eli Cohen.

Eli Cohen’s son, Shaul, was only 2 weeks old when he last saw his father.  At Kfar Habad, on July 29, 1977, at the joint Bar Mitzvah for 100 fatherless boys, in the presence of Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Shaul was asked to say something on their behalf.  This is what he said:

“I would like to have been like all other children.  I would have liked my father to be a simple man and not a hero.  The he would be alive and I would have had a father whom I knew, and who lived with us like all other fathers.  I have read everything about my father’s life and what he did for our country.  I have collected all the books, articles and photographs.  But I have hesitated to talk about him until now for I knew that it still hurt my mother when my father’s name was mentioned.  I will now make my vow.  I promise, you, father, that in my life I will never fail you.  I will do my duty with all my strength and devotion for the State of Israel.  I will be a faithful son of an admired hero.  I will try to be like you, father.  That’s my pledge.

There are few like him in the Israeli Hall of Fame.  Many heroes fought their people’s enemies courageously, but few were spies, undercover warriors, who constantly risked their lives in solitude, conducting a war of the mind.  One person changed the course of Israel’s history.  Eli Cohen’s name will live forever in the memory of the people.