SYRIATV — broadcast
20260920 190000 UTC
459 transcript segments
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[00:00:11] and that he was only
[00:00:16] about his story.
[00:00:29] episode in a series
[00:00:35] How did you meet Tahin? To
[00:00:38] imagine that this will Rossello? It was a coincidence. I took him to Rossello's house.
[00:00:42] Only.
[00:00:47] in the Egyptian army. And what did you do there? We talked about Eichmann's
[00:00:50] case.
[00:00:53] and comes to gossip, insults And what do you know about not have more information than
[00:00:54] meaning he is
[00:00:55] that officer, insults Eichmann? He was responsible for crimes
[00:00:58] committed against Jews.
[00:01:00] to this myth. Even from And Israel
[00:01:01] arrested him.
[00:01:08] who wrote with a kind be composed of combining many Cohen told me that Syria? Don't he was interested in finding other assistants for Eichmann who live here in
[00:01:11] Damascus. And what is Rossello's connection
[00:01:15] to the matter? No, he is a German living in
[00:01:19] Damascus. He is a good person, nothing more, nothing
[00:01:22] less. And did you know that his real name is Rad
[00:01:26] Maichr and that he was a former Nazi officer?
[00:01:30] No, never,
[00:01:32] case. The sir.
[00:01:34] Mr. Cohen,
[00:01:36] was born in tell me now, were you looking for Louis
[00:01:40] Brunner in Damascus or were you looking for
[00:01:43] something else?
[00:01:48] moved to live in
[00:02:10] May 11th, 1960,
[00:02:12] Mossad launched a secret operation in Buenos
[00:02:16] Aires. The goal was to bring the most
[00:02:19] wanted Nazi alive.
[00:02:23] Adolf Eichmann,
[00:02:30] head of the Nazi SS
[00:02:34] of his acquaintances from the Syrian officers organization, responsible for the extermination of thousands of Jews during
[00:02:37] World War
[00:02:38] II.
[00:02:47] The group arrived in Argentina, and after
[00:02:51] surveillance and investigation, the bird entered
[00:02:54] the cage.
[00:02:59] And Eichmann was in the hands of the Mossad, and then they flew
[00:03:03] with their precious catch to Tel
[00:03:06] them for decades, Aviv. the Syrian who lives abroad
[00:03:12] realized who sent this The operation had a terrifying impact on those involved Nazis, especially
[00:03:16] since Israel had prepared a list to pursue
[00:03:21] from Buenos Aires and bring them in. At the top of the
[00:03:24] Nazi list was a mysterious name. The
[00:03:27] Mossad followed him for more than four
[00:03:30] decades continuously. Lois Brunner, Eichmann's
[00:03:34] assistant and right hand, the Nazi
[00:03:36] officer who managed to escape from all
[00:03:40] of a special unit in his pursuers. In the early sixties,
[00:03:43] all information reaching Israel indicated
[00:03:48] places around the world. that Brunner was now hiding in
[00:03:49] Damascus.
[00:03:59] Thank God and with His help. And with His help, the
[00:04:02] United Arab
[00:04:05] where there is a large community of Republic
[00:04:05] was established
[00:04:11] today. At the same time, the Mossad was preparing to carry out
[00:04:14] a secret operation that would begin
[00:04:17] shortly, especially after Nasser succeeded
[00:04:20] in annexing Syria to Egypt. Therefore, the
[00:04:24] Mossad decided to send a spy with special
[00:04:27] specifications who would infiltrate the United Arab
[00:04:30] Republic.
[00:04:38] greater than their The Mossad began working on recruiting a new Jewish Arab spy
[00:04:41] who had just arrived in Israel from
[00:04:44] Egypt. He was from the city of
[00:04:47] Alexandria, where he was born and raised.
[00:04:51] His name is Eliyahu Cohen,
[00:04:54] the spy who would be known as Eli Cohen,
[00:04:58] The spy started the Mossad spy. The most famous in its history
[00:05:01] will embark on
[00:05:04] he met in a secret mission to
[00:05:05] Damascus.
[00:05:09] And who soon introduced him to He was the only
[00:05:12] Israeli who was caught as a spy
[00:05:16] and executed. This means that he is one of a kind
[00:05:19] and has a heroic case
[00:05:23] many legends are told
[00:05:28] So I think it's
[00:05:30] difficult to make a
[00:05:34] real judgment, especially with the gap between
[00:05:36] legend and reality, unless
[00:05:40] it is available, and it will probably not be available.
[00:05:44] Documented evidence from both sides.
[00:05:47] And it is difficult to
[00:05:50] happen anytime
[00:05:52] soon.
[00:05:58] He continued Eli Cohen is a purely
[00:06:01] Israeli operation, meaning he was made a superhero and special,
[00:06:07] unique. Of course, many factors contributed
[00:06:12] the Syrian side,
[00:06:15] they made him a legend, meaning he was a very dangerous spy
[00:06:18] and that the Syrian intelligence managed to finally arrest
[00:06:22] him. The truth is, of course, they arrested him, and this is
[00:06:25] an achievement for the Syrian security services at
[00:06:28] that time, but if we put Eli Cohen
[00:06:31] in his true size, we will see that he is just
[00:06:35] a spy below average,
[00:06:39] even a failed spy.
[00:06:44] Eli Cohen, a handsome young man in his thirties,
[00:06:49] Alexandria in
[00:06:50] 1924.
[00:06:54] An Egyptian Jew whose family originates from
[00:06:57] Aleppo, but they
[00:07:00] Alexandria before immigrating to
[00:07:03] Israel.
[00:07:09] In Egypt, Eliyahu or Eli
[00:07:12] was involved in secret Jewish activities for the benefit
[00:07:15] of Zionism, as he was responsible for smuggling
[00:07:19] Egyptian Jewish families to Israel. In the
[00:07:22] mid-fifties, Cohen's name
[00:07:25] was mentioned in the investigations of the Egyptian authorities in
[00:07:29] the Lavon affair, or what was known at the time as the
[00:07:32] Pinhas Lavon scandal. A
[00:07:35] Jewish cell in Egypt sought to carry out bombings in
[00:07:38] government and foreign institutions.
[00:07:44] But it was soon discovered and a number
[00:07:47] of involved Jews were arrested, including Eli
[00:07:51] Cohen. But he emerged from the case without
[00:07:55] any conviction due to the weakness
[00:07:56] of the evidence.
[00:08:02] In 1957,
[00:08:05] Cohen immigrated to Israel to begin
[00:08:08] a new phase of his life.
[00:08:11] It was very different from what an Arab Jew had envisioned
[00:08:15] in his imagination, as Israel was not the Promised
[00:08:18] Land they longed for in
[00:08:20] their imagination.
[00:08:25] After a period, Cohen married an Iraqi
[00:08:28] Jewish nurse, Mrs. Nadia
[00:08:31] Michael, the woman who would soon become one of
[00:08:35] Israel's most famous women because
[00:08:37] of her husband, who did not know that she was related
[00:08:41] to the world's most famous spies, or that
[00:08:44] her husband would soon embark on a journey
[00:08:47] of no return to
[00:08:48] Damascus.
[00:08:55] I know you are looking for work, and I want to offer
[00:08:58] you a proposal. It is an interesting
[00:09:01] job. You will travel a lot.
[00:09:05] I just got married and I don't want
[00:09:07] to travel. I can translate for you what
[00:09:11] they are saying.
[00:09:16] We will pay you two hundred dollars and we will train
[00:09:20] you for six months. After that, you can
[00:09:22] stay or leave.
[00:09:34] I don't think he joined them like that since
[00:09:37] the first day he arrived in
[00:09:39] Israel. They placed him.
[00:09:46] I don't know exactly how the recruitment happened, but
[00:09:49] the Mossad provided us with a secret
[00:09:52] document dated February
[00:09:56] 13,
[00:09:57] 1957.
[00:10:04] That is, five days after his arrival in
[00:10:07] Israel, Eli had submitted
[00:10:11] an eight-page resume in French
[00:10:14] and detailed what happened
[00:10:18] to him in Egypt, specifically about his connection
[00:10:21] to the Lavon affair, and then he wrote
[00:10:24] the languages he knew
[00:10:25] and mastered.
[00:10:33] And there were about seven
[00:10:35] languages.
[00:10:41] At the end of the document, he volunteered to undertake
[00:10:44] an intelligence mission in any Arab
[00:10:47] country. And he signed
[00:10:51] his application afterwards. Two years later,
[00:10:55] it was decided to send him on a mission
[00:10:57] to Syria.
[00:11:04] A security report issued by the Mossad after Cohen's
[00:11:07] execution states that Eli had applied for Mossad exams
[00:11:11] seeking a job, but after
[00:11:13] some tests, it was found that he was excessively
[00:11:17] confident to the point of risk-taking, so he was
[00:11:20] excluded.
[00:11:27] Meir Amid, director of the Mossad at that
[00:11:30] time, was leading networks of agents in
[00:11:34] his Arab surroundings. He was looking for an agent
[00:11:38] with specific specifications, but he did not find
[00:11:41] a suitable person, so he had to search the files
[00:11:44] of rejected agents,
[00:11:46] and he found Eli Cohen, who was the only
[00:11:50] option for him.
[00:12:10] After settling in Damascus, Brunner changed his appearance,
[00:12:14] as well as his name. He became
[00:12:18] Dr. George Fischer.
[00:12:20] Brunner was not the only Nazi who fled to
[00:12:23] Damascus. Rather, it was a coherent group
[00:12:27] that went to Egypt and then finally settled in Damascus.
[00:12:40] I am older than you and know life better than you. There is no
[00:12:44] other way out. They brought him to
[00:12:46] Israel.
[00:12:50] But maybe we can free him. Are you
[00:12:53] crazy? From inside an Israeli
[00:12:56] prison?
[00:12:58] Who knows? We have to stay here until things
[00:13:02] calm down.
[00:13:06] That man was named Franz Radi Macher, a Nazi
[00:13:10] officer who preceded Brunner to Damascus. Rad Macher
[00:13:13] headed the Jewish Affairs Office in the German
[00:13:17] Foreign Ministry during Hitler's time.
[00:13:21] All these Nazis had found a safe haven
[00:13:24] in Syria. Security reports indicate that the Syrian
[00:13:27] security services hosted
[00:13:31] as their security expertise was highly
[00:13:34] valued and appreciated.
[00:13:38] Eli Cohen's main mission
[00:13:42] was to provide periodic reports
[00:13:45] on military intelligence.
[00:13:48] However, in the hierarchy of missions,
[00:13:51] the mission of searching for or tracking Nazi criminals
[00:13:55] was in the fifth or
[00:13:57] sixth place,
[00:14:01] because that was the responsibility
[00:14:05] the Mossad, which is responsible for tracking
[00:14:08] Nazi criminals who hid in various
[00:14:25] Syria was under Nasser's leadership during the unity
[00:14:28] period, and the Arabs had decided to divert the waters of the Jordan
[00:14:31] River, which raised alarm bells in Tel Aviv.
[00:14:48] Pay attention, we will send you to an Arab country
[00:14:51] to carry out a secret mission. You must establish
[00:14:55] local connections. You will get Syrian
[00:14:58] citizen
[00:15:02] documents. Why did they give
[00:15:05] me Egyptian documents? I know everything
[00:15:07] about them.
[00:15:11] Impossible, you have a security file with the Egyptians.
[00:15:29] I asked myself a hundred times, was Eliyahu
[00:15:33] the right person? Can
[00:15:35] he do what I want?
[00:15:38] I wasn't entirely sure. I showed
[00:15:41] him that he had my
[00:15:43] trust, and I didn't want to think
[00:15:48] one step away from an unknown
[00:15:51] fate. Nevertheless, we proceeded with the mission. And you
[00:16:11] also have
[00:16:14] special operations, people you recruit
[00:16:17] and information that arrives successively. The overall
[00:16:21] picture of intelligence is that it relies on sources. You
[00:16:25] cannot rely on rumors. Therefore, you will need
[00:16:28] spies. Spies are the crown
[00:16:32] jewel, the most reliable ones. They receive their information from
[00:16:35] other people, and that's
[00:16:38] why the complete intelligence picture must
[00:16:42] things. You must have a bit of everything.
[00:16:46] We needed to get close to the state leaders, as Eli
[00:16:50] Cohen did. You will hear what they are talking about, and all this
[00:16:54] gives you the picture. And if you are looking for someone for a mission,
[00:16:57] you will choose them carefully to withstand the enormous
[00:17:00] pressures.
[00:17:09] The secret mission in Damascus was and
[00:17:12] still is an unsolved enigma, as some
[00:17:16] reports indicated that it was not a specific
[00:17:19] mission, but rather a set of objectives, including discovering the
[00:17:23] Syrian internal situation during the unity
[00:17:27] period, in addition to Israel's
[00:17:29] desire to obtain more information about the diversion
[00:17:33] of the Jordan River's water. However,
[00:17:36] one report, which was issued after Cohen's execution,
[00:17:39] stated that one of his missions, at a certain stage,
[00:17:42] was to monitor Nazi officers hiding
[00:17:45] in
[00:17:46] Syria.
[00:17:56] Okay, your full name and your father's name are
[00:17:59] Amin Thabet. Your mother is Said
[00:18:02] Ibrahim. Your parents are Syrians and you have a sister
[00:18:05] who was born in Beirut, then your family left for Lebanon.
[00:18:09] Remember your Syrian family. And after
[00:18:13] years, you immigrated to Argentina, specifically in
[00:18:17] 1947.
[00:18:20] In 1956, your father passed away.
[00:18:23] And six months later, your
[00:18:26] mother passed away, then you lived alone.
[00:18:29] But you entered the business field and achieved
[00:18:32] great success. Remember, you are
[00:18:36] Kamal Amin Thabet,
[00:18:39] and wishes to return to his homeland.
[00:18:54] The first phase of the operation will begin
[00:18:58] in Argentina. It is currently the shortest way to Damascus.
[00:19:02] There is a large Syrian and Lebanese
[00:19:06] community there. One of our men
[00:19:09] will be waiting for you there and will give you new
[00:19:12] identification documents. He will take care
[00:19:15] of everything.
[00:19:18] We do not know the full details of how
[00:19:21] he was trained. However, it is certain that it
[00:19:23] involved him living for a certain period
[00:19:26] under a false identity. This was
[00:19:30] in northern Israel, in the Galilee region,
[00:19:32] specifically. Where he lived with a family of Syrian
[00:19:36] origin. After that, he went
[00:19:38] to Argentina,
[00:19:42] Syrian and Lebanese immigrants.
[00:19:46] He built a good network of friendships
[00:19:48] there. All
[00:19:51] of that was the basis for moving
[00:19:54] eventually to
[00:19:57] Damascus.
[00:20:05] In late 1900
[00:20:08] in Buenos Aires, Cohen began to find
[00:20:12] his way towards the Arabs, as he managed to infiltrate the world
[00:20:15] of Syrian immigrants, introducing himself as the expatriate
[00:20:19] businessman, Mr. Kamal Amin
[00:20:21] Thabet.
[00:20:26] Cohen soon became acquainted with Abdul Latif Al-Khashan,
[00:20:29] one of the most prominent Syrian figures in Buenos Aires.
[00:20:33] Al-Khashan was an important key and a link between Argentina and Syria.
[00:20:38] He knew a lot about politics
[00:20:40] and politicians.
[00:20:44] Al-Khashan quickly admired Kamal Amin Thabet and his vision
[00:20:47] for the future of Syria,
[00:20:50] who spoke to him about a strong desire to return to
[00:20:53] the homeland.
[00:20:58] After several months of his arrival in Argentina, on
[00:21:01] September 28, 1961,
[00:21:05] the Syrian side announced its secession from
[00:21:08] Egypt, as the Syrian Colonel Abdul Karim
[00:21:11] Al-Nahlawi led a coup against Nasser.
[00:21:15] The time of secession was the right moment and the loophole
[00:21:18] through which he infiltrated
[00:21:20] Syria.
[00:21:30] By early 1962, everything was
[00:21:33] ready, and Cohen was one step away from
[00:21:37] Damascus, then zero hour
[00:21:40] arrived.
[00:21:45] You have one last stop in Munich.
[00:21:48] We will send some with you. How will I cross with it into
[00:21:53] worry, we have arranged everything. You will go
[00:21:57] from Genoa to Beirut. And on board
[00:22:00] the ship, one of our men will be waiting for you.
[00:22:03] He will help you cross the border between Lebanon and Syria.
[00:22:16] He is Majed Sheikh Al-Ard. One of the mysteries in the Cohen
[00:22:22] Mossad had to find an escort and support for Cohen during
[00:22:25] his journey, so Majed Sheikh Al-Ard was
[00:22:28] the one who remained close to Cohen throughout three years in
[00:22:31] Damascus. He only left him when each
[00:22:34] of them was put in a separate cell,
[00:22:37] according
[00:22:42] to security reports in the Cohen case, Majed Sheikh
[00:22:46] Al-Ard was a Syrian businessman. He married
[00:22:50] an Egyptian Jewish woman, and during the
[00:22:53] war years, he lived in Nazi Germany,
[00:22:56] which made him a greedy
[00:22:59] partner, which attracted Israeli
[00:23:02] intelligence, so they made him a close
[00:23:04] man.
[00:23:10] The ship carried both Cohen and Majed until
[00:23:14] they reached Lebanon, and from there they set off to the Syrian
[00:23:18] border. Here,
[00:23:20] Majed had an appointment with one
[00:23:24] at the border, who would facilitate the passage
[00:23:27] of the two men. Indeed, Cohen crossed the Syrian
[00:23:30] border with ease, and within
[00:23:33] hours, he was in the heart of Damascus.
[00:23:51] In the middle of Damascus, in the Abu Rummanah neighborhood, he chose a luxurious
[00:23:55] house that overlooked the presidential guesthouse.
[00:24:34] And from the center of Damascus, Eliyahu sent the first whispered
[00:24:38] sound after arriving safely.
[00:24:40] A two-digit code
[00:24:43] only. 88.
[00:24:47] And it means, I found a house to live in
[00:24:50] in Damascus. Then the mission began.
[00:25:11] The situation in Damascus was fragile, and Syrians
[00:25:14] needed any support, no matter how
[00:25:16] small. Syria during the secession
[00:25:20] was suffering from a difficult situation as a result of the unity
[00:25:22] with Egypt, and the Syrians' fear of Nasser
[00:25:26] and his return was
[00:25:28] fear of the Israelis. All of
[00:25:31] that paved the way for Kamal Amin Thabet's mission,
[00:25:35] the nationalist millionaire returning
[00:25:37] home, who was considered the
[00:25:40] right man at the
[00:25:41] right time.
[00:25:48] working. He was from Kamal
[00:25:52] Al-Khashan's son, the person
[00:25:54] Argentina.
[00:25:59] the young officer Maadi Zahr El-Din.
[00:26:03] The nephew of the Syrian Army Chief of Staff, Abdul
[00:26:06] Karim Zahr El-Din.
[00:26:10] And every day he secretly sent his information to
[00:26:14] his superiors in Tel
[00:26:15] Aviv.
[00:26:18] Historians
[00:26:21] believe that this was the deepest
[00:26:25] military infiltration that Eli Cohen managed, while
[00:26:28] some believe that it was only the first
[00:26:31] of infiltrations that came
[00:26:33] after that.
[00:26:37] The officer, First Lieutenant Maath Zahr El-Din, a First Lieutenant in the Syrian
[00:26:41] Army. What information could he have? Like
[00:26:44] a corporal today in the Syrian army itself or
[00:26:49] Junior officers do
[00:26:52] gossip. He hears a story
[00:26:57] the commander. His sources were very limited. I mean, okay,
[00:27:01] gossip, from which Eli Cohen extracted a lot
[00:27:04] of information, but my assessment
[00:27:08] and the assessment of others, in fact,
[00:27:11] of impartiality or objectivity about Eli
[00:27:14] Cohen, is that the information was not enormous because he was not
[00:27:18] organized at all. Senior officers had not become
[00:27:22] agents for him, the senior
[00:27:23] officers.
[00:27:50] who was an important source for Cohen due to his
[00:27:54] journalistic relations with regime
[00:27:56] circles. The paradox is that George
[00:27:59] Seif personally hosted Cohen more than once
[00:28:03] on Damascus radio.
[00:28:19] What were Cohen's information sources in Damascus? According to all
[00:28:22] his biographies, whether Syrian or Israeli, or those who
[00:28:25] wrote in another way, his information source
[00:28:29] was a civil servant in the Syrian Ministry of Information named Al-Sali. He
[00:28:32] used to give daily what is called
[00:28:35] newspaper summaries, a daily journalistic report from which
[00:28:39] Eli Cohen selected some news and sent it to
[00:28:42] Israel. And what alerted the Syrian
[00:28:45] authorities that there is a spy in Damascus,
[00:28:49] and then Muhammad Imran resigned, who was one of the senior
[00:28:52] Syrian leaders at that time. Of course, the Syrian leadership has a way
[00:28:56] of broadcasting its news. It delays the announcement of the resignation
[00:28:59] for certain arrangements, two, three days, a week, and so on.
[00:29:03] The news reached him through George Sali, who broadcast
[00:29:06] it to Israel. The next day, the news appeared on Israeli
[00:29:09] radio in Arabic. Here the Syrian
[00:29:14] news to Israel. That means there is an agent
[00:29:17] for them, a spy. And this news is not
[00:29:21] important because if it is not broadcast today, it will be broadcast in a few
[00:29:25] days, meaning it will become free. And this is a sign of lack
[00:29:28] of professionalism. If you are professional, you do not arouse
[00:29:31] suspicion in the enemy with such
[00:29:34] news that is not of paramount importance or of
[00:29:38] high importance.
[00:29:41] Months later, Syria was one step
[00:29:44] away from a more mysterious
[00:29:47] future. The March
[00:29:49] 8, 1963 coup, which brought the Ba'ath Party to
[00:29:53] power.
[00:30:00] The Ba'ath and Cohen.
[00:30:02] A relationship shrouded in mystery
[00:30:04] to this day.
[00:30:07] While some reports indicate that he was close to the new
[00:30:11] rulers of Syria, the Ba'athists deny that relationship
[00:30:14] completely. I mean, the Ba'ath Party issue,
[00:30:18] I was at that time a member of the Damascus
[00:30:21] branch leadership at that time, and I have been accompanying the party
[00:30:25] experience since its birth in Damascus after the era
[00:30:29] of unity in the process of re-establishing the party.
[00:30:33] And no one entered the party except those
[00:30:36] who are known to us. At the same time, no
[00:30:39] sane person can believe
[00:30:42] that it is possible to join the party with such simplicity,
[00:30:45] because he has to go through long stages. First,
[00:30:49] he must be a supporter, then a sympathizer, then an active member,
[00:30:52] then he enters party conferences until he rises
[00:30:55] and becomes a party member. And what is the relationship
[00:30:59] between this person