Yossi Cohen, former head of Israel’s Mossad, details the agency’s role in shaping regional dynamics through his book The Sword of Freedom: Israel, Mossad, and the Secret War. The work underscores the Mossad’s reputation for high-stakes operations, driven by Israel’s perceived existential threats.
Cohen, who served as Netanyahu’s national security adviser and led the Mossad from 2016 to 2021, recounts the agency’s 2018 mission to steal Iran’s nuclear archive. The operation, described as “Ocean’s Eleven, for real,” involved meticulous planning, including replicating Iranian safes and mastering precise technical details. Over six hours, Mossad agents infiltrated Tehran, retrieving 55,000 pages of documents and 183 compact discs containing critical evidence of Iran’s clandestine nuclear activities. The haul later influenced U.S. decisions to abandon the 2015 Iran Deal.
The book also highlights the Mossad’s reliance on a diverse workforce, leveraging linguistic and cultural expertise from Israel’s global Jewish diaspora. Cohen acknowledges intelligence shortcomings ahead of Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack, criticizing “complacency” and “indecisiveness” that left Israel vulnerable. He emphasizes that effective intelligence is “a nation’s first line of defense.”
While avoiding partisan rhetoric or covert tradecraft, The Sword of Freedom paints a portrait of an agency forged by necessity, operating in a landscape where vigilance defines survival.