FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
JERUSALEM – When he took command of the Mossad two years ago in June, Israelis already knew that David Barnea would have a less glittering profile than Yossi Cohen, with a speech as brilliant as his always slicked-back black hair. That would have shifted the muted emphasis back to the word “secret” in conjunction with “agent.” As Yossi Melman, an Israeli intelligence expert, commented: “Less high-profile assassinations and public relations microphone appearances, more secret operations carried out quietly.”
Also because Cohen’s demonstrated ability to give speeches, up to and including the possible successor to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the head of the right, had gotten him into trouble: the now ex-husband of an ex-lover had reported a television interview with the boasts about foreign missions, details of undercover raids by the man who hadn’t yet moved all the 007s but was already leading campaigns that should have remained secret.
Of his thirty-year career at the Institute, Barnea (born 1965) spent twenty-eight in the Tzomet (Crossroads) unit, which deals with the identification, recruitment, and maneuverability of agents around the world. He focused on foreigners or local teams to infiltrate between the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Iranian high ranks. His skills as a persuader and reader of human characters enabled him to leave his government job for a while to enrich himself at a large investment bank.
As a negotiator, he traveled to Doha to personally meet William Burns, the head of the CIA, and the Qatari sheikhs, who, from financial sponsors and supporters of Hamas, became the main intermediaries in the negotiations for the release of those held by terrorists in Gaza hostages.
Last week, realizing it was impossible to continue, he left and took his remaining group with him to Doha a few days later. Some analysts see this as the move of someone leaving the table to return to it in a position of strength.
But the words he leaked – “Zero tolerance for Hamas’s games” – lead us to believe that he has actually exhausted the negotiating room for now, his own or that of Netanyahu, who is now only moving towards eliminating Hamas Hamas seems to be concentrating.
As Cohen’s number two, he followed some of the raids against the nuclear program wanted by the Ayatollahs in Tehran live from the headquarters north of Tel Aviv and also inherited the role of secret messenger from him in countries with which Israel does not have diplomatic relations (including Qatar). . From him he did not inherit the political closeness to the Prime Minister, which lasted until it collapsed due to Cohen’s criticism of the government’s justice plan.