Inside Mossad: How Israeli spies penetrated Iran
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What does Yossi Cohen reveal about Israel’s overall intelligence strategy?
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This episode of The General and the Journalist is brought to you by Team Orion. At a time where the world is increasingly uncertain, defense needs more than traditional logistics to face those challenges. It takes trusted data, rapid decision making, and operational resilience. That's where T Marion comes in. Strengthen defence readiness through integration. Combining the sovereign expertise of KBR, Unipart and IBM, Timuran delivers the decision making power and support systems to sustain forces when the stakes are high. Discover how Team Orion is helping shape the future of defense readiness. Follow them on LinkedIn at Team Orion Defense. Whatever the outcome of the Iran war, the regime's leadership has been decimated, and responsible for that is Mossad, Israel's Foreign Intelligence Service.
Its extraordinary reach inside Iran has seen dozens of senior figures killed, from IRGC generals to Ayatollah Ali Khameni himself. Its spies have also sabotaged Iran's nuclear program, and a recent report even claimed they almost managed to recruit the former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But Mossad's methods are also controversial. Critics accuse it of crossing multiple legal and moral lines and putting thousands of civilians at risk. So how has Mossad done it? And where should those lines be?
How did Mossad manage to penetrate the deepest layers of the Iranian regime?
I'm Tom. Welcome to the general and the journalist. Well, while Patrick was away, I had a truly fascinating conversation with a former director of Mossad, Yossi Cohen. He ran the spy agency for five years until twenty twenty one, having spent most of his life inside it, joining up as a young intelligence officer some forty years previously. He's also served as Benjamin Netanyahu's national security advisor, and he's just published his memoirs called The Sword of Freedom. Yossi, thank you so much for joining the podcast today. It's very good of you. You're you're speaking to me from Tel Aviv. How often you come to London and Mossad, Director?
Quite often actually.
Why does Mossad consider human intelligence (HUMINT) more effective than cyber‑SIGINT in Iran?
I mean, thank you very much for having me today. As the director of the Mossad I visited London quite often because the international relationship or bilateral relationship that is saying that we had in between the UK and Israel had ups and downs on the open political level. When I go to the level of high diplomacy, as I call it, not only as national security advisor at the time, but as director of the Mossad, you see something absolutely different. Working with your wonderful MI five and MI six, I had always the feeling, very deep one, that we are an absolute partners. Not only that we shared information, but we had been working together.
Yossi, let's get on to uh some really interesting developments of the last few months. I'm really keen to talk to you today about how extraordinarily successful the Mossad have been during the Iran War that obviously started on February the twenty eighth. I mean all the big successes really certainly initially seem to have come down to Mossad penetration.
Iranian state media has confirmed its supreme leader Ayatollah Khomeinei has been killed in his compound after the US and Israel engaged in large scale strikes across Iran. State media reported that his daughter, son-in-law, and grandchild were also killed.
Killing Ayatollah Hamenii on the first day of the war, a lot of other senior leadership figures soon afterwards, even, it was reported, hacking into Tehran's traffic camera system. So you knew pretty much where everyone was all the time. Obviously without getting into operational details. How on earth did you manage to penetrate
What ethical dilemmas arise from Mossad’s covert sabotage operations, like exploding pagers?
The Iranian regime that deeply.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What does Yossi Cohen reveal about Israel’s overall intelligence strategy?
0:01–2:02
2
How did Mossad manage to penetrate the deepest layers of the Iranian regime?
2:02–2:42
3
Why does Mossad consider human intelligence (HUMINT) more effective than cyber‑SIGINT in Iran?
2:42–4:12
4
What ethical dilemmas arise from Mossad’s covert sabotage operations, like exploding pagers?
4:12–5:56
5
How does Mossad view the prospect of regime change in Iran and what are its long‑term goals?
5:56–9:38
6
Which recruitment tactics (money, ideology, blackmail) work best for Mossad inside Iran?
9:38–15:09
7
What does the Mossad training and selection process look like for new operatives?
15:09–23:16
8
How should the UK balance its relationship with Israel in light of Mossad’s actions?
23:16–33:33