The Mossad head and the new Middle East
What a long way Israel has come: from the days when people would whisper about who the head of the Mossad was and didn't dare speak his full name to the official announcement to the media that the agency's 12th leader would be Yossi Cohen from Jerusalem. Modernism has shrugged off the traditional secrecy.
This time, the choice was made ahead of time and without any hitches. Without "putting a foot down," and without approaching various bureaus and disseminating false documents and proposing candidates that didn't pass the test. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had three good candidates, what could be considered "spoiled for choice," and he picked one.
Sources close to the Mossad discussed last week where each candidate excelled, whether in operations, in recruiting or in modern technology. But it wasn't possible to hand the leadership over to a trio, a triumvirate, and in Israel a tradition has developed whereby the good people who aren't chosen don't remain in the field -- they leave to pursue their own affairs.
The rotation approach taken by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion for the Israel Defense Forces (although not in the intelligence services, which led to both achievements and failures), was legally covered, as it should be. But in the Mossad itself people know where outgoing head Tamir Pardo succeeded and where he failed, and it's clear that he left his job as required by law, not with the sense that he was pushed out or not given an extension. That's also as it should be.
That isn't to say that there isn't gossip. Senior Mossad officials -- some of whom bear the title "retired" -- aren't secluded from the world and hear parts of what's being said and form opinions and make comparisons, and know that Ephraim Halevy is not Meir Dagan, or his successor Pardo, and that's what will happen five years from now when Cohen leaves.
However, it's clear that the Mossad must be heading down a new road or starting out on it. The Middle East that Pardo encountered was stable and committed to the Sykes-Picot borders from 99 years ago. No longer. There is no Syria and in effect no Iraq, either, and no one expected a clash like this between Turkey and Russia over the war on the Islamic State.
When former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon named Dagan head of the Mossad, he hoped for an organization with new capabilities, and for the most part wasn't disappointed. Netanyahu probably has similar expectations from Cohen. The changes to the Middle East map are forcing that on Israel. The fluid situation requires an agency like the Mossad to constantly prepare itself anew.
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