In 2009, moments after submitting his credentials to then-Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, then-new Ambassador Itzhak Levanon stood on the balcony overlooking the courtyard of the presidential palace in Cairo, while the presidential orchestra played Hatikvah in the background. Tears welled up in his eyes. This was much more than a childhood dream come true. These were moments that embodied an entire life's story into them.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
Standing on the balcony during those historic moments and looking Israeli flag waving in the wind, was Itzhak Cohen-Kishik – a boy who 46 years earlier stood in a military court in Lebanon, together with his family, to hear the sentence of his mother, Shulamit Cohen, who was tried for espionage.
"According to the severity of the crime and the law, the court has ruled that the defendant deserves the maximum punishment: death," the judge decreed.
The tale of the Jewish spy from Beirut was shrouded in mystery. Her colorful life fascinated the Arab press, and they nicknamed her the "Mata Hari of the Middle East." But for young Isaac from the Cohen-Kishik family, Cohen was first and foremost a mother.
"You deserve the death penalty, but I am sentencing you to 20 years in prison with hard labor, for being disloyal to the country where you lived for so many years," Levanon recalled the judge saying at the sentencing hearing.
"The punishment he had just inflicted on my mother was not enough for him. He then turned to my father, Yoseph Cohen-Kishik, who was also sitting on the dock next to my mother. "You should be sentenced to 10 years in prison, but given your old age and your responsibility for the family's livelihood, the court will sentence you to two years in prison," Levanon says in his new book, In the Eye of the Storm - Diplomatic Secrets.
"I stayed sitting there, trying to digest the situation. Death penalty followed immediately by 20 years in jail. And my father, the proud and respected man, would be jailed for two years. My world had fallen apart. I wished so hard that it would be different, that we would leave here as victors, but reality slapped me in the face. I'm so close to my mother, but I am not allowed to approach her. To hug her. To touch the face that was so evident of its past suffering."
Secret codes on the radio
It was in the summer of 1961 that a knock on the door of the Cohen-Kishik family home in the Jewish Wadi Abu Jamil neighborhood in Lebanon, woke everyone up.
"They knocked very loudly. I went to open the door and the officer pushed me aside and came inside. I realized they were coming to arrest my mother only after I saw the Lebanese agent who used to come to our house. I thought he was one of us, but later we found out that he had been put there to follow my mother.
"I remember they started turning over the closet. There was a box there that someone had once built for my mother, with the five Books of Moses; the soldiers confiscated it, because they thought it contained transmitters. My brothers came into the room with my father, and then they took her at 3 a.m.
"After she was arrested, we lost touch and for a long time the family did not know what had happened to her. There were rumors that the Syrians wanted her. There was a time we thought she might not be in Lebanon at all. One day they came to take me from the university for questioning; they asked what I know about my mother's activities. I denied it all. Then they turned on a large recording machine and I heard my voice saying '14 rolls of cloth.' This was the Arabic phrase I used when I wanted to inform my mother that 14 Jews were on their way to Israel.
"They asked me to explain this and I said, 'My father works with rolls of cloth. He worked in a factory.' They did not buy the story. Then they brought my mother into the interrogation room and I saw her from a distance, for the first time after a long time. I breathed a sigh of relief that she was here and not in Damascus. She turned to me and said in Hebrew. 'I did not confess anything.'"
Cohen was well-connected and managed to forge ties with senior Lebanese officials, including in the government. During the 12 years when she was active, she was assigned missions by the Mossad and intelligence services in Israel, and she was responsible for smuggling hundreds of Jews out of Lebanon and Syria.
"Over time, a fairly regular procedure was formed: the young people who crossed the border from Syria reached their contacts in Beirut, who found places to hide them in the synagogue or in residents' homes. The next step was to inform my mother of their arrival and she began to prepare for their journey to Israel," he writes in his book.
'I refused to speak Arabic'
Cohen's unconventional and intense occupation sometimes required her to be absent from home – not an easy task for someone who had to balance being a professional spy with being a wife and mother of seven children in 1960s Beirut. The support and encouragement she received from her husband Yoseph were an important element in her success.
"My father's brothers would sometimes comment that it wasn't acceptable – 'we see your wife walking here and there alone' – but he backed her 100%. He was also her private confidant."
Six years later, as part of a prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Lebanon, Cohen was released from the Beirut Prison, where she was confined under harsh conditions and was tortured.
"They took my mother to Rosh Hanikra, where she crossed the border. When they told her, 'we are taking you now to see your grandmother in Jerusalem,' she said, 'before that, take me to have my hair cut,' Levanon says. "We left everything behind. Everyone packed a suitcase and we left."
Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!
Levanon officially began his career in the Israeli Foreign Service after immigrating to Israel. But he had taken his first steps in the world of diplomacy long before then, during meetings and contacts that fate had summoned for him with the Red Cross, following the case of his mother's espionage. From the day of her arrest, he met with the local authorities, in an attempt to prevent the execution of the sentence and bring about her release.
"In Beirut, I was the frightened, persecuted Itzhak, who saw the Israeli flag being trampled on," he says. "I was trying to get them to do me a favor and release my mother or to allow bringing the food she loved to the prison cell, without the guards first poking their fingers into it. When I came to Egypt, I was Isaac, a representative of a sovereign state, I was looking at my interlocutors at eye level and with my head held high."
His attitude towards Lebanon is ambivalent. From the country where he was born and raised, from the place where his personality took shape, bitter memories have been scorched over the years and overshadowed all the good that Lebanon knew how to give its residents.
"I loved Lebanon until my mother's arrest. Then everything changed. There was a time when I refused to speak Arabic. I cut myself off from Lebanon. But over the years, it slowly came back. I still have some feelings; something is still there inside me."
Only a few knew the secret. He managed to keep it quiet most of the time. His work in Israel's Foreign Service required this detail in his biography to be covered up. In addition, he did not want his success to be attributed to the fact that he was "the son of."
"I was worried that in Paris they would know about the affair, when I was appointed the liaison of the Lebanese who were coming there. Maybe someone would come who knew my family. And it did happen to me in Paris, when the representative of the Lebanese forces told his colleague, 'that is the spy's son.' I quickly denied it and said, 'What are you talking about? You're confused.'"
The process of normalization between Israel and several Arab countries in recent years has not surprised Levanon.
"When I was ambassador to Geneva, I discovered that the head of the patent organization was a Sudanese, Kamil Idris. We arranged a meeting between their senior minister, who was close to the top government echelons and our foreign minister at the time, Silvan Shalom, and managed to thaw the atmosphere between Israel and Sudan," says Levanon.
The Sudanese minister had a request: The International Court of Justice in The Hague sought to prosecute 51 soldiers from the Sudanese army, on suspicion of involvement in the genocide in Darfur. The Sudanese minister asked Israel to take action so that the soldiers would stand trial in Sudan, and not in The Hague. Shalom promised to bring the matter up before Kofi Annan, then the secretary-general of the United Nations.
"Attempts to establish ties with Chad also came from a less-than-expected direction. I befriended a Jewish-Israeli businessman who was close to Chad's ambassador in Paris, and decided to initiate a move. I knew that Chad was very rich in natural resources, especially in the north of the country, near the Libyan border, an area that Libya showed interest in.
"I managed to get as far as their defense minister, Idriss Deby, who is currently serving as President. I offered to send military advisers to Chad, to assist the country, and three military personnel were sent there to engage in counseling and training.
"As time went on, tensions between Libya and Chad increased and the Libyan army infiltrated Chad's territory. Israel became concerned and feared for the fate of the advisors. When I learned of the intention to bring the military personnel back to Israel, I called the Foreign Ministry and explained that they were not in danger. Chief of Staff, Moshe Levy, decided to bring them home. The war ended, and the Libyan army retreated. I was asked to renew ties with Chad. I approached the ambassador in Paris and received an unequivocal reply: 'Sorry, no thanks. When we needed you, you were not here. You ran away ... .'"
Only three decades later, in 2019, were relations between Israel and Chad renewed.
Another African country to which a path of communication was paved during his term is Mauritania.
"Representatives from Mauritania approached me and expressed a desire to promote ties with Israel. I forwarded the request to the Foreign Ministry, but they were not enthusiastic: "Who needs them? One of the poorest countries in the world, what good will that do for Israel?" I responded in a pseudo-poetic manner: "When there is a diplomatic drought around us, the oasis named Mauritania will quench our thirst ... after a while I traveled to the capital, again with a security officer and administrator, to start promoting the move," writes Levanon.
"I asked if it was possible to arrange a meeting between the Indonesian foreign minister and the Israeli foreign minister, and received a positive answer, provided that it was kept in secret. The Indonesian minister explained that as long as all the problems with the Palestinians have not been resolved, there was no way for public ties." This missed meeting was not to continue.
But, says Levanon, the greatest lost opportunity lies in the state of relations with neighboring Lebanon. It is difficult to extract an optimistic statement from him about the reality that the crumbling country is currently experiencing, and the chances of emerging from a state of hostility with Israel. "It saddens me," he admits.
"The internal Lebanese structure is different and it is clear that it would cause friction, but it hurts me to see a beautiful country being overrun. This is not the same Lebanon. It is disturbing because I thought that there would be good neighborly relations. Lebanon will not be the second or third country, after the United Arab Emirates, to make peace with Israel; it will be the last."
