keep secrets, all of which made him suitable as a spy. Despite the fail-
ure of the Bad Businessin 1954, Cohen was recruited for the spy mis-
sion while he was still in Egypt. In 1955 he went to Israel in secret for
a short but intensive training in espionage techniques. Cohen returned
to Egypt in 1956, but immediately came under suspicion and was
placed under surveillance. At the beginning of the Sinai Campaignin
1956, when Israel occupied the Sinai Desert, Cohen was detained by
the Egyptian authorities; he was later expelled from Egypt along with
the remaining Alexandrian Jews at the end of the war. He arrived in
Israel on 8 February 1957 and was drafted for a short period of mili-
tary service in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) as a translator.
In May 1960, he was recruited to Unit 188, the unit that replaced
Unit 131in dispatching spies to Arab countries. Upon reviewing Co-
hen’s file, officers of Military Intelligence (MI) noted that he had
been born in an Arab country; had Oriental features; spoke Arabic,
English, and French; and was known to be fearless when carrying out
a mission. They called Cohen in and proposed that he operate as a spy
in Syria, where tension with Israel was increasing, particularly on the
border between the two countries. At the time, Cohen had just gotten
married and was working as an accountant in a Tel Aviv firm, so he
was reluctant to accept such a dangerous job. But when he lost his job
a month later and the MI officers contacted him again, he accepted
their offer. He underwent extensive training in high-speed evasive
driving techniques, weapons proficiency (in particular with a wide
variety of small arms), topography, map reading, sabotage, and, most
importantly, radio and Morse code transmissions and cryptography.
Cohen’s most difficult task was to learn the intricate and unmis-
takable phonetic intonation of Syrian Arabic to disguise his Egyptian
accent. His trainer was an Iraqi-born Jew who had long trained oper-
atives in Arabic language and traditions and Muslim customs. Under
cover as the son of Syrian Muslim parents born in Beirut, Cohen as-
sumed the name Kamal Amin Ta’abet (also Tabas according to some
sources). According to his fictional biography, his family had moved
in 1948 to Argentina, where they opened a successful textile busi-
ness. The return of Kamal Amin Ta’abat to Syria would ostensibly be
the fulfillment of his lifelong patriotic dream.
In early 1961 Eli Cohen was sent to Buenos Aires to establish his
cover as a Syrian-Argentinean. He soon established himself in the so-COHEN, ELI•6306-102 (02) A-G.qxd 3/24/06 7:23 AM Page 63