I’m Israeli. I’m Jewish. I’m a democrat. I’m liberal. I’m Zionist. I’m the former head of the Mossad.
As someone who’s devoted a lifetime to the defense of my country, eventually becoming director of Israel’s pivotal foreign-intelligence agency following a spell as national-security adviser, I take pride in understanding the nature of threats facing us and countering them covertly, powerfully and preemptively around the globe.
Modern wars no longer end in absolute victory or abject surrender, yet the state of Israel must win any conflict it enters.
That single sentence sums up the complexities of the Middle East, a place of contradiction and cyclical confrontation that rarely gives peace a chance.
The Jewish people have no alternative. We have no other homeland, no other refuge but the State of Israel.
When I hear young demonstrators chant, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” I am compelled to ask: Where exactly do they suggest we go?
Most of them have never set foot in Israel. Many deny the atrocities of Oct. 7.
They ignore the hundreds of thousands of victims, children, women and men who have perished at the hands of those with extremist ideologies who suppress women’s rights, execute men for being gay, use hospitals as their military base and wield children as human shields.
The Jewish community in Israel and globally faces danger not only from totalitarian regimes and their proxies abroad but also within its own neighborhoods.
Antisemitism has surged in an age of disinformation and denial. It has become a global scourge, a brutalizing force that thrives on ignorance and manifests itself in Nazi graffiti, online propaganda and the posturing of emboldened hatemongers, too often enabled by their naïve apologists. Its reach stretches from east to west, leaving no society untouched.
Despite these threats, Israel will continue to thrive.
We stand shoulder to shoulder with the world’s democracies, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and many others, bound together by shared values of freedom, dignity and human rights.
No chant, no slogan shouted by the ignorant and no act of violence will divert us from those values.
What the protesters — and the United Nations General Assembly this month will bring more — fail to recognize is that the real danger is not Israel.
The real danger is posed by murderous regimes, global in scope and ambition, that seek to destroy not only the Jewish people but also the very foundations of Western civilization.
They threaten you, the reader of this essay, simply because you believe in democracy and the values that form the free world.
That is why June 13, 2025, the day Israel attacked Iran, should be remembered as a historic day.
A day when the world became a safer place.
I had prepared for this operation for many years, ever since my early days as a young commander in the Mossad.
The work of intelligence and making Israel safer has always been in my blood; it defined me for 38 years until my retirement a few years ago.
I was among those who developed the concept that local agents should not only gather intelligence but also serve as active operatives, capable of striking targets and carrying out preventive actions.
This doctrine proved decisive, and its effectiveness was demonstrated in full during the June 13 operation and those that followed.
On a personal level, bringing the Iranian chapter full circle was a source of immense satisfaction.
The evidence uncovered through Israel’s 2018 operation, which I initiated and led, to secure Iran’s secret nuclear archive profoundly shaped the course of subsequent events.
It forced the world to confront Tehran’s deliberate violations of international agreements and exposed the magnitude of its deception, the false claim its nuclear program was solely for peaceful purposes.
President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s strategy to prepare for a strike in the event of a collapsed negotiation was both bold and wise.
Long before, we had mapped the vulnerabilities of Iran’s nuclear-defense systems and shared precise information on where and how such strikes should be carried out.
Operations of this kind are inherently complex, and it will take time before the full scope of the damage is assessed.
Yet in my estimation, the United States and Israel with their June offensives achieved close to a comprehensive neutralization of Iran’s nuclear sites.
Perhaps the Iranians managed to conceal small quantities of enriched uranium, but I am convinced their enrichment capability has been destroyed.
It will take them years to recover from the events of June 2025.
The blow to Iran’s military leadership and to the heads of its nuclear program was devastating. Recovery from such a strike is extraordinarily difficult.
There is now no active uranium enrichment in Iran. But the more significant achievement lies in deterrence.
For years, we urged the United States to declare it would act militarily if Iran advanced toward nuclear weapons.
I personally spoke to three different presidents.
Now it has done so. And if Tehran tests the West again, the countries that share the same values, it will happen once more.
Whether Iran’s nuclear project has been disabled for years or only months is less important.
What matters is the deterrent power established: The regime knows it is exposed, and we will strike again if necessary.
I suspect every Iranian nuclear scientist, upon hearing the sound of a motorcycle on the street, turns his head in fear. They are terrified to their core.
The murderous, tyrannical regime in Iran once believed itself untouchable, convinced no one would dare to strike.
But Israel did, with the full weight of American power behind it.
That said, I personally believe the June attack represented a missed historic opportunity to advance regime change by removing the ayatollahs themselves.
Nevertheless, I respect President Trump’s determination to bring the region stability.
History chooses its moments. Over the course of my life, I have led countless operations, most of which have never been revealed and never will be.
I have held one-on-one meetings with some of the world’s most influential leaders: from President of the United States Donald Trump to Russian President Vladimir Putin, from heads of state across Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa to leaders of countries with which Israel has no formal relations.
Some of these stories will be told in due course, and some appear in my upcoming book.
But at this moment, I can only speak from the heart: A non-nuclear Iran is the realization of my life’s work.
Yossi Cohen’s book “The Sword of Freedom: Israel, Mossad, and the Secret War” is out Sept. 16.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
