Copyright ynetnews
Former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen said Monday that he will not run in the next election, after years of speculation that he was considering entering politics and possibly seeking the premiership. “The answer is no. Not now. Let’s wait and see what happens next,” Cohen said when asked whether he plans to run in the next election. Cohen made the remarks at a conference in New York hosted by the Israeli legal advocacy group Shurat HaDin, where he reflected on his past ties to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “It all starts with the prime minister of today, when I was still the director of Mossad, announcing that I may be the heir,” Cohen said, referring to Netanyahu. “That was in 2018 or ’19, I believe. Then my wife said, ‘No. Never. You don’t do that. We don’t do that.’” He added that the events of October 7 have reshaped his thinking about leadership in Israel. “But I think that things have been dramatically changed after October 7th, and there is a need of, probably, fresh leadership—not only in other countries, but in Israel too.” Cohen emphasized that while he has not ruled out entering politics in the future, he is not pursuing it now. “The consideration is always there, but the decision now is a no,” he said. Cohen, who led the Mossad from 2016 to 2021 after serving as Netanyahu’s national security adviser, has long been seen as one of the prime minister’s closest confidants, alongside former ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer. In August, however, Cohen appeared to signal a different stance, saying in an interview that he did see himself as a potential future leader. “The public is pushing very hard. For real change to happen, I need to be prime minister,” he said in a podcast hosted by Yasmin Lukatz. “I don’t see it as politics. It needs to be defined differently. It’s a leadership role, not necessarily a political one.” He added that his family’s position had shifted over time. “In the past, at home they told me not to run,” he said, “but today the family is saying, to a large extent, ‘It’s your destiny you have no choice.’” In an interview with Yedioth Ahronoth’s 7 Days magazine last month, Cohen argued that Netanyahu’s opponents must unite. “Gadi Eisenkot, Benny Gantz, Yair Lapid, Yair Golan, Naftali Bennett, Avigdor Liberman, now Yoaz Hendel, soon the reservists—they’re all taking from the same pie, and in the end it grows just the same. There’s one bloc—why don’t you unite it? Why can’t one leader represent the entire bloc?” Asked whether that was something he could take on, Cohen said yes. “Separately, Likud will always be larger,” he said. “And you ask: seriously, doesn’t that bother you? Don’t you want to bring about change?” Still, he insisted that he is not interested in playing a secondary political role. “I won’t be number two to Bennett or number three to Gantz,” he said. “That’s not me. I’m not entering politics.”
